Creating an Urgency For Change In An Organization
Order ID 53563633773 Type Essay Writer Level Masters Style APA Sources/References 4 Perfect Number of Pages to Order 5-10 Pages Description/Paper Instructions
Creating an Urgency For Change In An Organization
The opening story to this chapter described how Alan Mulally began the change process at Ford Motor Company by warning staff that the company would die if it didn’t change quickly. The fact is, organizational change requires employees to have an urgency for change.25 “I think there are two attributes for every successful company,” says Warren Erhart, CEO of White
Spot, western Canada’s oldest (since 1928) and most successful restaurant chain. “One is a sense of urgency, the other is a dedication to continuous improvement.” Erhart explains the importance of these two attributes: “We know that success is fleeting. We have to keep working at it and keep focused all the time.”26
Creating an urgency to change typically occurs by informing employees about competitors, changing consumer trends, impending government regulations, and other forms of turbulence in the external environment. These are the main driving forces in Lewin’s model. They push people out of their comfort zones, energizing them to face the risks that change creates. In many organizations, however, leaders buffer employees from the external environment to such an extent that these driving forces are hardly felt by anyone below the top executive level. The result is that employees don’t understand why they need to change and leaders are surprised when their change initiatives do not have much effect.
Customer-Driven Change Some companies fuel the urgency to change by putting employees in direct contact with customers. Dissatisfied customers represent a compelling driving force for change because the organization’s survival typically de- on our own burning platform,” he suggested, pointing to the pends on having customers who are satisfied with the product or company’s poor accountability and leadership.27service. Customers also provide a human element that further
energizes employees to change current behavior patterns.28 Executives at Shell Europe applied customer-driven change a few years ago. Many middle managers at the energy company seemed blissfully unaware that Shell wasn’t achieving either its financial goals or its customer needs; so to create an urgency for change, the European managers were loaded onto buses and taken out to talk with customers and employees who work with customers every day. “We called these ‘bus rides.’ The idea was to encourage people to think back from the customer’s perspective rather than from the head office,” explains Shell Europe’s vice president of retailing. “The bus rides were difficult for a lot of people who, in their work history, had hardly ever had to talk to a customer and find out what was good and not so good about Shell from the customer’s standpoint.”29
Creating an Urgency for Change Without External Forces Exposing employees to external forces can strengthen the urgency for change, but leaders often need to begin the change process before problems come knocking at the company’s door. “You want to create a burning platform for change even when there isn’t a need for one,” says Steve Bennett, former CEO of financial software company Intuit.30 Creating an urgency for change when the organization is riding high requires rare persuasive capability that helps employees visualize future competitive threats and environmental shifts.
For instance, Apple Computer’s iPod dominates the digital music market, but the late Steve Jobs wanted the company to be its own toughest competitor. Just when sales of the iPod Mini were soaring, Jobs challenged a gathering of 100 top executives and engineers to develop a better product to replace it. “Playing it safe is the most dangerous thing we can do,” Jobs warned. Nine months later the company launched the iPod Nano, which replaced the still-popular iPod Mini before competitors could offer a better alternative.31
Experts warn, however, that employees may see the burning-platform strategy as manipulative—a view that produces cynicism about change and undermines trust in the change agent.32 Also, the urgency for change doesn’t need to originate from problems or threats to the company; this motivation can also develop through a change champion’s vision of a more appealing future. By creating a future vision of a better organization, leaders effectively make the current situation less appealing. When the vision connects to employee values and needs, it can be a motivating force for change even when external problems are not strong.
