Leadership and Change Assignment Sample
Introduction
In this report there will be an analysis of the time of change that has been experienced by an organization in which I was working before in the UK. Change has affected all the businesses of the UK on the basis of their new GDPR statute from 2018, when I was working in that company (Shelygov et al.,2019). Though the GDPR regulations were approved in 2016, but it took 2 years for its build up for proper implementation My roles and responsibilities was within the sales team and the report’s critical reflection will concentrate on the changing of team level and there will be recommendations and some theories in the report about the attempts that will be taken assess organizational change as a whole.
Change Recognition
The business world is in constant state of change and is so dynamic and it is required that the companies should have the capability to appreciate and identify the need for change in the company. The inability of a company’s performance is caused because of their failure to recognize the needs and requirements for change of the company whether because of external or internal pressures. The need for this company’s change was set up by an external factor: compliance with the new GDPR rules that have been enforced by the UK government. This change has affected the whole company regarding its data protection, but it leaves an impact on the sales team’s approaches towards the new prospective consumers.
Typology of change and Model of change
In the ideal state of a company there are continuous gradual changes and most of the companies are manipulated by punctuated equilibrium. Punctuated equilibrium includes a long time of decreased intensity incremental changes when there were short increases in intensity for discontinuous changes (Bassyouni,2021). And this situation is also true for this company as when during their period of change and adapting new GDPR regulations that falls under the incremental change for the better doing of things. For this purpose many proactive approaches have been taken and for the typology of changes was taken a fine tuning strategy which can change the organizational process to complaint (Al Balushi,2019). And after considering these factors presumptions can be made depending on how the company is approaching the change. There are two main models for the changing process: Kotter’s model and Lewin’s model (Cone and Unni,2020). The change model of Lewin can be classified as a reactive approach towards the threats which unfreeze then move and then refreeze for combining the change in the organization. But the 8 steps model of Kotter actually concentrates on proactive change and concentrating on leading change in the organization and not just simply managing it. For the case of this company, the approach which is proactive to change specifies the likelihood of deployment of Kotter’s model and embedment of the new GDPR regulations change in the culture of the organization. Hence there is a need to recognize the clear change process for the implementation of change and guiding the employees through this transformation of change. The next section of this report will assess the change process of this company through Kotter’s eight steps model for reflecting the changes in the organization:
Kotter’s Model
| Creating sense of urgency | The primary sense of urgency for this company which was not established by the upper management. By using passive tactics through circulating the documents of government it failed to deliver the sense of urgency as the information was not customized to the audience. The actions which would have reflected that employees needed to have a sense of urgency can be a better approach for increasing urgency among the staff. Though the message was coming from the government, the rational authority but the delivery of the message ensured that it was not embedded within the staff. Also, belief in the message increased as the change was coming from the external source rather than an internal one. But this approach shows that many employees do not feel the need to grasp this change. But when the change process was assigned to team level agents then employees understood the importance of this change. I had depended on the legitimate power for generating urgency and also the coercive power which stresses the results of not acting in accordance with the new regulations. |
| Forming a powerful combination | And the coalition was created with the seniors of different departments of the company. Many of them are managers in leadership responsibilities and the main features in this are transparency and trust which are very important for guiding a change process. But along with creating a powerful coalition it is also important to establish a weak place in the company that could be more resistant. And for my company it can be considered to be my department, which is the sales department that would be mostly affected by the change (Baharudin et al.,2020). The change agents of team level have the responsibility of overseeing the change process in their teams. I was responsible for making sure of the subordinates are clear of why there is requirement for change and it will feed the next step that is creating a vision for change, |
| Creating a vision for change | The vision of compliance had been created in this company which was abided and respected by the new regulations of making transparency and permission for the customer data. As I was a team level agent I had some influence on the development of the vision but my role was larger at the time of communicating messages to my colleagues. |
