Strategic and Cultural Change - Essay Example

Strategic and Cultural Change Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation (Section 1) Introduction Queensland Rail is a renowned railway operator in Australia that is owned by the Queensland Government. The railway has for so long enhanced the transportation of key mineral resources as well as primary produce to their marketing destinations. The organization provided jobs to more than twenty thousand employees in Queensland. The organization initially adopted a functional structure. However, QR experienced losses as a result of inefficiencies. In an effort to remain competitive and ensure that QR restores its past sales margin as well as profitability, the management made various structural and cultural changes. Queensland Rail made cultural changes in management styles, adopted a divisional structure, revised goals and mission, changed recruitment policy and focused on the customer’s needs. The modification of the organization’s activities and processes has proven to be profitable as it has enabled QR to attain a competitive edge in the highly competitive railway industry. This change program is based on the case study ‘Organisational change strategies: case studies of human resource and industrial relations issues’. (Section 2) Diagnosing Of the Problem to Be Addressed According to Baack (2012), organizational leaders must envisage and identify the need for change. Organizational leaders can use the Greiner’s model to predict and identify the need for change. According to this model, there are five main stages of growth, including creativity, direction, delegation, control and collaboration. Each of the 5 stages has its own crisis that demands for a change (Cameron & Green, 2012). Creativity calls for organizational leaders to produce goods and services that meet the diverse needs of their clients. However, as the firm expands, a leadership crisis occurs which calls for transformational changes. Thus, organizational leaders find themselves loaded with unnecessary management responsibilities (Harigopal, 2006). In addition, conflicts arise between the senior managers and employees. As a change manager, I would predict and identify the need for change when leadership crisis occurs. Direction is the next stage of predicting and identifying the need for change. During this stage, the change manager should take responsibility for the direction. Most managers do not allow lower level supervisors to make key organizational decisions. Thus, they treat them as functional specialists. As a result, the lower level supervisors begin to demand for high involvement, and the second revolutionary stage begins. As a change manager, I would predict and identify the need for change when I see the above symptoms. The third stage of predicting and analyzing the need for change is delegation. During this stage, most senior managers who are used to giving directions, experience problems giving up authority and responsibility. In addition, the lower level supervisors who are used to making key organizational decisions grow disenchanted. At this stage, an organization move away from its old structure to a decentralized one. This, in turn, enhances motivation among lower level managers. Ultimately, the fourth revolutionary period begins as the senior leadership team predicts that they are losing control due to a decentralized organizational structure. As a change manager, I would identify and predict the need for change when resentment and antagonism occurs among the lower level supervisors who had been assigned authority and responsibility. Control phase is characterized by the desire to achieve greater efficiency through the use of formal processes and procedures. There are complex tasks to be performed in a large organization like Queensland Rail and this result in the fourth revolutionary stage. Thus, an organization must move to the last stage in order to overcome the crisis (Harigopal, 2006). The last stage, according to Greiner, is the collaboration (Cummings & Worley, 2008). Collaboration stage is characterized by the use of teams in contributing to decision making through a fair, collaborative, and equal manner. Therefore, interpersonal differences are confronted skillfully. How I Would Approach the Above Change Tasks as an Agent As a company consultant, I would use the Lewin-Schein and Richard Daft change management models to approach the above tasks (Harigopal, 2006). The Lewin-Schein change theory identifies three main steps to the change process, including unfreezing, changing and refreezing. Unfreezing is the first step of change process and requires a change agent to address individual resistance and pressures for group conformity. As a company consultant, I would use the following tactics, including employees’ involvement, education and communication, explaining the need for change and answering all questions, participation and involvement, facilitation and support, planning the change carefully, adopting a bargaining approach, adopting a political approach, manipulation, using managerial power among others. Employees spend much of their time in their places of work, and thus, organizational change affects both their work and personal lives. Therefore, high involvement of staff is necessary when executing a change management policy in an organization. According to Dawson (2003), employee engagement plays a critical role of executing an effective change management policy. Thus, I would involve as many people as possible for effective change management. The people that I would involve include all those who will be impacted by the new changes, such as process owners, employees and other stakeholders. Furthermore, I would ensure that the people are engaged as early as possible. I would also reward those employees who will work positively with the change. Changing is the second step, according to Lewin-Schein, and takes place when a person agrees to change his or her attitude. As a company consultant, I would consider the current status and where the organization must go. Afterwards, I would increase the driving forces, while at the same time, reducing restraining forces. In this stage, I would apply my persuasion tactics in order to convince individuals accept the new behaviours. Freezing takes place when the new changes are reinforced in a manner that they are rewarded in a firm. Thus, the new attitudes or behaviors become the accepted way of doing things in the firm. As an organizational consultant, I would seek to make the behavior or attitude permanent through reinforcements and rewards. As mentioned earlier, I would approach the above change tasks by using the Richard Daft model. According to Richard Daft, change agents must follow the following steps in order to initiate change: creating a need for change, making a proposal, making a decision to adopt and using resources. As a consultant, I would create dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs by employing such tactics as introducing new techniques and creating a new product. With regards to the proposal, I would request, individuals in the organization to accept a new behaviour or attitude through memos. In addition, I would request the line managers and the Board of Directors to adopt the proposed ideas. In order to implement the new ideas, I would use resources, including financial, human resources and information. Planned Change Process/ Ways of Creating Readiness and the Interventions I Would Argue For Once I have convinced the senior leadership team and the organization in general to commit to new behavior or attitude, I would come up with a logical step-by step approach that will guide me in the attainment of set objectives. The following are the processes that I would