Master of Business Administration- MBA Semester 4 MU0018 – Change Management - 4

Credits

(Book ID: B1339)

Assignment (60 Marks)

Note: Each main question carries 10 marks. Answer all the questions.

Q.1 what is change management process?Ans:- Change management process is a part of change management. Change management is a process, tool and technique for managing people’s side of change. It is not a separate process for designing a business solution. Tools or components of change management include:

Process of change management.

- Assessment of readiness.- Communication and communication planning.- Coaching and manager training for change management.- Development of training and employee training.· Sponsor activities and sponsor roadmaps.- Management of resistance.- Collection of data, analyzing feedback and remedial action.- Celebrating and recognizing success.

But before going into change management process, it is important to know what change management is and what change management is not.

Change management i s no t a p rocess improvement method , bu t i t i s a method fo r reduc ing and managing resistance to change while implementing process, technology or organizational change.

Change management i s no t a separa te techn ique fo r improv ing o rgan iza t iona l per fo rmance . I t i s a necessary component for any organizational performance improvement process to succeed.

For example programs like Six Sigma, Business Process Reengineering, Total Quality Management, Organ isa t iona l Deve lopment , Res t ruc tu r ing and con t inuous p rocess improvement .

I t i s a l l abou t managing change to get best business results. There are nine elements which contain the areas or components of the change management program. They along with change management process help in managing change. Good project managers apply these components successfully to bring about project success, avoid the loss of valued employees, and minimize the negative effect of the change on productivity and customers.

The nine elements are:

- · Process of change management.·- Assessment of readiness.- · Communication and communication planning.- · Coaching and manager training for change management.- · Development of training and employee training.- · Sponsor activities and sponsor roadmaps.- Management of resistance.- · Collection of data, analyzing feedback and remedial action.- · Celebrating and recognizing success.

These nine elements can be explained as follows:

Process of change management

The change management process is the series of steps or activities that a change management team or  project leader follow to apply change management to a project or to a change. The change management process allows an organization to deal with both the human and technical aspects of change.

Assessment of readiness

Assessments are tools that are used by change management team to assess the organization’s readiness to change. This assessment can include organizational assessments, culture and history assessments, employee assessments, sponsor assessments and change assessments. Each tool provides an insight into the challenges and the opportunities that the project team may face during the change process.

Communication and communication planning

Many managers be l ieve tha t i f t hey commun ica te c lear l y w i th the i r emp loyees , the i r j ob i s done . However, there are many reasons why employees may not understand what their managers are saying at the first time. That is because each employee’s readiness to hear is based on many factors.

Effective communicators consider three components: the audience, what is said, and when it is said. For example, the first step in managing change is to build awareness about the need for change and create a desire among employees.

Therefore, initial communications are naturally designed to create awareness abou t the reasons fo r change and the r i sk o f no t chang ing . L ike th is , a t each s tep in the  process, communications should be designed to spread the right message at the right time. Therefore, communication planning starts with a careful analysis of the audiences, the key messages and the timing for those messages.

The change management team must design a communication plan that addresses the needs of front-line employees, supervisors, and executives. Each of the audience has particular needs for information that is based on their role in the implementation of the change.

Coaching and manager training for change management

Supervisors play a major role in managing change. Ultimately, the supervisor will have direct influence over an emp loyee ’s mot i va t ion to change than any o ther person a t workp lace . Un fo r tuna te ly , i t i s d i f f i cu l t to conv ince superv iso rs abou t the need fo r change and they even become the source o f   res is tance . I t i s essen t ia l fo r the change management team and execu t i ve sponsors to inc rease the support of supervisors and to build change leadership. Use of individual change management activities will help these supervisors to understand and implement the change process.

When managers and superv iso rs a re in to the p ro jec t , the change management team must p repare a coaching plan. They should provide training for supervisors including how to use individual change management tools with their employees.

Development of training and employee training

Training is the foundation for building information about the change and other skills required. Project team develops training requirements based on the skills, the knowledge, and the behaviors that are necessary to implement the change. These training requirements will be the foundation for the project team to develop training programs.

