Task: 1 Develop systems to involve stakeholders in the
planning of change and develop a change management strategy with stakeholders.
Evaluate the systems used to involve stakeholders in the planning of change and
create a strategy for managing resistance to change. Develop appropriate models
for change and plan to implement a model for change and develop appropriate
measures to monitor progress.
3.1. Develop systems to involve stakeholders in the planning of change
Stakeholders of business require being involved in planning strategic change. The degree of involvement of every type of stakeholder in the planning of the change is dependent on a range of factors like their importance, their influence, and the amount to which changes is going to influence them.
The degree of involvement of every type of stakeholder in the planning of the change is finest explained by referring to the following graph.
3.1. Develop systems to involve stakeholders in the planning of change
Stakeholders of business require being involved in planning strategic change. The degree of involvement of every type of stakeholder in the planning of the change is dependent on a range of factors like their importance, their influence, and the amount to which changes is going to influence them.
The degree of involvement of every type of stakeholder in the planning of the change is finest explained by referring to the following graph.
Figure 1: Different stages of stakeholder involvement in change processes
Change Management Tool book (2010)
On the base of graph above, managers and employees as the major internal stakeholders at corporation require to be involved in change planning process to the degree of ‘co-creating’.
The amount of involvement of company’s major outside stakeholders – customers, on the other hand has to be narrow to ‘testing’, whereas the company’s shareholders and suppliers need to be drawn in in the planning of change to the degree of ‘selling’
Furthermore, “decision – makers may mandate market research institutes or commission market surveys so as to early recognize emergent stakeholder groups and their claims to replicate their viewpoints concerning the change initiatives.” (Zimmermann, 2011)
3.2. Develop a change management strategy with stakeholders
Business’s change management strategy with stakeholders first and foremost depends on the height of power of each stakeholder group, as well as, the height of their attention on the change proposal. As a common rule, Company is recommended to compact with its stakeholders on the basis of the subsequent figure as it has been recommended by Murphy and Willmot (2010):
Figure 2: Power/interest grid - dealing with stakeholders
Source: Murphy and Willmot (2010).
According to the figure on top of, Business’s stakeholders with high influence and high point of interest such as shareholders and employees require be closely managed in relative to change initiatives. High degree of power and low height of interest stakeholders, like customers, on the other hand, require to be kept happy by the company management.
One more stakeholder group that has low power but high degree of interest, such as suppliers requires to be kept up to date about the development of change initiatives through different communication channels. The kind of stakeholders that have low height of power and low interest in changes inside Boots, such as common public require to be monitored with minimum hard work and resources.
3.3. Evaluate the systems used to involve stakeholders in the planning of change
The planned system for Company to involve stakeholders in change planning (Figure 1) represents a competent method for developing an efficient change plan and contributes to its effective implementation. The system proposes the participation of managers and employees in change planning procedure to the degree of ‘co-creating’ that involves engaging in in-depth conversation and developing joint scenario examination. The rationale behind such a great concentration to employee viewpoints relates to close acquaintance of this particular type of stakeholders with organizational issues.
The amount of involvement of Business’s major external stakeholders – customers, on the other hand is determined to be limited to ‘testing’ that involves pilot interventions ,simulations, and testing, because customers advance the issue from a narrow point of view i.e. they anticipate greater value with no considerations to resources requisite (Pride et al, 2009).
The planned system for Company states that company shareholders require to be drawn in in the planning of change to the extent of ‘selling’, i.e. they require to be educated about change proposals through a variety of communication channels.
3.4. Create a strategy for managing resistance to change
It is crucially significant for companies to overcome organizational resistance as well as individual to changes if the company intends accomplish and maintain flexibility. Though, the issue is complex by the fact that “dealing with employee confrontation to change is challenging because the confrontation isn’t necessarily based on rational factors” (Dessler and Philips, 2008).
Senior (2002) agrees with this statement and classifies individual responses to unidentified situations changes might be linked with into five groups that are:
a) Rigidity,
b) Doing more of the same but harder,
c) Greater inadequacy,
d) Aggression, and
e) Aggressive rigidity.
Kotter and Schlesinger suggest Six Change Approaches that companies can utilize to overcome confrontation to changes management initiate:
First, communication and education: Employees require to be educated and information require to be communicated to them regarding why the change is essential and which positions and what business processes within organization the change is going to influence.
Second, involvement and participation: It is very essential for employees to sense participation and attachment in all stages of the change plan in order for the plan to be victorious.
Third, support and facilitation: Employees affected by change in any ways should be assisted with the new ways of performing their tasks, focusing on those employees who are resisting the change.
