MBA613 Organisational Change and Innovation : Lewin’s change managemen

You will analyse your experience in this report. During this subject so far, you have been exposed to various theories about innovation and change management. Being able to apply these concepts in a practical manner is a key outcome of this course.  

Section 2: Analyse your success or failure based on the literature discussed during the lectures. Have you applied your change management plan? Why/Why not? Integrate recent research and “best practice” (1000 words) 

Section 5: (This section is individual – each team member will give one example) Spectrum Sunglasses Simulation had a change “Situation”, Your team took some “Actions”, used some “Levers” and “Learned” some new knowledge. Give an example from your workplace where the management applied these steps in a change situation. Explain the situation, actions taken, levers applied and what have you learned. (Do not exceed half page per person)

Answer:

Section 2:

Success or failure due to the application of change management plan, and the cause while integrating the research and “best practice”

The change management procedure should have a strategic execution procedure to meet its goal by achieving the pre determined objectives. However selecting the most useful strategic plan became one of the major issues at the very beginning of the change management and implementation procedure for the research and development department of Spectrum Sunglass Company. The provided timeframe is very restricted and rigid, so that the change management implementation plan has to consider the urgent modification of current workflow while satisfying the employees need and handling the ambiguities.  For direct communication with the ground level employee, the leaders of planning, designing and prototype building are responsible (Cameron and Green 2015). The main goal of this resource allocation is keeping intact the operation integrity while encouraging and motivating the employees towards the change.

Being the director of research and development team, it is essential to analyse the current situation and work handling procedure. It allows finding out the most suitable change management policy for Spectrum Sunglass Company. Therefore at the very beginning the force for the change, against the change and the balancing parameters have to be analyse with the help of force field analysis. As per the case scenario the research and development team has only 2 years to prove the proposed policy right while using 75% of their work activities regularly. As per the force field analysis the existing force are mainly subdivided into three sections namely eliminating 25% of waste, reducing greenhouse gas emission by 15% and developing new product based on entirely environment friendly materials (Kazmi and Naarananoja 2013). However, the forces against these changes are very strong as well. These strengths are lack of expertise, viscous thoughts of workforce for traditional work process, Mutual disagreement, lack of confidence, poor alliances and other. Apparently, the resistance forces are higher than the changing forces that cause a overall poor change management and low level of implementation.

                                                                                               Figure1: Force Field analysis

                                                                                                  Source: (Hayes 2018)

Unfortunately, the forces against the changes are greater in number that is generating larger amount of force and resistance against the changes. In existing change management plan the director of research and development department implemented Lewin’s change management model that follows the three stages of change management and implementation. This implemented strategy has three basic parts namely unfreeze, change and freeze. In the unfreeze section the rigidity of workforce has to be normalised which is also called unfreezing strategy. However, in this current situation most of the employees of research and development department are unable to interpret the vision of this change. They are consistently arguing and denying to accept new module of research and development procedure. According to the last conducted feedback report more than 76% of employee are against this changes where only 10% think that the change can bring profitable result (Bratton and Gold 2017). Other employees are completely unaware about why the management has been decided to make this change and how he change will be implemented and what are the basic benefits and advanced outcomes.

                                                                               Figure 2: Lewin’s change management Model

                                                                                                    Source: (Shirey 2013) 

The current implementation strategy is following the best practice approach to incorporate the change methods within the organisational work planning. The HRM department of Spectrum Sunglass company are involved in the strategic implementation plan of the change management. However, they had two option to implement these changes namely best fit approach and best practices approach. Best fit approach emphasise more the computability based implementation plan however, the best practice refers more accurate and idealistic implementation. After analysing the existing rigid state of workflow and the encountered disagreement the HRM proposed the Best practice approach as the most suitable approach plan for unfreezing the current workforce conceptions. More than 63% of viscous state in change management situation has been solved by best practice approach in this operational industry (Alexander 2013). Therefore, in accordance with the success report the training, development and encouragement programs were planed keeping the best practice approach in mind. However, it is clear that the existing workforce formation and their perception is too rigid to accept the unfreeze procedure. In this case the implementation phase is delaying that can hinder forecasted timeline for this change management procedure.

From the very beginning of this change management procedure the unfreeze and implementation of change have been overlapped for the department of research and development of Spectrum Sunglass Company due to lack of time and high responsibility to retain the current productivity level. Therefore the potential timeframe for refreeze stage has been extended significantly. Apart from that the best practice approach is causing additional dilemma in the operational acceptance expectation of the operational workforce of research and development department.

From the above discussion it is clear that the current incorporation of Best practice approach has not been proven as the most applicable and efficient procedure, Therefore the current goal of the management and controlling should be making the employees concerned about the organisational vision as well as the purpose of this change and its potential benefits (Samuel 2013). On the other hand, in spite of the Lewin’s change model the existing departmental structure needs more detailed implementation strategy like Kotter’s change management model. Through this model, the director can have more insight while having more opportunity to motivating the employees.

Section 5:

Explanation of the situation, example of action taken, levers applied and the leanings from that

According to the existing situation analysis of Spectrum Sunglass Company, it is clear that the current incorporation of Best practice approach is not the most applicable and efficient procedure, Therefore the current goal of the management and controlling should be making the employees concerned about the organisational vision as well as the purpose of this change and its potential benefits. It can be also stated that, the existing workforce formation and their perception is too rigid to accept the unfreeze procedure. In this case the implementation phase is delaying that can hinder forecasted timeline for this change management procedure.

In order to make some effective changes Some specific actions have been taken including changing the management approach, the change management model and many others. The existing departmental structure needs more detailed implementation strategy like Kotter’s change management model in spite of the Lewin’s change model (Doppelt 2017). The recently incorporated action plan  has been made considering this regulatory factors.

The levers of this action are Korter’s change management and Best fit approach. Through Kotter’s change management model the implementation plan can prioritise the opinions of the employee rather than enforcing the systematic regulation. This procedure also allows the HRM to incorporate the Best-fit approach in spite of the Best practice approach. Through best-fit approach the management can motivate the employees by solving their problems and reducing their misconception about new changes.

Throughout the strategic implementation of predetermined change model and incorporating required changes, it has been learned that there are certainly some exceptions in management plan report of industrial analysis. Apart from that it can be also said that in order to implement a change management identification of employees needs and misconception as well as resolving them is more important.

Reference:

Alexander, K. ed., 2013. Facilities management: theory and practice. Routledge.

Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.

Cameron, E. and Green, M., 2015. Making sense of change management: A complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.

Doppelt, B., 2017. Leading change toward sustainability: A change-management guide for business, government and civil society. Routledge.

Hayes, J., 2018. The theory and practice of change management.

Kazmi, S.A.Z. and Naarananoja, M., 2013, January. Comparative approaches of key change management models-a fine assortment to pick from as per situational needs!. In International Conference on Business Strategy and Organizational Behaviour (BizStrategy). Proceedings (p. 217). Global Science and Technology Forum.

Samuel, K., 2013. The effects of change management in an organisation: A case study of National University of Rwanda (Nur). Wyno Journal of Management & Business Studies, 1(1), pp.1-18.

Shirey, M.R., 2013. Lewin’s theory of planned change as a strategic resource. Journal of Nursing Administration, 43(2), pp.69-72.