follow in order to implement the changes; Firstly, I will recognize the need for change. There are four main causes of need of organizational change, including changes in the environment, changes in the senior management team and staff, deficiency in the current organizational structure and the desire to succeed. An organizational environment is comprised of several independent as well as interdependent aspects such as consumers, competitors, management among others. According to Palmer, Dunford & Akin, (2009), the manner in which a firm decides to respond to each of these aspects causes a need for change. I will, therefore, consider the environmental factors that cause the need for organizational change, including economic, technological and political/legal. Economic factors that create a need for change include inflation, Interest rates, business competition, and change of global markets among others. For instance, the entrant of new firms into the rail market poses a major economic uncertainty to an existing firm like QR. The new firms could be offering free shipping, a wide range of products for consumers to choose and lower prices. To remain competitive and enhance sales margin and profit growth, Queensland Rail has to put the right policies in place such as reviewing the organization’s price policy, enhancing the value of its products, reducing operating costs among others. Political/legal factors that cause the need for organizational change include changes in business laws, political instability, and government intervention among others. Thus, I would consider the political/legal factors that affect the sales and profitability of the firm. In order to curb the declining sales and profits, I would advise the managers to put pressure on the global leaders to enhance political stability across the world. This move will play a prominent role in enhancing international trade. Technological factors that cause the need for organizational change include such aspects as the obsolescence rate, innovation and adoption of information technology (Dawson & Andriopoulos, 2009). In an effort to ensure that the company survives, I would institutionalize an innovation culture. Thus, I would harness the power of innovation to meet customer’s needs. This would enable the organization earn profits and satisfy customers’ expectations. Among the technologies that the organization could embrace include e-commerce and online promotion and marketing. Changes in senior leadership team cause the need for organizational change due to the following factors; retirements of senior management team at various levels, promotion of employees to higher positions in the organization, transfers and demotions, managers and staff turnover among others. Thus, organizations act to fill vacant positions following an employees’ retirement, resignation or dismissal. The new managers adopt different managerial skills, and thus, employees may react if the new management attempts to introduce a culture that is undesirable. Employees may react by sabotaging the work in order to compel the management change its unacceptable management approach. Thus, a situation occurs, to create urgency for change (Lewis et.al, 2006). Deficiency in the current organizational structure is another cause of urgency for organizational change. Management has the role of evaluating the current organizational structure in order to establish whether it is in accordance with the changing needs. The current organizational structure may be weak or have such defects as job duplication. This may lead to serious conflicts and decreased productivity. This may, in turn, hinder an organization from achieving its set objectives and hence cause urgency for organizational change. The desire to be successful is one of the organizations’ long term objectives. In order to achieve growth, organizational leaders should provide the required motivation to employees to enable them perform their duties enthusiastically. In today’s world, managerial leadership of CEO is the key behind an organization’s growth. As such, I would advise the CEO to set a clear vision, build a strong mission that drives both the management and employees and also shape the company’s culture (Demann, 2006). The second step for the planned change is developing the goals of the change. Thus, I would advise the managers to evaluate both opportunities and problems, and also, define the proposed changes in terms of know-how, organizational culture and structure. The third stage for the planned change is selecting a change agent. As an agent, I should have the right skills in order to successfully implement the planned changes. The fourth stage is diagnosing the current climate of the firm. During this stage, I would prepare employees and other stakeholders for change. As such, I would communicate to them about the negatives of the status quo. The fifth stage is selecting an implementation method. During this stage, I would make myself more responsive to pressures for change. I would also visit other firms in order to get exposed to new ideas of implementing change. Developing a plan is the next stage of the planned change process. Thus, I would develop a plan that would guide me towards change implementation. Implementing the plan is the seventh stage of the planned change process and calls for organizational leaders to make the new change stick. As a change agent, I would inform the staff members about the change progress that the organization has attained. Also, I would consider incorporating the change values in the organization’s recruitment policy. How Communication and Readiness Would Be Handled I would keep in touch with the employees throughout the change management process. Communication ensures that employees are provided with a chance to express their main worries (Finch, 2011). Employees are also able to make enquiries as well as provide their views openly. I would also answer well all the concerns raised by the staff members. Also, I would follow the opinions raised by the employees. In addition, I would communicate the functional requirements of the new roles to employees. All the details of the proposed change should be precisely defined. This allows employees to know in advance the effects that the proposed change has on them. Evaluating the Change Effort and Learning from Unanticipated Outcomes I would follow the change plan and determine whether it conforms to the set objectives. If the change produces positive results, I will publicly praise the staff members’ contributions to the change process and put up measures to reinforce new behaviors. References Baack, D. (2012). Organizational Behavior. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. Cameron, E & Green, M. (2012). Making Sense of Change Management: A Complete Guide to the Models Tools and Techniques of Organizational Change .Ed:3 .London: Kogan Page Publishers. Cummings, T & Worley, C.G. (2008).Organization Development & Change. Ed: 9.London: Cengage Learning. Dawson, P & Andriopoulos, C. (2009).Managing Change, Creativity and Innovation .New York: SAGE Publications Ltd. Dawson, P. (2003).Understanding Organizational Change: The Contemporary Experience of People at Work. New York: SAGE. Demann, J.P. (2006).The Pillars of Excellence: A Peak Performance and Life Enhancement Course. Indiana: AuthorHouse. Finch, E. (2011) .Facilities Change Management. New York: Wiley & Sons. Harigopal, H. (2006).Management of Organizational Change: Leveraging Transformation.Ed:2.New York: SAGE. Lewis, P.S et.al. (2006). Management: Challenges for Tomorrow's Leaders. Ed: 5. London: Cengage Learning. Palmer, I, Dunford, R. & Akin, G. (2009). Managing Organizational Change: A Multiple Perspectives Approach. Ed: 2. New York: McGraw-Hill. Read More