Assignment Sample on 7004CRB Creativity, Change and Innovation
Section 1: Analysis of current position of organization
1. Organizational Overview
Coles Group Limited is an Australian Company of a retail public chain of food whose headquarter is in Melbourne. It was founded in 1914 by George Coles (COLES, 2021). Previously it was developed as a variety store and later it has become the form of a supermarket chain. This company has acquired the first position in Australia for its supermarket chain. This company is increasing its sales growth by 25% every year (COLES, 2021). In recent times this organization has faced some major issues related to its infrastructure and workforce planning. They also have suffered from problems related to leadership practices, organizational culture, and making decisions so that this organization has experienced a low efficiency of work conduction. In this account, customer satisfaction rate has decreased within this organization. Thereby this organization has decided to implement several strategies for improving its working quality.
2. Drivers of changing
- Evaluation of strategic demands of this organization
Coles Group Limited has a huge amount of strategic demands for recent times as well as for the future. As per the views of Abualoush et al. (2018), problems regarding employee management often can bring conflict within employees, and henceforth performance of employees can decrease within an organization. Employees of this organization have suffered from a deficiency in communication skills and a lack of motivation. In this account, Current strategic need of this organization is to resort to effective communication practice to foster collaboration and teamwork among workers. Employees of this organization are not able to participate in effective decision making due to conflicts resulting from a lack of communication. On the other hand, they also can adopt a strategy of delivering motivational speeches to employees for increasing their motivation towards work and so that they can increase their working efficiency. Apart from that future strategic need is to enhance supply chain processes to reduce disruptions and improve the product delivery processes. Taking this into account, these strategies would be beneficial for Coals Group Limited for conducting a smooth work within this organization.
- Leadership practice within this organization
Coals Group Limited has implemented a participative leadership model for enhancing working quality within teams. As inferred from the study by Al Khajeh (2018), leadership models are divided into four types, for instance, democratic, participative, transformational, and transactional and participative leadership. This company has been utilizing participative leadership models for conducting collaborative and partnership work along with team members within this workplace. Employees are indulged in every decision-making of the company. The leaders take the final decisions but they take the opinion of employees which is indicative of a collaborative work environment. By using a participative leadership model, leaders of this company have included four factors which are immediate, reaction, reflection, and adoption. Thereby employees of this organization have gained benefits as leaders have been able to resolve problems of their team members on an immediate basis. Other than this, leaders of this organization have suffered from a lack of flexibility towards change management and deficiency in effective decision making. Thereby due to lack of flexibility towards change management, leaders of this organization have suffered from failing in commitment meetings and ineffective team management. Therefore leaders can implement a strategy of involving transformational leadership models for increasing their flexibility within change management. On the other hand, they also can gain an advantage by involving proper planning of estimated time for meeting commitments of customers and company. Apart from that, they can make effective decisions by adopting the strategy of involving innovation and system thinking so that respective team members of these leaders of Coles Group Limited can work without facing any disruptions. In this account, leadership practice of this organization needs to modify and implement these strategies for providing effective work within this workplace.
- Analysis of Organizational Culture
Coles has maintained an effective organizational culture for which employees are able to comfortably work within this workplace. As per the accordance of Polychroniou & Trivellas (2018), organizational culture is an important factor for any organization as it helps organizations by allowing smooth work conduction. Coles has maintained sustainability within its performances by distributing workloads effectively to employees and developing effective communication skills with employees for resolving their problems. On the other hand, Coals has been also maintaining a code of conduct by which any types of discrimination can not be taken place within this organization. Besides that, this organization also has some issues within organizational culture as they have faced deficiency in clear directions. This organization has experienced disruption in work due to deficiency of clear directions as this brings inadequate planning of work execution and thereby low amount of working efficiency has been developing within this organization. Thereby this organization needs to adapt its organizational culture by taking a strategy of developing an effective design of planning before executing any work. They also can adopt an approach of establishing contingent planning for resolving issues of working and consequently employees are able to prevent their job dissatisfaction due to ineffective approach of organizational culture and followed by being able to induce their efficiency of working.