EXHIBIT 15.2 Strategies for Minimizing Resistance to Change STRATEGY EXAMPLE WHEN APPLIED PROBLEMS Communication Customer complaint letters are shown to employees. When employees don’t feel an urgency for change, don’t know how the change will affect them, or resist change due to a fear of the unknown. Time-consuming and potentially costly. Learning Employees learn how to work in teams as company adopts a team-based structure. When employees need to break old routines and adopt new role patterns. Time consuming, potentially costly, and some employees might be unable to learn the new skills. Employee involvement Company forms a task force to recommend new customer service practices. When the change effort needs more employee commitment, some em ployees need to save face, and/or employee ideas would improve deci sions about the change strategy. Very time-consuming. Might lead to conflict and poor deci sions if employees’ interests are incompatible with organi zational needs. Stress management Employees attend sessions to discuss their worries about the change. When communication, training, and involvement do not sufficiently ease employee worries. Time-consuming and potentially expensive. Some methods may not reduce stress for all employees. Negotiation Employees agree to replace strict job categories with multiskilling in return for increased job security. When employees will clearly lose something of value from the change and would not otherwise support the new conditions. Also necessary when the company must change quickly. May be expensive, particularly if other employees want to ne gotiate their support. Also tends to produce compliance but not commitment to the change. Coercion Company president tells managers to “get on board” the change or leave. When other strategies are ineffective and the company needs to change quickly. Can lead to more subtle forms of resistance, as well as long-term antagonism with the change agent. Sources: Adapted from J.P. Kotter and L.A. SchJesinger , “Choosing Strategies for Change,” Harvard Business Review 57 (1979), pp. 106-14; P.R. Lawrence, “How to Deal with Resistance to Change,” Harvard Business Review, May-June 1954, pp. 49-57.REDUCING THE RESTRAINING FORCES
Employee resistance should be viewed as a resource, but its underlying causes—the restraining forces—still need to be addressed. As we explained earlier using the mattress coil metaphor, increasing the driving forces alone will not bring about change, because employees often push back harder to offset the opposing forces. Instead, change agents need to address each of the sources of resistance. Six of the main strategies are outlined in Exhibit 15.2. If feasible, communication, learning, employee involvement, and stress management should be attempted first.33 However, negotiation and coercion are necessary for people who will clearly lose something from the change and in cases where the speed of change is critical.
Communication Communication is the highest priority and first strategy required for any organizational change. According to one recent survey, communication (together with involvement) is considered the top strategy for engaging employees in the change process.34 Communication improves the change process in at least two ways.35 One way, which we described earlier, is by generating an urgency to change. Leaders motivate employees to support the change by candidly telling them about the external threats and opportunities that make change so important. Whether through town hall meetings with senior management or by directly meeting with disgruntled customers, employees become energized to change when they understand and visualize those external forces.
32
Part Four Organizational Processes
441
Chapter Fifteen Organizational Change
The second way that communication minimizes resistance to change is by illuminating the future and thereby reducing fear of the unknown. The more corporate leaders communicate their vision, particularly details about that future and milestones already achieved toward that future, the more easily employees can understand their own roles in that future. Similarly, as the leader communicates the future state more clearly, employees form a clearer picture about how the change relates to their jobs and responsibilities. “No. 1 is to always communicate, communicate, communicate,” advises Randall Dearth, CEO of chemical manufacturer Lanxess Corp. “If you’re bringing in change, you need to be able to make a very compelling case of what change looks like and why change is necessary.”36
Learning Learning is an important process in most change initiatives because employees require new knowledge and skills to fit the organization’s evolving requirements. For example, learning was an important strategy for change at CSC. The U.S. business and technology consulting and services firm’s executive team recognized that the company’s culture required better alignment with its growth strategy. To achieve this, CSC launched a leadership development program, which would minimize resistance to the change by equipping managers with the skills to coach employees toward emerging attitudes and values.37
Employee Involvement Unless the change must occur quickly or employee interests are highly incompatible with the organization’s needs, employee involvement is almost an essential part of the change process. In the chapter on decision making (Chapter 7), we described several potential benefits of employee involvement, all of which are relevant to organizational change. Employees who participate in decisions about a change tend to feel more personal responsibility for its successful implementation, rather than being disinterested agents of someone else’s decisions.38 This sense of ownership also minimizes the problems of saving face and fear of the unknown. Furthermore, the complexity of today’s work environment demands that more people provide ideas regarding the best direction of the change effort. Employee involvement is such an important component of organizational change that special initiatives have been developed to allow participation in large groups. These change interventions are described later in the chapter.
Stress Management Organizational change is a stressful experience for many people because it threatens self-esteem and creates uncertainty about the future.39 Communication, learning, and employee involvement can reduce some of the stressors. However, research indicates that companies also need to introduce stress management practices to help employees cope with changes.40 In particular, stress management minimizes resistance by removing some of the direct costs and fear of the unknown about the change process. Stress also saps energy, so minimizing stress potentially increases employee motivation to support the change process.
