Achieving organizational change is one of the greatest challenges for any business leaders. Maintaining a successful organization takes time, effort, and determination. Once an organization achieves success, sustaining the success becomes a moving force.
Crys Tel telecommunications, the company used in the Simulation needs to create a change management plan to keep up with the constant changes to compete with other telecommunication industry. This paper will attempt to cover the major implications of the change at Crys Tel, including any human behavior involvement; select a suitable change model for Crys Tel telecommunications. Components of the plan will tackle human characteristics and possible resistances to change to include contingency approaches for dealing with any resistance. Next, implement the right leadership style will be successful at Crys Tel telecommunications. Implement an administration and leadership practice that will add to the continuing accomplishment of the change and propose measures to monitor the progress of the change at Crys Tel. Last, evaluate three future leadership challenges that Crys Tel may face in the next five to ten years.
According to the employee satisfaction and climate survey, the marketing department at Crys Tel telecommunication is facing employee and senior communication issues; does not provide mentoring activities to train less experienced employees who were affecting the company performance. The Sales and Delivery department does not follow a participative leadership style; does not have a history of taking risks, and does not proactively resolve conflicts. To influence change and improve performance, senior executive must find activities that will help these departments transform their weaknesses into strengths (University of Phoenix, 2010). A successful organization requires management dedication, and implementation plan, and buy-in from all employees (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2003). These changes include encouraging team members to make decisions, assign mentors, encouraging ongoing communication and develop a conflict resolution system to address team dynamics.
Understanding the potential implications of change within an organization is essential to managing any change proposal. While bringing about important changes in any organization entail a diligent effort on all the liable parties involved. The greatest barrier to change is resistant to change; dealing with and managing this resistance is the key to successfully implementing the change proposal. Anytime a change is encourage within a company and employees are reassign, promoted, or reassigned, cultural, and group dynamics alter are thrown into disequilibrium (Krietner & Kinicki, 2003). Unintended cultural shifts within the organization should be used to strengthen the individual commitment to change.
The most significant approach for Crys Tel to implement in managing resistance to change is to diminish and remove any forces of change. Communicating change entails promoting the benefits of the proposal to the employees within the organization. In an article titled “Managing resistance to change,” Philip Atkinson addressed handling objections through persuasive communication: Selecting a model for change Crys Tel Communication had the task of implementing change within the company to enhance contribution, encourage innovation, and improve communication within and between their departments.
CrysTel telecommunication understands to remain competitive; the company must understand and be ready to respond to forces of change. “Organizations come across many diverse forces of change and these forces come from outside sources the organization and from inside sources” (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2003, p. 673). Change is an ongoing factor for all companies. With rapid and frequent advances in the telecommunications industry, Crys Tel is likely to face technological changes regularly (University of Phoenix, 2010). “Forces of change can come from either internal sources such as human resource problems or managerial behavior and decisions or external sources such as demographic characteristics, technology advancements, market changes and social and political pressures” (Kretiner & Kinicki, 2003, p. 674-675). Crys Tel has to deal with internal and external forces.
Crys Tel telecommunication is preparing to launch a combination of emerging telecommunications technologies to increase its products contributions to keep up with the changing demands of the market. Technological progress is made quickly in the telecommunications industry and Crys Tel has to stay focus on the forces of changes but also look at the target elements of change. “Target elements of change represent components of an organization that may be changed; change can be directed at realigning arrangements, social factors, methods, goals, and people” (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2003, p. 680).
CrysTel telecommunication is in the course of restructuring their departments so they will be in a better position to support their company so they will be able to increase company’s current spot in the telecommunication industry. Recent employee satisfaction and climate surveys were used to identify target elements of change. The sales and delivery and marketing department face logistical and internal challenges that could have a negative outcome on the organization. These surveys revealed that Crys Tel has a large risk of resistance to change in the Sales and Marketing departments and several target of elements of change were also identified. The behavior parameter that was identifying in the survey showed what areas the departments were strong in and what areas need improvement. This information will be used to change the weaknesses into strengths in the Marketing and Sales and Delivery departments.
Crys Tel is a telecommunication company that must keep up with the newest technological advances if they want to stay competitive and be able to make changes quickly. This means each department must be able to execute its function well individually and collectively as one organization. Crys Tel telecommunications should have a business philosophy that states that each department should be working together to work toward a common goal that will offer support for the individual departments and that each department has the necessary tools and information it needs to be successful. An appropriate change model for Crys Tel telecommunications would be the Lewin’s Change Model.