| Communicating the vision | Primary communication from the upper management to the team level agents was like overloading of information on the employees. And this idea of overloading the employees with information is considered as spray and pray and in this main agents expect that employees will be able to sort out the important information to know the level of urgency. This type of communication is very ineffective. The main form of passing the information was face to face meetings which encouraged discussion about the importance of implication of change in the company and its vision. But from the research it can be seen that using many channels for the communication of messages improves the acceptance level for change. And for my very little experience I was unable to implement the right way of communicating messages to my colleagues and making sure that the importance of change is being cleared to the employees. |
| Empowering others | The whole morale of the sales department was much low as the vision of working the different ways for achieving the same result that was delivered. And for this there was increasement of pressure on the agents of team level. To develop the motivation of the whole group many inherent approaches had been taken for developing job satisfaction. I used practical strategies for developing motivation and increasing the knowledge of my colleagues which will help to carry out new approaches. |
| Creating short term wins | Team level agents are responsible for creating opportunities to measure the performance. According to Kotter there is lots of importance of celebrating achievements and individual’s work should be recognized and that will help to gain their support for the change process. And for this purpose every week I hold sessions to get feedback and successful ones were given appraisal (Rosenbaum et al.,2018). |
| Build on the change | Legitimate power was used for creating the change and making sure that repercussions for not complying was in the lead position of every employee’s mind. |
| Institutionalization of the change | Through a shift in the mindset of the employees the change was embedded in the company’s culture. |
Conclusion and recommendations
In conclusion it can be said that the company has approached change in the way they have conducted their business (Carman et al.,2019). Kotter’s model and the SMART model as the recommendations have helped the change to be embedded in the culture of the company. And I believe my performance through the whole process was somewhat above the average . Also before leaving a recommendation critical analysis is very important. And overall it can be said that change is the inevitable element that every organization has to face. Early recognition of the change helps to adopt a proactive approach which can separate the great organizations from the good ones (Nandin et al.,2022).
| Specific | It is very usual for an employee to underestimate the use of communication for implementation of change and hence using multi channels of media like videos, email, face to face meeting will improve and clear the vision. |
| Measurable | Measuring the satisfaction of employees indicates if they are happy with the vision and the change process. And if the satisfaction rate is over 75% then they are focusing on the change process (Ileri and Arik,2018). |
| Achievable | For determining satisfaction, using surveys that are already established and changing them to see if employees have clear ideas about the vision. Videos and emails fit with the culture of the company. |
| Relevant | The success rate of the change process is related to the satisfaction levels of the employees. Communication about the vision is also very crucial for the change process. |
| Time bound | The time will start with consideration of vision’s creation so that employees have clear ideas about the strategies. |
References
Shelygov, A.V., Sharonin, P.N. and Todorova, T.N., 2019. The principles of change management in a modern company. Экономика и предпринимательство, (6), pp.573-578.
Baharudin, I.S., Abdullah, B., Salleh, N.M. and Shariffudin, P., 2020, April. A case study on change management readiness for an oil & Gas SME Company in Malaysia. In IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering (Vol. 834, No. 1, p. 012048). IOP Publishing.
Rosenbaum, D., More, E. and Steane, P., 2018. Planned organisational change management: Forward to the past? An exploratory literature review. Journal of Organizational Change Management.
Ileri, Y.Y. and Arik, O., 2018. Investigation of Resistance, Perception and Attitudes of Employees against Change in Information Systems Using Change Management Approach: A Study in a University Hospital. Journal of Information & Knowledge Management, 17(04), p.1850038.
Nandini, S.S., Varadharajan, R., Kumar, S.K. and Krishnaraj, L., 2022. Effective Ways to Handle the Change Management for Cost in Various Types of Contracts. In Advances in Construction Management (pp. 501-511). Springer, Singapore.
Bassyouni, M., 2021. Contracts and Contracting Styles: Existing and Future Types. In Innovative and Agile Contracting for Digital Transformation and Industry 4.0 (pp. 18-39). IGI Global.
Carman, A.L., Vanderpool, R.C., Stradtman, L.R. and Edmiston, E.A., 2019. Peer Reviewed: A Change-Management Approach to Closing Care Gaps in a Federally Qualified Health Center: A Rural Kentucky Case Study. Preventing chronic disease, 16.
Cone, C. and Unni, E., 2020. Achieving consensus using a modified Delphi Technique embedded in Lewin’s change management model designed to improve faculty satisfaction in a pharmacy school. Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy, 16(12), pp.1711-1717.
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