- Analysis of Organizational Structure
Organizational structure within Coles is decentralized and matrix formed. As referred to by Brinza, Kostyukhin & Fadeeva (2017), matrix organizational structure is a beneficial organizational structure that allows flexibility to employees for working with freedom. As a result, of this organizational structure employees of this organization have been able to conduct their work within their independent process as well as they can present their unique ideas independently within the workplace. Apparently, Coles Group Limited has been able to gain benefits by working with their innovative ideas. On the other hand, matrix formed organizational structure has been helping this organization by managing its budget effectively. Matrix formed organizational structure assists in reducing excessive amount of infrastructure cost and extra cost of recruitment. For example, in other organizational structures such hierarchy, organizational structure involves three employees for resolving problems of three departments but a matrix formed organizational structure include one employee for eradicating problems of three departments. Therefore, this organization has been reducing its internal cost and is able to produce cost effective products within this organization. Besides that, matrix formed organizational structure also has created problems within Coles. Due to excessive amount of independence of employees, this organization often faces conflict among employees. In this account, low efficiency of product launching has been developing in this organization. Consequently, this organization can adapt its organizational structure by involving a strategy of maintaining limits of independence of employees so that they can work comfortably independently and without facing any disruptions.
- Strengths and limitations of two models and tools
Coles Group Limited has implemented participative leadership models for conducting effective leadership within the workplace. As suggested by Hughes et al. (2018), participative leadership model is effective as it enables leaders in coming up with more than one point of view for a problem. As an effect, this organization has been able to resolve any complicated problems in an easy manner. On the other hand, this company also has faced problems due to this model. Participative leadership often involves an excessive amount of time consuming approaches so the flexibility of commitment meetings has been building up within this organization for their ineffective leadership practice.
Coles Group Limited also has adopted matrix formed organizational structure for conducting smooth work. The involvement of matrix formed organizational structure, this company has been able to provide consistency in workload distribution, and thereby excessive amount of work pressure can not have to be faced by an employee. Besides that due to this matrix formed organizational structure, this company faces a lack of employees as this organizational structure involves a reduction of recruitment costs.
Section 2: Recommendations
1. Recommendations for increasing innovation within organization
This organization can enhance its innovation by implementing several kinds of strategies. As noted by Cote (2017), increasing innovativeness within an organization is an effective approach of any organization as it involves unique service providing and diversified product launching within this organization which often attracts a high amount of customers. This organization can increase its innovation by involving ideas of all employees and developing a unique idea by brainstorming. On the other hand, this organization also can employ skilled and experienced employees who can use their innovative thinking for launching diversified products in order to enhance the innovativeness of this organization. Apart from that Coles Group can adopt an approach of providing training to its employees for developing their creativity and innovation. In this account, employees of this company can implement effective innovative decisions regarding the service provided to customers in a unique way; for instance, providing effective discounts to customers. Thereby this company can gain a competitive advantage within the global context for its high amount of innovativeness. Other than this, this organization further can adopt a strategy of providing time and space to employees for developing their creative thinking for a specific matter so that they can be able to take innovative decisions for attracting customers and producing effective work within this workplace. Besides that, this organization also can take an approach of involving system thinking that indicates that involving the reason of thinking and as well as allowing different perspectives of this incident at the time of thinking. Therefore this company can be able to improve innovation by implementing these strategies.
2. Impact of organizational change management program on leadership
Organizational change management program has a high amount of role on leadership of Coles. As established by Hussain et al. (2018), organizational change management can ensure effective management of employee performance and follow by a significant return on investment. Thereby leaders can align organizational values with employees’ performance to ensure value based approach. As a result, these organizational change management programs can assist leaders in implementing different kinds of leadership styles like delegation and transformational leadership styles. In this account, leaders can effectively increase their flexibility of time and flexibility of change management. On the other hand, leaders of this organization also can gain benefits by setting goals for work conduction for ethical and value based approaches of organization of change management programs as these programs can develop their leadership skills and qualities. In this account, leaders of this organization can be able to prevent their problem of lack of motivation of team members by assigning them short term goals and providing them encouragement on achieving these goals. Henceforth leaders can have motivational power and leaders can be ethical by adhering to employee needs, promoting diversity and equality at workplace, and focusing on team building. In addition, an organizational change management program can support its ethical and value based leadership by enabling leaders to develop a healthy relationship with employees and thereby they can comfortably open up within their leaders and able to resolve their problems and thereby they can prevent their job dissatisfaction.
