Sunflower Incorporated, Mistakes Made by Albanese - Case Study Example

Sunflower Incorporated Name: Institution: Date: Sunflower Incorporated Background of the case Sunflower incorporated target for change was a reasonable step but the implementation of the change process was ineffective and totally flopped. Following the use of financial reporting system which compared costs, profits, and sales across regions, management was baffled by the disparity in profits in the regions. It was believed that may be highly profitable areas were using low quality items in order to boost profits. This could have a damaging impact on the reputation of the company. Other regions witnessed intense price competition in their effort to maintain their market share. The president of the company decided to create a new position to monitor purchasing and pricing decisions. Agnes Albanese was the person put in charge of this position. He had been working in the finance department of a rival company. Her new position was director of purchasing and pricing. She had to report to the vice president of finance, Mr. Mobley. Ms Albanese was given authority to come up with whatever procedures and rules which she deemed significant for particularly eliminating disparities. She had to gather information from each region. Every region was notified about her appointment through a memo dispatched to regional managers. The announcement was run in the newspaper of the company and a copy of the memo posted on the bulletin of each warehouse. Three weeks after her appointment, Albanese came to the conclusion that purchasing and pricing decisions had to be standardized across all regions of the company. The financial executives in every region had to notify her of any alteration in the local prices that was above 3%. Contracts for local purchases which were above $5000, had to be cleared by her office. Operations had to be standardized if each region notified the home office in advance of any changes in purchases and prices. Her proposed policy was discussed by Mr. Mobley who took the proposal to the president. The president approved it. The company was approaching it’s the holiday peak season and Albanese wanted to implement her policy without any delay. She notified regional executives in financial and purchasing department of the new procedures immediately. The change was to be placed in all procedures and policy manuals throughout the company within a period of four months. Albanese showed her proposal to Mobley and asked for his opinion. The regions were used to decentralized-decision making and had hundreds of items to handle. Albanese turned down the suggestion by Mr. Mobley to visit the regions and discuss the new changes with the regional executives. Albanese explained that trips to regions would be time-consuming and expensive. She claimed to be busy at the headquarters. Albanese also went against Mobley suggestion of waiting for three months before implementing the new procedures. She insisted that the changes were needed immediately and she sent the email the following day to regional offices. Weeks that followed saw replies from the regions that indicated all the executives will be happy to cooperate. However, 8 weeks later, Albanese had not received any notices from any region concerning local purchase or price changes. Regional offices continued with their operations as usual. Mistakes done by Ms Albanese Ms Albanese had a clear strategy and goal to accomplish at Sunflower Incorporated. However, the procedure of implementing her policy was not good. She did not prepare thoroughly the members of the organization for the change. Her close contact to the regional offices was through notice boards bulletins and emails. Albanese had the passion to bring something new to Sunflower Incorporated but she forgot that she could not achieve this alone. She had to get all members of the organization on board and involve them fully in the change process. The change process has to commence with diagnosis of the ineffectiveness of problems facing the current system. Members of the organization have to realize the need for change and support it. In this case, Ms Albanese took it upon herself to diagnose the problems facing the company alone and went ahead to suggest and implement new procedures to be adopted across regions (Daft, 2009). Ms Albanese demonstrated naivety when it came to the process of change management. She failed to understand that the decisions that she was making were going to affect greatly the regional offices and therefore she needed to completely convince regional executives that the changes were necessary. She had to have a change plan that outlined how change was going to be implemented. Ms Albanese isolated the rest of the organization from the implementation of the change process and only involved the president and the vice president. The inputs of individual members did not appear to be important to her and she thought that as long as she had the support of the president and his vice then everything will work out perfectly. Albanese had to prepare the entire organization for the change process. She had to consult with regional executives and discuss what they thought about her proposal. Albanese did not think about what should be involved in the change process and what it would cost the company. She was in a hurry to get started and have an influence felt across the company. Unfortunately she flopped because she was ignored by everybody across regions. The regional executives cannot be taken for granted and Albanese had to consult thoroughly with them before embarking on the implementation procedure. The change process needs resources, time, and commitment (Rockel, 2005). In order to earn the commitment of the entire organization everyone