Sponsor activities and sponsor roadmaps

Business leaders and executives play a major role as sponsors in change management. The change management team develops a plan for sponsor activities and help key business leaders to carry out these plans. Sponsorship should be seen as the most important success factor. Avoid confusing the idea of sponsorship with support. The CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of the company may support your project, but that doesn’t mean that they sponsor your initiative. Sponsorship involves energetic and visible involvement by senior business leaders throughout the process. Unfortunately many executives will not be aware of what this sponsorship looks like. A change management agent’s or project leader’s role here is to help senior executives to do the right things to sponsor the project.

Management of resistance

Resistance from employees and managers at early stage is a normal behavior. However, continuous res is tance can th rea ten a p ro jec t . So , the change management team must iden t i f y , unders tand and manage res is tance th roughout the o rgan isa t ion . The p rocesses and too ls used by managers and executives along with the support of the project team to manage employee resistance is called resistance management or management of resistance.

Collection of data, analyzing feedback and remedial action

Employee involvement is essential and integral part of change management. Managing change can no the one from one side. Feedback from employees is a key factor of the change management process. Analysis and remedial action based on this feedback aids in implementing change.

Celebrating and recognizing success

Success a t ear l y s tage and long- te rm mus t be recogn ized and ce lebra ted . Ind iv idua l and g roup appreciation is also a necessary component of change

management in order to strengthen and support the change in the organization. After-action review is the final step of the change management process. At this point you can stand back from the entire program, calculate successes and failures, and categories process changes for the next  p r o j e c t . T h i s i s p a r t o f t h e o n g o i n g , c o n t i n u o u s i m p r o v e m e n t o f c h a n g e m a n a g e m e n t f o r y o u r   organization and ultimately leads to change proficiency.

Q.2 list and explain the stages in organization life cycles?

Ans: Organizations also go through various phases like a human life cycle. The first challenges that leader face is to understand what phase of the organizational life cycle one is in.

Organizational life cycle is divided into following phases:

1. Start-up2. Growth3. Decline4. Renewal 5. Death

These stages show that the beginning of one phases is the end of the previous phase. Each of these phases showcases different management and leadership challenges that have to be dealt with.

The Start-up phase

In this phase the entrepreneur thinks about the business, forms a management group write a business plan. The company goes into the growth phase when the investor writes the checks.

The growth phase

In the growth phase we expect to see revenues increasing new services and products developing, more employees recruiting and so on. For ex: the management textbooks believe that sales grow each year but in reality it is different as a company can have both good and bad years depending on the market conditions.

The decline phase

Corporate insanity is seen in this phase. Corporate insanity can be defined as doing the same thing in same way but expecting different results. Management expects to be better next year bt does not know or is unwilling to change to get better result.

As easy truth was show study of 1900 professionals who helped business that were in trouble.

The renewal phase

Once the organization starts declining. It does not mean that it should continue. Some of the external experts have focused on the importance of organizational development as a way for preventing decline or reducing its effects.

Dry rot can be reversed through the use of training as a way of injecting new knowledge and skills. you can also have rigorous programs to change and transform the organization culture.

The death phase

About 80% of business failures occur due to the factors related to leaders control. Even firms that are close to bankruptcy can overcome this adversity and nurse themselves to be financial healthy.

According to Richard L. daft there are four stages in an organizational life cycle.

1. Entrepreneurial stage- this stage has a strong leadership.2. Collectivity stage- this stage has delegation.3. Formalization stage- this stage has too much of red tape.4. Elaboration stage- this stage needs revitalization.

Q.3 Explain brief the recent approaches to organizational development and change.

Ans: The open systems approach is an integrated technical and business strategy that defines key interfaces for a system (or piece of equipment) being developed. Such interfaces generally are best defined by formal consensus (adopted by recognized industry standards bodies) specifications and standards. However, commonly accepted (de facto) specifications and standards (both company proprietary and non-proprietary) are also acceptable if they facilitate utilization of multiple suppliers.

The use of de facto specifications and standards takes advantage of the fact that firms, particularly those in the commercial arenas, frequently develop hardware, software and systems standards of the design and fabrication of computing, telecommunications, display, sensing, and signal processing systems. Whether consensus or defect standards are used to describe interfaces, the benefits only accrue if products from multiple sources are economically possible.

Although the most common emphasis is on electronic systems, the open systems approach is widely applicable, from fasteners and light bulbs to jet engines. An effective open systems architecture will rely on physical modularity and functional partitioning of both hardware and software. Physical modularity and functional partitioning should be aligned to facilitate there placement of specific subsystems and components without impacting others. The subsystems and components described by the systems design should be consistent with the system repairable level.

