Free Essay Example on the Management Change Process

Description of the Management Change Process

The XYZ Continental management decided to improve the previous management and hierarchical communication because the staff lacked motivation and influence to increase the company’s productivity. Furthermore, the communication channels failed to uphold the company objectives, aims, and processes and this resulted in decreased quality of the bus tyres as the sole product. Consequently, most of the company staff resigned because the management of the organization was unstructured and the managers failed to offer appropriate direction for the employees to remain motivated. The SWOT chart below illustrates some of the reasons why the company decided to implement change

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Lewin's change model

The main ways that the company attempted to change can be explained by the Freeze and Unfreeze theory. This is a three force phase which motivates an organization to embrace change. It is important to note that unfreezing aims at preparing the organizational workforce for the change (Alas et al., 2010, p.41). It is a significant part of change because it comes before implementation which involves influencing and analyzing the need to change. Moreover, the most common tool which is utilized during this stage is the force field analysis that measures the forces within the workplace.

Secondly, the company’s workforce was changed in terms of the tasks that they were assigned, their hierarchical structure as well as the technology that was used to produce the bus tyres. In other words, the organization became entirely unfrozen and this it made it easier for it to change because the aims and objectives were clarified. Therefore, it is suggested that the staff should not be perceived as having a sense of low or high security during this stage because it may hinder the opportunity to change or transform the company (Biteman, 2005, p. 67). Lastly, refreezing can be termed as the reinforcement and evaluation of the changes which take place in the organization. In this case, the XYZ Continental decided to change the objectives of the company in order to improve its market share and maximize on the profits it accumulates from the sale of bus tyres.

Productivity improvement case study

The new management was recruited by the company because they had advanced experience when it came to organizational transformation in the kind of high performing, professional, corporate environment that the organization aspired for; this would ensure that they gained the competitive advantage. Furthermore, the newly recruited managers were supposed to manage the general phase of change within the organization by ensuring that the performance of the staff increased by offering sufficient support and motivation to them. Therefore, these managers can be considered as change agents that take responsibility for change in terms of existing patterns and behaviors in a supportive manner (Burke, 2002, p.90). However, the perceived risks are foreseen by the top company mangers because they give direction for the process of change. In this case, XYZ Continental CEO decided to implement a new structure for the company because he believed that the company needed to be more advanced by using modern technology to construct the bus tyres so that their performance on the road can be significantly improved.

According to Kotter, there is an eight step process that an organization has to pass through in order to ensure that they increase their opportunities for success (Burnes, 2000, p.87). If an organization lacks the ability to adapt in a continuous manner, it is less likely to thrive. The first step that has been introduced by Kotter is the creation of the sense of urgency. This means that the company can assist its workforce to have the motivation to perform better. In the case of the company, it realized the sense of urgency when more competitors cropped up and advanced technology was introduced in terms of the construction of tyres. It is for this reason that the organization opted to hire managers and staff that were more skilled as well as ensure that the staff had the professional skills to use advanced technology to construct quality tyres.

The second stage is creating a guiding coalition in which a specific group is designated to lead the process of change. XYZ used newly recruited mangers to ensure that the change that was needed in the company was implemented. The managers had more skills and experience to lead the staff towards change by providing sufficient motivation and support to ensure the productivity of the company improved and increased the quality of the products.

Third, is developing the change vision whereby the future is clarified in terms of how it will enhance processes that were done in the past. In this case, the company had a vision of ensuring that the quality of the materials used to construct bus tyres was improved and that the workforce performance and skills were sufficiently increased. Communicating a vision for the buy-in is the fourth stage because it makes sure that many people accept and understand the vision. XYZ Continental opted to offer new training to the existing employees so that they can have an understanding of the change that was being implemented in the company. The managers used effective communication to make sure that the employees understood the new vision of the organization.

The fifth step is empowering the broad-based action by removing most barriers and motivating the workforce to increase their performance and productivity. In XYZ Continental, the new managers ensured that the employees practically engaged in the new processes that were introduced by ensuring that proper communication channels were implemented. The communication between managers and their subordinates became more direct and this meant that most decisions made within the company were effectively executed in order to realize the desire of the company. Generating short term wins is the next step and it creates visible, unambiguous success. The company ensured that the employees did not lose focus of the vision of the company so that they may not be distracted by the change that was being implemented. This ensured that the change initiative did not affect any of the stakeholders; this leads to the success of short term wins.

The seventh step realizes the consolidation of gains while producing more changes. The company experienced resistance from some of the employees because they felt that the change would deprive them of their job positions. Also, learning new skills and embracing the new technology demotivated the company’s workforce significantly. Therefore, the new practices and behaviors had to be driven into the organizational culture so that the success of the company could remain on a long-term basis. Lastly, it is important to anchor the new approaches into the culture so that there can be sustainable change. The organization’s new practices grew deep roots so that they could remain in the organizational culture. Therefore, the newly hired managers were indoctrinated in the culture automatically. This means that they had a hard time trying to ingrain change in the organization’s culture. In addition, the cultural change comes last because it is hard to prove that change is necessary in order to ensure continuous success of the company. Therefore, change is implemented by creating supportive, sufficient and new organizational culture. This means that the entire firm has to embrace new culture so that long term success can be guaranteed.