With brand-name clients and more than $500 million in sales, Lopez Foods Inc. has become the 10th largest Hispanic-owned company in America. To further improve its quality and efficiency, the Oklahoma City-based beef patty and sausage manufacturer recently involved employees in the change process. The current production process was mapped out on a large wall of brown paper, and employees were asked for ways to make it better. To management’s surprise, employees were enthusiastic about suggesting productivity improvements. “Things we thought would be a hard sell on the employees, they themselves have come up to us and said, ‘We can do this better,’ or We don’t need five people here, we only need three,'” says CEO Eduardo Sanchez.4′
442
Part Four Organizational Processes
33
Part Four Organizational Processes
Negotiation As long as people resist change, organizational change strategies will require a variety of influence tactics. Negotiation is a form of influence that involves the promise of benefits or resources in exchange for the target person’s compliance with the influencer’s request. This strategy potentially gains support from those who would otherwise lose out from the change. However, this support is mostly compliance with, rather than commitment to, the change effort, so it might not be effective in the long term.
Coercion If all else fails, leaders rely on coercion to change organizations. Coercion can include persistently reminding people of their obligations, frequently monitoring behavior to ensure compliance, confronting people who do not change, and using threats of sanctions to force compliance. Replacing people who will not support the change is an extreme step, but it is fairly common. For instance, one year after Robert Nardelli was hired as CEO of Home Depot, most of the retailer’s top management team had voluntarily or involuntarily left the company. Several years earlier, StandardAero CEO Bob Hamaberg threatened to fire senior managers who opposed his initiative to introduce lean management. “You must have senior management commitment,” Hamaberg said bluntly at the time. “I had some obstacles. I removed the obstacles.” Today, StandardAero is a world leader in the aircraft engine repair and overhaul business.42
Firing people is the least desirable way to change organizations. However, dismissals and other forms of coercion are sometimes necessary when speed is essential and other tactics are ineffective. For example, it may be necessary to remove several members of an executive team who are unwilling or unable to change their existing mental models of the ideal organization. This is also a radical form of organizational “unlearning” (see Chapter 1) because when executives leave, they remove knowledge of the organization’s past routines that have become dysfunctional.43 Even so, coercion is a risky strategy because survivors (employees who do not leave) may have less trust in corporate leaders and engage in more political tactics to protect their own job security.
REFREEZING THE DESIRED CONDITIONS
Unfreezing and changing behavior won’t produce lasting change. People are creatures of habit, so they easily slip back into past patterns. Therefore, leaders need to refreeze the new behaviors by realigning organizational systems and team dynamics with the desired changes.44 The desired patterns of behavior can be “nailed down” by changing the physical structure and situational conditions. Organizational rewards are also powerful systems that refreeze behaviors.45 If the change process is supposed to encourage efficiency, then rewards should be realigned to motivate and reinforce efficient behavior. Information systems play a complementary role in the change process, particularly as conduits for feedback.46 Feedback mechanisms help employees learn how well they are moving toward the desired objectives, and they provide a permanent architecture to support the new behavior patterns in the long term. The adage, “What gets measured, gets done,” applies here. Employees concentrate on the new priorities when they receive a continuous flow of feedback about how well they are achieving those goals.
Bank of New Zealand BNZ applied this refreezing strategy by changing the feedback and reward system at its call centers. Previously, call center employees received feedback and were rewarded for answering and completing calls quickly. However, management concluded that customers wanted efficient calls, not fast talkers. “What do fast calls have to do with great conversations?” asks Susan Basile, BNZ’s managing director of direct sales and service. “Sure, we don’t want to waste the customer’s time. But if we were to ask them what they most wanted from our call center, they might well say they want fast answers, but we’d be wrong to conclude they want fast talkers or hurried conversations.” Now, BNZ provides employee feedback and rewards around “great conversations,” not how quickly the call is completed. Employees are recognized for addressing customer needs rather than for how long it takes them to complete the call.47
RUBRIC
