Change Management
Abstract
In the modern business environment, an organization is expected to make several adjustments to either comply with the changes in the market or be in line with the governmental regulations. In most of the cases, a business has to introduce changes to remain competitive in the market. Since climatic change and global warming is a reality, customers are becoming more and more lenient to companies that apply smart strategies in their production systems. This article attempts to look at the various aspects of change management from the CEO’s perspective. The CEO is trying to initiate change on how the production systems ought to be designed. The suggestion is that the production of goods needs to be sensitive to the environmental preservation strategies. The CEO drafts a mission, vision, and an accompanying strategy for achieving the same. At the end, the entire strategy is assessed to establish whether the mission and vision was achieved.
Change Management
Part 1: Setting the Strategy
When an organization is facing a challenge, the senior manager has to initiate processes and procedures that would ensure changes are introduced to turn around the fortunes of the organization. The CEO is at the center stage of every change process because he or she is responsible for any action that an organization takes. For there to be effective changes to the ways in which things are done in the company, the support of the CEO is critical and this explains why this role was chosen. The vision is to create a business environment within the organization that is full of connection, prosperity, and sensitive to the environment. The mission is to catalyze and transform growth of the organization from a small size enterprise to medium size-enterprise through passion, integrity, and consideration of the environment.
To achieve the vision and mission, at least three strategies would be adopted. First, the organization will have to employ the best technology in the market given the fact that those companies applying latest technologies have been able to achieve their core values, vision, and mission. This is because skill development is critical to the growth of any organization. The developments, such as cloud computing and software application have transformed the ways in which companies approach their activities in the market. Therefore, the first step towards achieving the intended mission and vision would be training staff on the best technology to be applied. The second strategy would be starting incorporating the efforts and ideas of various employees in the project long before it starts.
Employees must understand that many clients and customers are wary of environmental degradation, and tend to support organizations that are sensitive to climatic change. Change will always have a tremendous impact on the daily operations of employees. For this reason, it has to be introduced as early as possible. By doing this, it would be possible for the change agent to deal with any form of resistance before it affects the implementation process. The final strategy would be creating and maintaining a culture among employees, which is supportive of change. Studies indicate that change is always tough on the morale and culture of many companies in the sense that it brings about confusion in all levels. It is likely to cause unnecessary chaos, fear, conflict, and finally resistance. Organizational culture, on the other hand, cannot be established without the support of the top executive, especially the CEO.
SWOT analysis, which entails looking at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, is an effective tool for assessing whether the set mission and vision is likely to succeed. Looking at the current situation, the only strength is that the top management is in support of the project aimed at preserving the environment. Employees would not have any problem supporting the CEO in designing products and following procedures that are environmentally sensitive. The only weakness is that the management would have to incur expenses in training employees on the best practices that are likely to preserve the environment. At this point, the senior manager would have to convince the rest of the executive members to support the project since he does not have express authority to incur expenditure without seeking the approval of other senior managers. The project is likely to encounter some challenges, especially when some of the top executives view it as a direct threat to their roles. For instance, the finance director would see it as a waste of resources because the organization would be forced to use part of its profits.
The opportunity presenting itself, as far as the project is concerned, is that the entire world, including customers and clients, has softer spots for organizations and groups that support environmental preservation. The CEO is likely to receive overwhelming support from members of the public who are aware of the challenges of climate change. The real threat to the project is the board of directors and other stakeholders, such as supplies who would most likely question the decision of the CEO to introduce processes that aim at preserving the environment. The board of directors/owners would demand that the CEO digs deeper to find additional resources to implement the project other than eating into the existing profits. On their part, suppliers would prefer working with other organizations rather than adjusting their production systems to suit the new company rules and regulations (Little, 2014).
Part 2: Executing the Strategy
The views, desires, and wishes of different stakeholders had an overwhelming impact on the decision. Without consultation, a project aiming at changing the production procedures cannot succeed. Again, the new demands by the company’s board to generate adequate profits using the same resources influenced the decision to introduce new changes in the production systems. While it might be expensive to initiate, the new project would have long-term benefits because the market in the modern world favors environmentally friendly products. Again, the regulatory agencies are becoming stricter on companies that are hesitant to observe environmental regulations. For this reason, it was better to introduce new systems to save the organization from incurring unnecessary expenditure in form of fines and penalties.
The project manager had to make quite a number of adjustments to the strategy. First, the board of directors, together with the top executive, does not support the idea of using company resources to fund projects that do not generate profits. For this reason, the project leader had to find alternatives for raising the required capital to fund the project. One such alternative was liaising with the junior employees to accept the project and own it. This played a critical role in ensuring it is implemented fully, as most of them were reluctant to request for additional funding.
In terms of success, the project achieved a lot in the sense that production was redesigned to be in line with the new regulations, which are more lenient to the environment. The organization is better placed in the market because it is associated with greener products. Another success is that the most important stakeholder, employees, was in full support of the project. However, there were a number of failures, one being lack of funding. The products were only readjusted to certain extent because the company failed to mobilize adequate resources to implement the project fully. Again, the project team encountered a serious problem trying to convince suppliers and producers to adopt the new policy that is sensitive to the environment. Most of them would not buy into the idea because it would have interfered with their profit making strategy.
Adapting to the new changes was not easy task. It involved bringing various stakeholders together and explaining to them what it means to implement the project. For those supporting it, they were requested to put in more effort without expecting additional funding while those opposing it were requested to be tolerant and work with those supporting it because the outcome would be good for the company. The criteria utilized in making adjustments was more open in the sense that the CEO would bring together various teams and inform them of the new procedure of doing things in the company (Anderson, 2013). While it was problematic to a number of individuals, most of the stakeholders supported the criteria for communication.
Part 3: Analyzing Strategy
The process of initiating change is not easy because it entails communicating constantly with all stakeholders. A number of projects do not succeed because those in charge fail to communicate to their subjects adequately. About strategy, the project leader has to understand that changing strategies along the way is important. When the current one is not working, the project leader has to think of a backup option. About leadership, the project manager has to understand that leadership forms the core of any project. The leader has to employ the available resources rather than waiting to be allocated additional capital to implement a project. The various forms of leadership are always at play throughout the process of strategy formation and implementation. However, the power to convince the subjects to follow the leader makes a big difference between project success and failure.
Availability of data is critical to the decision-making process. For instance, convincing other people to embrace the project is impossible without facts. The project leader has the responsibility of going through the available data before convincing other people that the project is implementable. Improvement of performance would have been made possible if the project leader was given more time and resources. From this project, it is evident that most of the projects fail to achieve their mission and vision mainly because of lacking resources. Based on this experience, it is concluded that introduction of change in any organization is not easy. First, even the ones trusted to support the project would definitely go against it. Therefore, communicating the intentions and the purpose of the project in advance is the first step towards winning the hearts of the majority. This means nothing should be left to chance given the fact that even friends are likely to oppose the project.
References
Anderson, J. (2013). The Lean Change Method: Managing Agile Organizational Transformation Using Kanban, Kotter, and Lean Startup Thinking. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Little, J. (2014). Lean Change Management: Innovative Practices For Managing Organizational Change. Happy Melly Express.