Section 3: Implementation
1. Models which can support change process
Lewin’s change model
Lewin’s change model is an effective model for Coles Group for implementing change management. As per the accordance of Burnes (2020), an organization can utilize Lewin’s change model for implementing change management as it helps organizations in determining needs of change before executing the change management. As a result, this organization can involve effective changes for improving its organizational culture, leadership, and organizational performance effectively. In this account, this organization can gain benefits by changing only the required things. On the other hand, Lewin’s change model also can help Coles Group in maintaining its sustainability of working efficiency at even the time of organizational change management. Therefore, this organization can execute its change management program without hampering its work of service provision to customers. Apart from that, this organization can implement Lewin’s change model for obtaining effective approaches by adopting which it can perform this change management program without wasting an excessive amount of time and cost. As developed by Tracy (2020), Lewin’s change model has three steps including unfreezing, change, and freezing. Apparently, this organization can conduct its change management program by involving these three steps, and henceforth inadequacy of proper planning for change management can not take place within this organization. As opposed by Moncloa et al. (2019), Lewin’s change model has some limitations in its approaches so that this organization may not be able to implement approaches of this model in an effective way. Lewin’s change model has not included any practical applicable strategies as a result this company can face failure at the time of executing a change management program. Other than this, this model of change can bring insecurity among employees about their performance quality due to its complicated method of change. Besides that Lewin’s change model can take a high amount of time for making it flexible for unfreezing to change and followed by a change to freezing so that a lack of consistency and flexibility can develop within this organization due to this model of change. Taking these into account, Lewin’s model of change can help Coles Group Limited up to a certain level.
Kotters’ 8 step model of change
Kotter’s 8 step model of change can assist Coles Group limited at the time of change management program by developing a proper plan of actions for effectively conducting the change process. As discussed by Singh & Ramdeo (2020), Kotters’ 8 step model of change has involved eight steps of planning for executing change work within an organization. First step of Kotter’s 8 steps is to develop a sense of urgency. It is the most vital part of change management as it helps in determining the priority of demands of change management. Thereby this can help in estimating time for conducting change management. On the other hand, this organization can gain benefits by implementing this model as this model has included a step of establishing a guiding coalition. This step can assist this organization in ensuring effective outcome of its change management program with the guidance of skilled professionals. Apart from that, the third step and fourth steps of this model are building a strategy of vision and communicating this with employees. Strategy of vision is essential to prepare as it helps in achieving objectives of a change management program. Communication with employees about the vision strategies often can increase motivation and efficiency of employees towards this change management. Developing short term goals and resolving constraints of actions are also very crucial steps for indulging in a change management program. This organization can conduct smooth and success oriented work within change management. Thereby this model can help Coles Group Limited in executing an effective change management for improving organizational performance. As argued by Moncloa et al. (2019), Kotter’s 8 step model has restrictions as it has involved complexities in its approaches. In this account, this organization can adopt this model up to a certain limit.
2. Methods for monitoring and determining effect of proposed changes
Coles Group Limited can implement several kinds of methods for monitoring and determine effectiveness of changes within this organization. As included by Domingues et al. (2017), a company can implement a method of conducting a survey of employees for understanding the effectiveness of changes. In this account, this company can effectively obtain the perspectives of employees towards the change management. Thereby they can conduct modification within the change management process if employees face any problem due to change management. Apart from that, this company also can adopt the method of developing a department for monitoring change management by recruiting a brunch of managers so that an all time supervisor can establish a change management program within this company. As a result, this company can ensure progress of change management process. Furthermore, this organization can take an approach of dnd negative developing inspection department for determining positive and negative impact of change management on its stakeholders so that they can resolve the issues which can bring negative impacts. This organization further can develop a hierarchy organizational structure temporarily for change management which can help to reach the updates of change management execution directly to the company authorities and other involved stakeholders so that conflict can not develop and also monitoring would be possible.