The Lewin’s Change model consists of a three-stage plan to initiate, manage, and stabilize the change process. The stages used in this model are unfreezing, changing, and refreezing (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2003, p. 677). The primary emphasis of the first stage is to create motivation to change by encouraging the individual to change old behaviors and mind-set with those preferred by management (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2003, p. 678). Benchmarking lets the company compare itself to other companies and study what techniques have worked best for them. Benchmarking is a technique that Crys Tel can used to accomplish this change. The employee and climate survey identified specific weaknesses in the sales and delivery and marketing departments was management, but the technology departments and human resources showed areas of major strengths. Crys Tel could benchmark the leadership practices of the stronger departments and use related techniques within the weaker departments to increase the needed changes.
The next stage in the model changing that involves learning, employees learn from new information given in a new way of looking at something. Using the benchmarking from stage one, would allow the employees to see directly how successful leaders operate within their own company and receive advice on a regular basis from their peers. This outlook will encourage the sales and delivery and marketing department’s leaders to learn the required concepts to maintain the change process, even when the team experiences resistance. The last stage of the Lewin’ Change Model is Refreezing. The change behavior and attitudes are incorporate during this stage and employees have the chance to exhibit the change behavior and attitudes that follow by positive reinforcement. Additional coaching and modeling can be used to reinforce the desire change (Kreitner-Kinicki, 2003, p. 679).
The Lewin’s Change Model is an outline of organizational development that the Crys Tel leadership has used to implement change. One of the techniques used was employee surveys. Another technique used was to initiate activities that would help the Marketing and Sales and Delivery departments change their weakness into strengths. “Organizational development constitutes a set of procedures or interventions used to implement organizational change” (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2003, 682). The plan should address human variables and possible resistance to change. Change is an issue for companies in all industries. Crys Tel telecommunications must accept change and develop contingency plans to handle resistance to change.
In an organization a number of changes with the leader and sometimes hurried by shareholders, clients or the needs and personality of the person in charge. Effective and ineffective methods to implementing change, depends on the organizational culture, leaders, and client base (Singel, 2005). Prior to managing resistance to change, Crys Tel telecommunications leadership must first identify why employees resist change. This information will give them a better understanding of why employees act the way they do and will help the leadership to work with individuals employees. A number of reasons people resist change is fear of the unknown or that something may go wrong.
Employees fear not being able to implement the change or take part in the change after implementation. Some employees do not see the need to change or may be comfortable and do not want to change.
Employees who resist change do not see how they will benefit from the change until it is put into practice. The approach used to manage resistance to change should be based on the organizational structure, culture, power structures, and politics found at Crys Tel telecommunications. Leaders can use different approaches to implement change; one is let the employees know how the change will work for them. Leadership should inform all employees the reason for the changes are being made. A thorough plan that explains to the employees is another strategy that can be used by Crys Tel telecommunication. Crys Tel telecommunication can also set up training to help the employees to learn and understand what is needed to implement the change and be able to ask questions concerning the change. Leadership should be open to suggestions and be available to assist the employees through the change process. Involvement by Crys Tel leadership could help motivate the employees to help with the change process instead of resisting.
Successfully selecting the appropriate leadership style that will have the greatest outcome on Crys Tel organizations, the appropriate leadership style will be conventional to a situation or event that can also entail the employment of more than one leadership style at the same time. Three styles of leadership include transformational, charismatic, and transactional. “Transactional leadership assist companies to accomplish the current goals more proficiently, like connecting job performance to valued rewards and making sure that employees have the resources needed to get the job done” (McShane & Von Glinow, 2004, p. 428). Charismatic leadership uses a person’s personality to influence employees. Leaders who possess this style usually are friendly and inspiring. “Transformational leadership is a leadership perception that clarify how leaders change teams or organizations by developing, corresponding, and planning a vision for the organization or work unit, and encouraging employees to strive for that vision” (McShane & Von Glinow, 2004, p. 428).
Crys Tel must decide which of the three leadership styles to use in the event that the organization decides to implement a major change. Although it would be good to have a combination of all three styles, but the only style that would be most effective in ensuring the success of the change is transformational leadership style. This style would be more beneficial because it gives the employees something to work toward. This style helps give direction to each of the departments. Transactional leadership would not have as much of an affect because the work procedures of the company are not current issues. Charismatic leadership can win employees over but it takes more than personality to the job.
