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Case Study Analysis: L. J. Summers Company
Problem
The problem in this case is L. J. Summers Company’s recently implemented cost reduction plan is causing degradation in the organization’s laissez-faire culture and has put the company at risk while challenging their competitive advantage. Furthermore, the inexperienced production manager (owner’s son, Blaine) is using his unearned power as an authoritarian leader to drive change. However, due to poor leader-follower relations, his management style is negatively influencing the synergies ultimately causing a decrease in group productivity and member satisfaction. In addition to causing turbulence between management and the employees, the cost reduction plan resulted in
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The Solution
The solution to the problem in this case is to develop a strategic plan that will modify the employee behavior, redefine the roles and responsibilities of management, and manage the organizational culture while reducing production costs and gaining a competitive advantage. The solution will require management to examine and modify the current leadership style. In addition, management should address the issue of valence within the motivation equation and establish well-defined goals that will enhance the employee’s perception of their role within the organization. Reformation to the overall morale and culture is critical in order to terminate the work stoppage, reduce costs, and get the shipments back on schedule.
Actions
The first step in driving the necessary change within the organization is to secure an outside consultant to serve as a change agent. The change agent will facilitate and guide the organizational development (OD) through process consultation intervention. In this process, it will be necessary to identify sources of resistance through Force field analysis. Once the sources are identified, one-on-one meetings and group meetings will be conducted to educate the employees on the changes and the reasons why change is necessary. This step will find the management team working to re-define the vision of the organization. As part of
Implementing change in an organization is complicated. It is important that a manager understands their role and responsibilities for which could very well be the success or failure of an organization. A manager should know how to handle staff resistance, and the areas that require change. There are processes that help management with assisting their staff members with adjusting to change and concentrate on the areas of importance. This process includes planning, assessment, implementation, and evaluation. The difference between a failed organization and a successful manager is when the manager has the ability to implement change with little disruption to
Parker Summers was born on April 16th, 1996 in the northwest city of Enid, Oklahoma. He was an only child who was raised by his father and mother, Shon and Tania Summers. He grew up a well to do son, and always succeeded in every activity that he participated in. His family always took care of him and supported in every possible way that they could. At a very young age, sports, academics, and music began to play an important role in his daily life. He was consistently busy with the numerous activities that he enjoyed partaking in. Signs of potential addiction were apparent in his adolescent years when he would act out because he did not get his way, usually creating chaos amongst his caring family. It was not until middle school until he was
Organizational change is a necessary outcome when considering various scenarios contributing to the resulting vision. Perplexing as it may seem, change initiatives don’t always result in positive outcomes. In fact, many never succeed. As a change agent, one should always have formulated a vision of what change will “look” like for the organization. One would be hard pressed to paint a landscape without having a vision of what the landscape should resemble. Yet, resistance to change usually becomes a significant factor contributing to an initiative’s failure. It is likely an
The solution to the problem in this case is to develop a strategic plan that will modify the employee behavior, redefine the roles and responsibilities of management, and manage the organizational culture while reducing production costs and gaining a competitive advantage. The solution will require management to examine and modify the current leadership style. In addition, management should address the issue of valence within the motivation equation and establish well-defined goals that will enhance the employee’s perception of their role within the organization. Reformation to the overall morale and culture is critical in order to terminate the work stoppage, reduce costs, and get the shipments back on schedule.