3. Potential risks faced by organization at time of changes
Coles Group Limited has faced problems regarding lack of budget and deficiency of coping up with employees of new change management process. As described by Stouten et al. (2018), due to excessive cost of change management, companies can suffer from a lack of budget for their product launching. In this account, this organization can launch a low quality of products. Thereby it can reduce customer satisfaction rate by a huge amount. As a result, they can face a significant reduction in brand value and brand position as per the context of the global market. This organization further can reduce a wide range of customer base. On the other side, this company can experience issues regarding deficiency of adjustment of employees and thereby it can suffer from low efficiency of work produced within a working environment and also conflict between employees within this working environment. Henceforth, this organization can face disruption within work. Taking these into account, this company needs to execute change management by resolving these potential risks effectively for developing healthy work conduction within this working environment.
4. Summary
From these discussions, present study can conclude that Coals Group Limited has different types of strategic demands for resolving its issues for instance supply chain disruption and employee management. Organizational culture, Organizational Structure, and leadership approach require to change within this company for improving its performance. This report further has found that this organization has utilized participative leadership within this organization. However, leaders of this organization have faced issues of lack of flexibility regarding change. This report also has evaluated that they have maintained an effective code of conduct and policies for maintaining positive organizational culture. From the analysis of organizational structure, this context has derived that Coles has used matrix formed organizational structure which brings confusion and conflict within employees. Finally, this study has concluded that this company can face several types of potential risks as an effect of change management like lack of budget and deficiency in coping up of employees with the change working environment.
Section 4: Reflective evaluation
Description
Coles Group Limited company is performing and operating incredibly well in the several retail sectors. However, I have observed that there have been certain issues that the company has to face while operating (Adeani, Febriani& Syafryadin, 2020). It was detected by me that the company has been undergoing many operational as well as employment management problems. Some of the problems includes employment turnover rate is declining, ineffective decision making and supply chain disruptions has been occurred in the company.
Feelings
Before doing this assignment, I had very little knowledge about proper time management and leadership analysis skills. After completion of this assignment I have gained a lot of knowledge as well as information that can be required for completing a good assignment. I have also faced some issues while doing this study about Coles Group Limited (Sekarwinahyuet al. 2019). Proper financial data about the company was easily available therefore I had to do a lot of research for it. However, there were also many positive outcomes like my research skills got developed as well as my critical thinking skills also developed.
Evaluation
This assignment has taught me a lot of new things but at the same time I got to know weak areas where I need to improve in future. Some of the positive outcomes that I have analysed is that I have improved my research skills, critical thinking skills, writing skills and data analytical skills. However, I have evaluated that there are certain areas in which I need to improve which includes presentation skills, creative skills and reading skills.
Analysis
While doing this assignment, a lot of things went well but there were some things that did not go according to me. Issue that was faced by me was getting frequently resolved and I got to learn about many technical aspects through this study. However, I was unable to find authentic data about the company (He, Parkinson & Doyle, 2018). Therefore, I need to do a lot of research because of which time management was not properly executed by me. It was also very difficult to find the proper leadership style that Coles Group Limited has adopted. As a whole, I got both positive outcomes as well as negative outcomes after completing this assignment.
Conclusion
After completion of this assignment, I can easily conclude that I should have taken more care about time management planning. I did not make an initial plan therefore I was facing difficulty in understanding which task I should do and in what time slot. On the other hand, I could have focused more on my presentation skills and reading skills due to which a lot of essential time got wasted. A proper plan could have been followed by me during this whole assignment.
Action plan
| Objectives | Task | Time frame | Resources | Desired outcomes |
| To build proper time management skills |
|
4 months | A proper plan and daily goals. | Learn how to manage time effectively. |
| To incorporate the habit of reading. |
|
6 months | Books, journals, blogs and articles | To gain reading habits. |
Table 1: Action Plan
(Source: created by the author)
References
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