Fourth, agreement and negotiation: Employees negatively affected as a consequence of change should be negotiated with and incentives might be presented to them in some forms in order to compensate them, thus overcoming their confrontation.
Fifth, co-option and manipulation: Opinion leaders amongst change resisters should be approached and presented symbolic roles in decision making connected to the change plan and at the same time it should be ensured that they do not influence negatively the change project. Nevertheless, this strategy is hard to implement due to the reality that it may establish challenging to recognize leaders of resisters, and find appropriate roles for them.
Sixth, implicit coercion and explicit: As last resort, managers can overcome confrontation to change by forcing employees to agree to the change or implementing such dramatic actions as terminating their employment.
4.1. Develop appropriate models for change
“Since the surroundings are dynamic, it is essential for the organization to change itself to make it compatible”. (Pathak, 2011)
Taking into account particular organizational characteristics related with the business and on the basis of well-liked strategic change management models, an affective model for change is planned specially for Company that consists of the following seven stages:
Searching for opportunities to gain competitive advantage
Developing an initial change plan
Obtaining stakeholder viewpoint on the issue
Revising the change plan according to stakeholder viewpoint
Preparing employees for the planned change
Implementing the change initiative
Ensuring the continuity of the change
Lewin’s model of change
There are numerous factors which pressure the organization to change. These can be economic, cultural, internal and external factors.
According to Lewin’s Model of change, for the organization to implement a change it needs to follow the below-mentioned steps:
1. Unfreeze
This phase is about preparing for the change and is considered to be very significant and important as it gives the understanding for the requirement to change.
The more the business feels that change is desirable, the more quickly it may adopt the change.
2. Change
Lewin called this phase as a process and claimed it to be the hardest of all as people are not conscious of the consequences of change or it may appear to be something new or fearful to them.
3. Refreeze
Being the last phase, refreezing ensures that once change has been functional, it should be frozen once more. However, the change should be supposed as a standard and norm for the organization before it is frozen.
4.2. Plan to implement a model for change
Following plan should be followed to implement a model for change: -
Firstly, awareness of the requirement to the change should be raised among workers. This can be achieved through serious communication with the workforce and providing comprehensive information about which business processes require to be changed and why.
Secondly, desire among the workers to participate and hold up the change should be increased. Again this can be achieved through serious communication and telling the benefits of the change to the organization in general and to each member of the workers in particular.
Thirdly, employees should be integrated in decision-making processes linked to change. In other words, their viewpoints about proposed change should be taken into account and alterations to the plan should be adopted wherever essential according to the feedback from workers.
Fourthly, changes require to be implemented on a day-to-day basis, implication that evolutionary approach is better in some occasions rather than revolutionary in terms of change. However this stage of the advice is mainly general and many factors should be taken into account like internal and external circumstances, nature and scale of the change etc.
Fifthly, reinforcements should be made in order to maintain the change in place. In other words, one time the change is introduced totally there should be zero tolerance within the organization to the old ways of doing things.
4.3. Develop appropriate measures to monitor Progress
In relation to the implementation of change initiatives it has been acknowledged that “management should recognize operational and administrative reforms that can be easily and objectively calculated and keep these goals visible to staff” (McLinden et al, 2010, p.198).
So, there is a set of specific measures developed for Company that can be utilized to monitor the degree of implementation of change initiatives. These actions can be summarized into the following points:
Preparing usual reports on the state of implementation of change initiative;
Developing a checkpoint system related with the achievement of each individual stage of the change proposal;
Conducting surveys relating various organizational stakeholders.
Normally, the following recommendations can be made to company strategic level management in terms of ensuring log-term growth of the company through dealing with organizational change:
Being proactive, rather than reactive in dealing with organizational change
Adopting regular changes of various business processes as a cornerstone of the corporate strategy
Developing a type of culture within the organization that embraces change
References
1. Zimmermann, Nicole. Dynamics of drivers of organizational change. Gabler, 2011.
2. Karataş‐Özkan, Mine, and William D. Murphy. "Critical theorist, postmodernist and social constructionist paradigms in organizational analysis: A paradigmatic review of organizational learning literature." International Journal of Management Reviews 12, no. 4 (2010): 453-465.
3. Dessler, G & Phillips, J, 2008, Managing Now, Cengage Learning
4. Todnem By, Rune. "Organisational change management: A critical review." Journal of Change Management 5, no. 4 (2005): 369-380.