had to be convinced of the significance of the change process. The shortcomings of the current system had to be analyzed and members given a chance to give suggest ways of resolving the prevailing problems. The process of organization development towards change cannot involve only a few people in the organization. Ms Albanese was not ready to follow the procedures that are involved in the change management. Change management is a complex process that needs careful planning and incorporation of all members of the organization. Ms Albanese forgot that change should not be imposed on people. She did not get fully acquainted with the environment that she wanted to implement the change. She was interested in the change without caring about people who were to participate the really change implementation. She needed the entire organization for successful implementation. Her new policy and procedures could not be implemented without the cooperation of every member from the regional offices. Ms Albanese ignored an integral part of the change process known as change agents. Change agents have to be identified in an organization and used to spread the message of change. Ms Albanese did not prepare on how to overcome resistance to change. Having change agents helps to reduce opposition to change as the agents try to convince the reluctant members of the importance of change. Members who are positive about the change and have understood why the change is needed (change agents) have to be trained on how to spread the change message (Mathew, 2012). However, Ms Albanese isolated the whole organization from the change process and only involved the president and his vice, and even them, did not participate fully. The affected departments should have been fully engaged. The only communication that Ms Albanese had with the regional offices was through notices on warehouses bulletins and emails send to them. She did not organize for a meeting to explain the agenda of the change to the entire organization. When Mr. Mobley suggested to her to visit the regional offices she brushed it aside as a waste of time and money. The change process is costly and not all members of the organization will appreciate the impending change since they used to the old order. It must take a lot of convincing to ensure that even reluctant members who at first oppose the change become champions of change. The change process has to be done gradually and not drastically within a short time as Ms Albanese intended (Tomczyk, 2010). She could have at least started implementing the change using may be two pilot regions and compared their performance after six months with other regions. Ms Albanese had disengaged herself from the rest of the organization and claimed to be very busy at the headquarters. In the first place, the position was created by the president without consultation with any members of the organization. This can be termed as an individual decision which can result in rebellion from the rest of the organization. In fact, there is an incident where one of the regional managers was called by Ms Albanese to ask about the prices and purchases change and he claimed that he had not heard about her and nor the existence of a position of director of pricing and purchasing. Reasons for not getting notices The creation of the position of director of pricing and purchasing was to oversee pricing and purchasing decisions in all the regional offices so as not to allow the reputation of the company to be jeopardized with low quality. However, the regional offices that were supposed to be supervised by Ms Albanese were not fully involved in the change process. The regional executives should have been consulted before the creation of the position of the director of pricing and purchasing. The heads in the regional offices were not aware of the creation of this office but the position was going to affect them directly. It follows that the regional heads may have conspired to ignore Ms Albanese or rebel against her orders. She had the support of the president and his vice, but he did not try to win the support of regional departmental heads or their members. The regional offices could not just accept something imposed them. Change has to be implemented gradually in the organization and all members have to be incorporated. Ms Albanese had to prepare the entire organization of the change to be implemented (Samson & Bevington, 2012). The regional offices may have felt neglected and taken for granted for not being involved fully in the change process. Change of operations has to start on the ground and not merely theoretically in the head office. Personally, Ms Albanese should have taken it upon herself to visit regional offices and see for herself how things are done. How could she know the inconsistencies regional level when she had not visited a single office? The regional executives may have chosen to ignore her orders since there was no clear guideline of what had to be done. The regional offices had their own sales targets and chose to pursue them instead of listening to someone who had not incorporated them in her plan. She assumed that regional heads will just take her orders. Ms Albanese isolated the regional departments from the change process and hence they had a right to reject her plan. She set a cart before a horse. There was no clear plan of the change process and moreover, it was being implemented hastily without consulting the affected members (Anderson & Anderson, 2001). Albanese overlooked an important part of the change implementation process which is the diagnosis part. She should have engaged all the members of the organization in the change process. The regional offices have to be appreciated for their work and involved in the change management