Question

Your Task, individually or in a small group, is to find and interview two people who have managed organizational change, or who have been directly involved in change implementation. Design a “topic guide” for your interviews. This should cover, for example, the change in which they were involved; why those changes were significant; how the changes were implemented, covering key decisions, actions, turning points, crises; how your interviewees would describe their personal management styles; the outcomes of those changes-successful, or not. If possible, choose to interview managers from different organizations and sectors, to provide contrast. Once you have collected this interview evidence, consider the following questions:

• Which image of change did those managers illustrate?

• How did those images affect their change management decisions and actions?

• Where they drew on more than one image, to what extent were those related to

  • Type of change?

  • Context of change?

  • Phase of change?

  • Their involvement in more than one change at the same time?

• What other factors did you identify?

• What conclusions can you draw from your analysis about the effects of image and mental models on the way that your interviewees approached their change management roles?

Answer 1

1. Topic guide

a. Talk about a change you were involved in, why was it undertaken?:

b. How it was implemented, key decisions?

c. Actions, outcomes, issues

d. Personal management style?

e. How did you overcome any challenges?

f. How did you assess risks and plan mitigation?

2. Interviews with IT change manager & Retail chain change manager

a. Change you were involved in, why :

IT - part of the service was to be done offshore in another country to lower rising costs and staff in current positions would be re-assigned to new roles (no firings).

Retail - brick and mortar stores are now going to offer same service online with door delivery of products to expand customer base and increase revenues.

b. How it was implemented, key decisions :

IT - change was communicated to all affected employees via a townhall event, the users would not be affected at all so were notified only after the change was implemented. The affected employees were told to document key information and to perform knowledge transfers to the outsourced team, and to then apply/pick new internal job postings that they would like to move to. To facilitate the knowledge transfer, daily updates were asked for by the senior management and progress was tracked stringently. Usually someone from the management team would also sit in on the KT sessions. To ensure all affected staff got alternate positions within a quarter, senior managers were asked to identify hiring gaps that they could fill with these employees. Quite some needed some form of training or other and this was arranged by the HR in the next quarter.

Retails - organisation wide mailers were sent out to inform staff that the chain was looking to expand into e-commerce. the staff in the physical stores would need to extend their duties into picking, packing, shipping, inventory related to the e-commerce products and volume as well. it would require that all such staff (roughly 75%) would need to learn to be computer savvy enough to work the chain's online app that customers would use. the additional duties would come with a raise, and the training would be provided free of cost. any staffer not wishing to work on the new initiative could reach out to their boss with reasons as to why they should be excluded, as there was a 25% staff set aside for purely store related activities, however a majority of the inventory would go directly from the warehouses to homes and at least 1 person per store was required to take on some delivery responsibilities on a few days.

c. Actions, outcomes, issues :

Actions & outcomes - The plans were implemented as decided, however both plans needed to be frequently changed as unplanned ground-level issues started interfering with the plans. More townhalls and emails and memos were sent to placate a growingly uncertain staff. Training schedules were rolled out and assigned to people, however not all were consulted which left many feeling left out. 10% left the firm to find other roles elsewhere leaving knowledge gaps and over-burdened colleagues.

IT - plan went ahead but with some employees quitting rather than taking on new roles, KT was incomplete due to this gap and the outsourced team had difficult with the remaining staff who very reluctant to pass on their knowledge that they saw as their bargaining chip back into their old roles. plan went over schedule, taking twice as long.

Retail - plan was pulled back to implement in one store at a time, to allow for more gradual acceptance. once staff realised their jobs were not being erased, the plan took off well. However it did go over budget due to having to implement in stages.

Issues - inability to adapt to change, need for new skill-sets/recruits that were hard to get in the market. Fear of losing the current job made staff dig in and opt out of the new trainings needed for the roles needed (general thinking was that - if it doesn't work, we'll get blamed and sacked). Older staffers felt the younger ones would do better with learning new skills and that this change was unfair. Sudden exit of employees left others feeling even more uncertain and fearful.

d. Personal management style

IT - Democratic, coaching - tried to ensure staff understood the reasons for the change and its impact on the employees. listened to lots of inputs in meetings so everyone got to say their piece, answered questions in person or via emails whenever possible, or appointed a spokesperson when needed.

Retail - Visionary, transformational - tried to inspire staff to see the new vision of the chain. The change was drastic so everyone needed to understand that this change was essential to keep up with the rest of the world and so the stores can continue to make revenues to pay their salaries.

e. How did you overcome the challenges : Human factor, employees are usually reluctant to change and throw out opposition in many ways. Key is to have open communication lines at all times to the change manager so peole don't feel like they can't get answers to their questions, or worse that they have no say at all (though this might well be the case). Conflict within the team can mount when teams are feeling pressured.

f. How did you assess risks and plan mitigation? - There are several mathematical tools and models available to gauge risks, and additionally we looked at how this was achieved in real business practice in the past in the same organisation or in similar/competitor firms. It is also crucial to consult key stakeholders to understand potential risk and means to minimise it.

3. Which image of change did those managers illustrate?

IT - coach, caretaker, nurturer, navigator, interpreter

Retail - director, navigator, interpreter, caretaker, coach

4. How did those images affect their change management decisions and actions?

The retail CM provided the staff with a direction of change, new business, more revenues, growth of industry etc. and then provided the resources to achieve that goal. Both helped the employees make sense of the change in a manner to convince the affected members to embrace it. When both staff were demotivated to follow the change, both CMs made extra efforts to ensure that the employees were eased through the transition with alternate options being provided (choose your own next role/opt out of the change) so they could navigate the change effectively.

5. Where they drew on more than one image, to what extent were those related - all images are related to managing change and so both CMs drew on each aspect depending on their type of change - job change, new way of working, new roles, additional responsibilities, learning new skills and losing old ones. The context of change also drove the CMs actions, the IT change was set and could not be changed as per the corporate strategy so the employees needed to be nudged into their new roles as their old roles were in effect made redundant in the course of progress. Similarly, the Retail change was to allow the chain to move into an uncharted territory and was more exploratory in nature, however it was nevertheless necessary to avoid the danger of being left behind in the industry.