The Sales and Delivery and Marketing Departments at Crys Tel have experienced high employee turnover and job dissatisfaction. Crys Tel should think about establishing a program that will encourage employees to set goals, both personal and professional, and set up a reward system for the reaching the goals. Crys Tel telecommunications need to develop an approach to handle the different departments in the organization. Leadership should encourage and encourage all employees to help increase team viability. “Team viability is defined as the team member satisfaction and continued willingness to contribute” (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2003, 451). Every leader has at least one follower. The present leadership industry is develop on the intention that leaders matter a great deal and followers hardly at all (Kellerman, 2007). Emotional labor should be used with each strategy, emotional labor is the effort, planning, and control needed to express organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions (McShane & Von Glinow, 2004, p. 126).
Measures to Monitor Change
Some measures that can be apply to monitor change at Crys Tel telecommunication; feedback is one measure that can be used to monitor progress at Crys Tel telecommunications. Feedback should come from every employee particularly those impacted by the change.
These are the employees who should be capable of telling the leadership if the changes are working and what other areas need improvement. Follow-up is another measure than can be used to monitor the progress of the change. Follow-up would permit management at Crys Tel to see if the change model is working. A third measure that can be use is surveys. Surveys are a good way to receive feedback because employee surveys are employee’s insight and suggestions for improvement and provide the organization with valuable information that can be very helpful to increase satisfaction in the workplace and it also let you know how well the change is working.
Future leadership challenges that Crys Tel may face in the next five to ten years deal with change. Changes in leadership are a potential challenge that can happen at any level along with administrative changes. This includes changes in the mission and values and the culture at Crys Tel telecommunications. Another challenge that leaders will face is trying to inspire and motivate their peers and subordinates. A third challenge Crys Tel will face understands culture differences in society and the impact on their employees. This diversity range from gender to race to age to nationality and language; the changing nature of the workforce include people from such diverse backgrounds will require and understanding of cultural differences to better understand and motivate both subordinates and peers. The last challenge Crys Tel will face is keeping a cohesive environment in which everyone is working toward the same goals and objectives. To create a cohesive environment, you must create a buy-in; get the individuals to buy-in; create ownership by asking them suggestions on projects. A cohesive environment increases productivity; improve the organizations bottom-line and improves employee’s morale.
Conflict happens in all companies. Conflict creates a challenge in which Crys Tel must take a hands-on approach toward resolving probable issues through conflict management. “Conflict management is the interventions that change the level, and form of conflict in a way that make the most of its benefits and minimize its dysfunctional consequences” (McShane & Von Glinow, 2004, p. 390). The first step would be for the leadership to determine in which conflict started. The six sources of conflict are communication problems, incompatible goals, different values and beliefs, task interdependence, scare resources and ambiguous rules (McShane & Von Glinow, 2004, p. 391). With this data, the leadership at Crys Tel can use this information to develop conflict management techniques. Some conflict management techniques can be used to improve performance at Crys Tel telecommunication. The method for Crys Tel to use when faced with conflict is to attempt for a win-win situation with employees. “Win-win orientation is the belief that the parties will find mutually beneficial solution to their disagreement” (McShane & Von Glinow, 2004, 394). This method generally causes a boost in employee morale that in turn improves performance. Additional methods to manage conflict include negotiation, avoiding, forcing, yielding, and compromising (McShane and Von Glinow, 2004, p. 396).
The method that is used should be based on the type of conflict and the employees involved. The most possible resolution to conflict management would be problem solving. Using a successful current-oriented problem solving and solution development approach allow a leader to identify the right problem, decide upon a wise solution, and avoid many of the derailers of leadership. This approach incorporates objective and intuitive factors (University of Phoenix, 2007). Risk management and follow-up are also need as a part of this process.
Conclusion
Crys Tel must be ready to implement changes quickly to remain competitive. Major implications of the change at Crys Tel including human behavior implications were identified. Lewin’s Change Model was the appropriate change model selected for Crys Tel communications. The Lewin’s Change Model explains how to initiate, manage, and stabilize the change process (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2004, p. 677). A plan that concentrates on human variables and possible resistance to change that was developed to include contingency approaches for manage any resistance. Transformational leadership was the suitable leadership style for effectively implementing the change at Crys Tel telecommunications. Some management and leadership practices that will help add to the accomplishment of the changes recommended included empowering employees, goal-setting and establishing a reward system. Measures to monitor the improvement of the change at Crys Tel telecommunications were feedback, surveys, and follow-up. Three future leadership challenges that Crys Tel telecommunications may face in the next five to ten years were analyzed included leadership, culture, mission, values, and conflict. Crys Tel telecommunications has a great deal to gain by implementing a successful change model.
Reference
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McShane, S., & Von Glinow, M. (2004). Organizational Behavior. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.
Singel, J. (2005). Changing is inevitable. Retrieved January 26, 2010 from EBSCOhost database
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