5. Pathak, H. (2011) “Organisational Change” Pearson Education India
6. Senior, B & Fleming, J, 2006, Organisational Change, Prentice Hall
7. Boonstra, JJ, 2004, Dynamics of Organisational Learning and Change, Prentice Hall
http://research-methodology.net/systems-to-involve-stakeholders-in-the-planning-of-change/
http://research-methodology.net/implications-of-individual-resistance-to-change/
http://research-methodology.net/progress-monitoring-for-implementation-of-change/
http://research-methodology.net/lewins-model-of-change/
http://research-methodology.net/appropriate-model-for-change-for-a-company/
Change Management Tool book (2010)
On the base of graph above, managers and employees as the major internal stakeholders at corporation require to be involved in change planning process to the degree of ‘co-creating’.
The amount of involvement of company’s major outside stakeholders – customers, on the other hand has to be narrow to ‘testing’, whereas the company’s shareholders and suppliers need to be drawn in in the planning of change to the degree of ‘selling’
Furthermore, “decision – makers may mandate market research institutes or commission market surveys so as to early recognize emergent stakeholder groups and their claims to replicate their viewpoints concerning the change initiatives.” (Zimmermann, 2011)
3.2. Develop a change management strategy with stakeholders
Business’s change management strategy with stakeholders first and foremost depends on the height of power of each stakeholder group, as well as, the height of their attention on the change proposal. As a common rule, Company is recommended to compact with its stakeholders on the basis of the subsequent figure as it has been recommended by Murphy and Willmot (2010):
Figure 2: Power/interest grid - dealing with stakeholders
Source: Murphy and Willmot (2010).
According to the figure on top of, Business’s stakeholders with high influence and high point of interest such as shareholders and employees require be closely managed in relative to change initiatives. High degree of power and low height of interest stakeholders, like customers, on the other hand, require to be kept happy by the company management.
One more stakeholder group that has low power but high degree of interest, such as suppliers requires to be kept up to date about the development of change initiatives through different communication channels. The kind of stakeholders that have low height of power and low interest in changes inside Boots, such as common public require to be monitored with minimum hard work and resources.
3.3. Evaluate the systems used to involve stakeholders in the planning of change
The planned system for Company to involve stakeholders in change planning (Figure 1) represents a competent method for developing an efficient change plan and contributes to its effective implementation. The system proposes the participation of managers and employees in change planning procedure to the degree of ‘co-creating’ that involves engaging in in-depth conversation and developing joint scenario examination. The rationale behind such a great concentration to employee viewpoints relates to close acquaintance of this particular type of stakeholders with organizational issues.
The amount of involvement of Business’s major external stakeholders – customers, on the other hand is determined to be limited to ‘testing’ that involves pilot interventions ,simulations, and testing, because customers advance the issue from a narrow point of view i.e. they anticipate greater value with no considerations to resources requisite (Pride et al, 2009).
The planned system for Company states that company shareholders require to be drawn in in the planning of change to the extent of ‘selling’, i.e. they require to be educated about change proposals through a variety of communication channels.
3.4. Create a strategy for managing resistance to change
It is crucially significant for companies to overcome organizational resistance as well as individual to changes if the company intends accomplish and maintain flexibility. Though, the issue is complex by the fact that “dealing with employee confrontation to change is challenging because the confrontation isn’t necessarily based on rational factors” (Dessler and Philips, 2008).
Senior (2002) agrees with this statement and classifies individual responses to unidentified situations changes might be linked with into five groups that are:
a) Rigidity,
b) Doing more of the same but harder,
c) Greater inadequacy,
d) Aggression, and
e) Aggressive rigidity.
Kotter and Schlesinger suggest Six Change Approaches that companies can utilize to overcome confrontation to changes management initiate:
First, communication and education: Employees require to be educated and information require to be communicated to them regarding why the change is essential and which positions and what business processes within organization the change is going to influence.
Second, involvement and participation: It is very essential for employees to sense participation and attachment in all stages of the change plan in order for the plan to be victorious.
Third, support and facilitation: Employees affected by change in any ways should be assisted with the new ways of performing their tasks, focusing on those employees who are resisting the change.
Fourth, agreement and negotiation: Employees negatively affected as a consequence of change should be negotiated with and incentives might be presented to them in some forms in order to compensate them, thus overcoming their confrontation.
Fifth, co-option and manipulation: Opinion leaders amongst change resisters should be approached and presented symbolic roles in decision making connected to the change plan and at the same time it should be ensured that they do not influence negatively the change project. Nevertheless, this strategy is hard to implement due to the reality that it may establish challenging to recognize leaders of resisters, and find appropriate roles for them.