process. Even the president and the vice president were only briefed by Albanese on what she intended to do. There were no discussions and counter arguments about the proposed change process. The rest of the organization saw Albanese as an intruder who wanted to destabilize the normal working of the organization. People cannot be ambushed by a change plan without thorough preparation (Blokdijk, 2008). There was no session that Albanese held with the regional heads to brief them on the change process. She wanted here new policy to be implemented by the regional heads without any question. This was like forcing herself on the people. They were bound to reject her directions. Things done wrong There so many things that Albanese overlooked while trying to force her change plan on the people. In the first place, she did not study the prevailing system of operations and try to discuss its shortcomings with the regional heads. Ms Albanese was based in the headquarters and pretended to be busy with her change plan. She isolated herself and did not make any effort to make the other members of the company to feel like they were part of the change process. The change process is not a one man show (Hiatt & Creasey, 2003). Every member of the organization has to be involved. Ms Albanese did not analyze the inconsistencies, if any, of the current operation system. She did not do her research thoroughly or request a report from the regional heads on their view on the current system. She did not go on a path-finding mission to discover how the organization was run, particularly the regional offices. Albanese overlooked the minor details of the change process which are important for successful change management. Albanese approached the management process as a lone ranger hence making her to be alienated from the rest of the organization (Cummings & Worley, 2009). She was antagonistic and she was bound to be resisted, but she did not prepare for resistance in the implementation of the new policy. Ms Albanese ignored the impact of change agents in the change implementation process. Ms Albanese had poor communication with the rest of the organization. She did not plan how to gather information from the organization members and how to get the reliable feedback from the members on the change implementation process and their individual opinion. She believed in the power of her newly created office position. The change management process adopted by Ms Albanese was strange and individualistic. Regional managers were to be informed on the change process and subsequently trained on how to implement the new procedure. The regional managers through the agents of change in the organization would have spread the message across regions. The regional executives got communication through emails and notice boards bulletin only. She reduced their role to taking orders and implementing them. Ms Albanese did not prepare for resistance to change. At no time did she reason that her change plan can be resisted. She was dictatorial and did not want to engage any member of the organization in dialogue. Ms Albanese did not learn the culture prevailing at the organization before trying to change anything. It is important to understand the norms, traditions, and beliefs of an organization before trying to introduce something new. Ms Albanese did not try to acquaint herself with the way things are done at Sunflower Incorporated before embarking on her change mission. She relied on the briefing she got from the president on the situation at the company. She should have found out herself if the system of operation was worth changing or only called for improvement. The change management process has to be done with the involvement of all the stakeholders in an organization (Marshak, 2005). An individualistic approach adopted by Ms Albanese was likely to be rebelled against. Ms Albanese did not keenly study the weakness of the current system before trying to impose something new to the entire organization. She should have travelled to the regional offices and interviewed the heads in person. She should have tried to get the real picture on the ground, how things are done, and what needs to be changed. Instead he chose to lead the change process from the headquarters of the organization. This was poor anticipation from Ms Albanese as a change initiator and negotiator. References Anderson, D. & Anderson, L.A. (2001). Beyond Change Management: Advanced Strategies for Today’s Transformational Leaders. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer. Marshak, R.J. (2005). Contemporary challenges to the philosophy and practice of organizational development. In David L. Bradford and W. Warner Burke (Eds.) Reinventing organizational development: New approaches to change in organizations. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer Daft, R.L. (2009). Organization Theory and Design, New York: Cengage Learning. Cummings, T.G. & Worley, C.G. (2009). Organization Development & Change, New York: Cengage Learning. Blokdijk, G. (2008). Change Management 100 Success Secrets - The Complete Guide to Process, Tools, Software and Training in Organizational Change Management, New Delhi: Lulu.com. Samson, D. & Bevington, T. (2012). Implementing Strategic Change: Managing Processes and Interfaces to Develop a Highly Productive Organization, New Jersey: Kogan Page Publishers. Hiatt, J.M. & Creasey, T.J. (2003). Change Management: The People Side of Change, Sydney: Prosci. Tomczyk, C.A. (2010). Project Manager's Spotlight on Planning, New York: John Wiley & Sons. Mathew, S. (2012). The Act of Change Management: A Principled Approach for Leaders, iUniverse. Rockel, M. (2005). The Role of Change Communication in the Change Management Process within Bayer, Melbourne: GRIN Verlag. Read More