In order to obtain long term success, it is important to strictly follow Kotter’s Eight Step Change Model in the correct order. The first step is to create a sense of urgency among the staff. The PCA called in a meeting and introduced the concept of the change and reason for the change. It was a mandatory meeting and snacks and beverages were served. Several concerns and threats affecting the financial aspects of the company and how to maintain job security were addressed. Employees were asked one by one how they like what they are doing, why or why not they like it, what is important to them and what do they think can be done to improve it. Creating a guiding coalition and directing others in the right direction of change is the
Change is difficult because all organizations cultures, structures, mission, and values are unique. As a result, there is not a “blueprint” that leaders can follow to ensure change initiative success. However, understanding the conditions that promote successful change processes is critically important for leaders. If employees do not support
There are many reasons that change can or must occur within and organization. The key will be in understanding the organization and the prospective change. According to Mangundjaya (2015) "there are many variables that can influence the success of organizational change, such as the content of the change, the process of the change, individual characteristics, leadership, external environment and organizational context" (p. 67). Organizational change has the potential to successfully align an organization with its goals or completely derail any future success and progress. It is important that the organization takes the proper steps to prepare for, implement, and evaluate change.
To make meaningful and long-term change in an organization, an organization needs to follow the guidelines of a change model, a diagnostic instrument, and change intervention. This paper will discuss two change models, two diagnostic instruments, and two change interventions.
Week 3, the lecture on Managing Change describes organizational changes that occur when a company makes a shift from its current state to some preferred future state. Managing organizational change is the process of planning and implementing change in organizations in such a way as to decrease employee resistance and cost to the organization while concurrently expanding the effectiveness of the change effort. Today's business environment requires companies to undergo changes almost constantly if they are to remain competitive. Students of organizational change identify areas of change in order to analyze them. A manager trying to implement a change, no matter how small, should expect to encounter some resistance from within the organization.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss organizational change and the management of that change. I will talk about the different drivers of change, the factors a leader needs to weigh to implement change effectively, the various resistances a leader may encounter while trying to implement change, and how various leadership styles will effect the realization of change. I will also discuss the knowledge I have gained through the completion of this assignment and how I think it might affect the way I manage change in my workplace.
Introducing organisational change is often hard, the main reasons for that can be variation in perceptions of the employees, fear of disruption or failure and underlining the right approach to apply change. Then even if the change in a specific organisation is projected successfully there is still lot to be done to manage it in an appropriate way (Oakland, 2007).
In order to have a successful outcome to occur from an organizational development intervention the organization must be acceptable of change. The organization’s readiness must be evaluated. To evaluate the readiness for change a combination of three different measures will need to be implemented, which are observation, surveys, and interviews
In order for a change to turn over successfully, managers in an organization must also consider employees’ feelings and input. People react to changes in different ways, whether they disagree with it or not. It is important for managers to address concerns to help shift the organizational culture in an even more positive direction. Salmond (1998) proposes a 12-step action plan for managing and preparing employees during an organizational change (See Appendix C; p. 40). She notes that these are not progressive steps because it depends on how people react to the changes, and how many changes are taking place simultaneously (Salmond, 1998, p. 40). Each of them fall under 4 different categories: plan for change, manage responses to change, promote new skills and behavior, and reinforce change (Salmond, 1998, p. 40). Knowing the type of change, as described in step 1, will depend on the scope (the degree of change), timing (proactive versus reactive), the degree of behavioral change, and learning that must follow (Salmond, 1998, p. 40).
Therefore, this business needs to improve their performance management activities because, in dealing with the consequences of resistance to change, the business lost its competitive advantage. There was high employee turnover in the production team, resulting in reduced time to train staff, so product measurements for the factory to manufacture goods often went out incorrect. This contributed to higher levels of stress for the workers, in turn creating more errors. There were delays in delivery, a reputation of bad workmanship was beginning to form and there were reduced margins from doing a job more than once. The issues felt in the production team were not only limited to that department, they affected the rest of the other departments. This also created hostility between older employees and the newer ones, because the older employees felt threaten by the newcomers as they were viewed as more willing to do as asked. The business could not survive this way and had to find ways of moving away from this battles of the wills for change.
* Recruit or train staff to ensure the organization is equipped with necessary skills for change management. For eg. Hire a skillful and experienced facilitator who can give time and have a sound facilitation plan. A good facilitation plan must aim some specific objectives, processes of facilitation and expected results