Sixth, implicit coercion and explicit: As last resort, managers can overcome confrontation to change by forcing employees to agree to the change or implementing such dramatic actions as terminating their employment.
4.1. Develop appropriate models for change
“Since the surroundings are dynamic, it is essential for the organization to change itself to make it compatible”. (Pathak, 2011)
Taking into account particular organizational characteristics related with the business and on the basis of well-liked strategic change management models, an affective model for change is planned specially for Company that consists of the following seven stages:
Searching for opportunities to gain competitive advantage
Developing an initial change plan
Obtaining stakeholder viewpoint on the issue
Revising the change plan according to stakeholder viewpoint
Preparing employees for the planned change
Implementing the change initiative
Ensuring the continuity of the change
Lewin’s model of change
There are numerous factors which pressure the organization to change. These can be economic, cultural, internal and external factors.
According to Lewin’s Model of change, for the organization to implement a change it needs to follow the below-mentioned steps:
1. Unfreeze
This phase is about preparing for the change and is considered to be very significant and important as it gives the understanding for the requirement to change.
The more the business feels that change is desirable, the more quickly it may adopt the change.
2. Change
Lewin called this phase as a process and claimed it to be the hardest of all as people are not conscious of the consequences of change or it may appear to be something new or fearful to them.
3. Refreeze
Being the last phase, refreezing ensures that once change has been functional, it should be frozen once more. However, the change should be supposed as a standard and norm for the organization before it is frozen.
4.2. Plan to implement a model for change
Following plan should be followed to implement a model for change: -
Firstly, awareness of the requirement to the change should be raised among workers. This can be achieved through serious communication with the workforce and providing comprehensive information about which business processes require to be changed and why.
Secondly, desire among the workers to participate and hold up the change should be increased. Again this can be achieved through serious communication and telling the benefits of the change to the organization in general and to each member of the workers in particular.
Thirdly, employees should be integrated in decision-making processes linked to change. In other words, their viewpoints about proposed change should be taken into account and alterations to the plan should be adopted wherever essential according to the feedback from workers.
Fourthly, changes require to be implemented on a day-to-day basis, implication that evolutionary approach is better in some occasions rather than revolutionary in terms of change. However this stage of the advice is mainly general and many factors should be taken into account like internal and external circumstances, nature and scale of the change etc.
Fifthly, reinforcements should be made in order to maintain the change in place. In other words, one time the change is introduced totally there should be zero tolerance within the organization to the old ways of doing things.
4.3. Develop appropriate measures to monitor Progress
In relation to the implementation of change initiatives it has been acknowledged that “management should recognize operational and administrative reforms that can be easily and objectively calculated and keep these goals visible to staff” (McLinden et al, 2010, p.198).
So, there is a set of specific measures developed for Company that can be utilized to monitor the degree of implementation of change initiatives. These actions can be summarized into the following points:
Preparing usual reports on the state of implementation of change initiative;
Developing a checkpoint system related with the achievement of each individual stage of the change proposal;
Conducting surveys relating various organizational stakeholders.
Normally, the following recommendations can be made to company strategic level management in terms of ensuring log-term growth of the company through dealing with organizational change:
Being proactive, rather than reactive in dealing with organizational change
Adopting regular changes of various business processes as a cornerstone of the corporate strategy
Developing a type of culture within the organization that embraces change
References
1. Zimmermann, Nicole. Dynamics of drivers of organizational change. Gabler, 2011.
2. Karataş‐Özkan, Mine, and William D. Murphy. "Critical theorist, postmodernist and social constructionist paradigms in organizational analysis: A paradigmatic review of organizational learning literature." International Journal of Management Reviews 12, no. 4 (2010): 453-465.
3. Dessler, G & Phillips, J, 2008, Managing Now, Cengage Learning
4. Todnem By, Rune. "Organisational change management: A critical review." Journal of Change Management 5, no. 4 (2005): 369-380.
5. Pathak, H. (2011) “Organisational Change” Pearson Education India
6. Senior, B & Fleming, J, 2006, Organisational Change, Prentice Hall
7. Boonstra, JJ, 2004, Dynamics of Organisational Learning and Change, Prentice Hall
http://research-methodology.net/systems-to-involve-stakeholders-in-the-planning-of-change/
http://research-methodology.net/implications-of-individual-resistance-to-change/
http://research-methodology.net/progress-monitoring-for-implementation-of-change/
http://research-methodology.net/lewins-model-of-change/
http://research-methodology.net/appropriate-model-for-change-for-a-company/