QUALITY OF RESPONSE NO RESPONSE POOR / UNSATISFACTORY SATISFACTORY GOOD EXCELLENT Content (worth a maximum of 50% of the total points) Zero points: Student failed to submit the final paper. 20 points out of 50: The essay illustrates poor understanding of the relevant material by failing to address or incorrectly addressing the relevant content; failing to identify or inaccurately explaining/defining key concepts/ideas; ignoring or incorrectly explaining key points/claims and the reasoning behind them; and/or incorrectly or inappropriately using terminology; and elements of the response are lacking. 30 points out of 50: The essay illustrates a rudimentary understanding of the relevant material by mentioning but not full explaining the relevant content; identifying some of the key concepts/ideas though failing to fully or accurately explain many of them; using terminology, though sometimes inaccurately or inappropriately; and/or incorporating some key claims/points but failing to explain the reasoning behind them or doing so inaccurately. Elements of the required response may also be lacking. 40 points out of 50: The essay illustrates solid understanding of the relevant material by correctly addressing most of the relevant content; identifying and explaining most of the key concepts/ideas; using correct terminology; explaining the reasoning behind most of the key points/claims; and/or where necessary or useful, substantiating some points with accurate examples. The answer is complete. 50 points: The essay illustrates exemplary understanding of the relevant material by thoroughly and correctly addressing the relevant content; identifying and explaining all of the key concepts/ideas; using correct terminology explaining the reasoning behind key points/claims and substantiating, as necessary/useful, points with several accurate and illuminating examples. No aspects of the required answer are missing. Use of Sources (worth a maximum of 20% of the total points). Zero points: Student failed to include citations and/or references. Or the student failed to submit a final paper. 5 out 20 points: Sources are seldom cited to support statements and/or format of citations are not recognizable as APA 6th Edition format. There are major errors in the formation of the references and citations. And/or there is a major reliance on highly questionable. The Student fails to provide an adequate synthesis of research collected for the paper. 10 out 20 points: References to scholarly sources are occasionally given; many statements seem unsubstantiated. Frequent errors in APA 6th Edition format, leaving the reader confused about the source of the information. There are significant errors of the formation in the references and citations. And/or there is a significant use of highly questionable sources. 15 out 20 points: Credible Scholarly sources are used effectively support claims and are, for the most part, clear and fairly represented. APA 6th Edition is used with only a few minor errors. There are minor errors in reference and/or citations. And/or there is some use of questionable sources. 20 points: Credible scholarly sources are used to give compelling evidence to support claims and are clearly and fairly represented. APA 6th Edition format is used accurately and consistently. The student uses above the maximum required references in the development of the assignment. Grammar (worth maximum of 20% of total points) Zero points: Student failed to submit the final paper. 5 points out of 20: The paper does not communicate ideas/points clearly due to inappropriate use of terminology and vague language; thoughts and sentences are disjointed or incomprehensible; organization lacking; and/or numerous grammatical, spelling/punctuation errors 10 points out 20: The paper is often unclear and difficult to follow due to some inappropriate terminology and/or vague language; ideas may be fragmented, wandering and/or repetitive; poor organization; and/or some grammatical, spelling, punctuation errors 15 points out of 20: The paper is mostly clear as a result of appropriate use of terminology and minimal vagueness; no tangents and no repetition; fairly good organization; almost perfect grammar, spelling, punctuation, and word usage. 20 points: The paper is clear, concise, and a pleasure to read as a result of appropriate and precise use of terminology; total coherence of thoughts and presentation and logical organization; and the essay is error free. Structure of the Paper (worth 10% of total points) Zero points: Student failed to submit the final paper. 3 points out of 10: Student needs to develop better formatting skills. The paper omits significant structural elements required for and APA 6th edition paper. Formatting of the paper has major flaws. The paper does not conform to APA 6th edition requirements whatsoever. 5 points out of 10: Appearance of final paper demonstrates the student’s limited ability to format the paper. There are significant errors in formatting and/or the total omission of major components of an APA 6th edition paper. They can include the omission of the cover page, abstract, and page numbers. Additionally the page has major formatting issues with spacing or paragraph formation. Font size might not conform to size requirements. The student also significantly writes too large or too short of and paper 7 points out of 10: Research paper presents an above-average use of formatting skills. The paper has slight errors within the paper. This can include small errors or omissions with the cover page, abstract, page number, and headers. There could be also slight formatting issues with the document spacing or the font Additionally the paper might slightly exceed or undershoot the specific number of required written pages for the assignment. 10 points: Student provides a high-caliber, formatted paper. This includes an APA 6th edition cover page, abstract, page number, headers and is double spaced in 12’ Times Roman Font. Additionally, the paper conforms to the specific number of required written pages and neither goes over or under the specified length of the paper. GET THIS PROJECT NOW BY CLICKING ON THIS LINK TO PLACE THE ORDER
CLICK ON THE LINK HERE: https://www.perfectacademic.com/orders/ordernow
Also, you can place the order at www.collegepaper.us/orders/ordernow / www.phdwriters.us/orders/ordernow
Do You Have Any Other Essay/Assignment/Class Project/Homework Related to this? Click Here Now [CLICK ME]and Have It Done by Our PhD Qualified Writers!!