Subsystems and components below the repairable level will normally not be under government configuration control. Therefore, repairs below the repairable level, if required, will be by the supplier. If the hardware and software is effectively partitioned, processing hardware can be replaced with new technology without modifying application software. Additionally, application software can be modified without necessitating hardware changes. As a preferred business strategy, the open system approach is becoming widely applied by commercial manufacturers of large complex systems. It has

the attention of Dodd management who have mandated its use by Do systems developers to maintain continued superior combat capability affordably. System design cooperating open systems concepts and principles more readily accommodate changing technology to achieve cost, schedule, and performance benefits by promoting multiple sources of supply and technology insertion.

OPEN SYSTEMS IN WEAPONS SYSTEMS ACQUISITIONS

The adoption of open systems in systems acquisition is a pragmatic reality. The confluence of technological trends, business trends, fiscal constraints, and evolving threats has forced the government to recognize that systems can no longer be acquired and supported with traditional methods. Ideally, the logistician would prefer to hold a system configuration constant for its’ projected lifetime, procure a lifetime’s worth of spares and provide operational support. Unfortunately that situation does not exist.

Contemporary acquisition strategies are incorporating plans for modernization, just-in-time spares, horizontal technology insertion, single process initiative, performance specification, CAIV, IPPD, et al that leverages industry’s creativity and efficiency. The support system will be affected by this too. Some support functions will benefit from open systems. Some support functions will have challenges. The open systems design approach allows a weapon system program office to achieve and maintain combat superiority in today’s challenging acquisition environment.

The design process is focused on lowering the entire life-cycle costs of weapon systems in contrast to current practice in which a disproportionate focus is placed on the short-term goal of having the lowest development costs. The ability of the open systems design approach to improve life-cycle supportability is becoming an even more important issue as DoD limits the number of new weapon systems procurements and extends the life of the systems currently fielded.  It is a fact of today's acquisition environment that Dodd is no longer the dominant force in the technological marketplace. Moreover, as the Do procurement budget has been drastically reduced, Dodd no longer has the luxury of technology dominance, funded by seemingly unlimited budgets. In prior decades, Dodd weapons systems requirements drove development of new products and new technology. In the today’s environment the opposite is true; commercial demand drives product and technology development. However, Dodd can now take advantage of commercial innovation, research and development to drive down its cost of developing, acquiring and maintaining weapon systems, leveraging the commercial investment to make the most of a shrinking defense budget. An open systems approach, using open interfaces supported by commercial and non-developmental components, can substantially facilitate this leveraging.

Most of today's legacy weapons systems were developed with their own, often unique and frequently closed, infrastructures, making upgrade or modification over their expected lifetimes (20 to 40 or more years) bothproblematic and expensive. The impact of reduced budgets and increased dominance of commercial technologymade this approach to development obsolete. Acquisition managers now have to rely on commercial markets for affordable product development and support. However, as DoD’s role shifts from technology producer totechnology consumer, weapon systems will be based more on commercial products, whose design is notcontrolled by DoD and whose lifetimes are much shorter and more volatile than the weapons systems theysupport (e.g., years vs. decades). This, of course, presents an interesting logistics challenge.Application of the open systems approach is being applied to legacy systems as well.

Legacy systems usuallyhave size, space, power, cooling and shape factor constraints. For these systems, the open systems approachprovides form-fit-function interface (F3I) solutions within existing

packaging, power, and environmentalconstraints. In such cases, the open systems solution frequently requires less system resources by using newer,more efficient technologies. The open systems approach is similar to F3I except that the open systems approachemphasizes choosing interfaces that are broadly accepted in the marketplace to allow for as many suppliers aspossible over the long term.For weapons systems acquisitions the issue is not just cost: continuance of our military superiority may dependon reduced technology insertion cycle times. In a global market, everyone, including our potential adversaries,will gain increasing access to the same commercial technology base.

The military advantage goes to the nationthat captures the latest commercially available technologies, incorporates them in weapon systems, and fieldsthem first. Moreover, since coalition operations with our allies place a premium on interoperability, it is essentialthat our systems be compatible and capable of being sustained through a common logistics support structure.Open systems specifications and standards promote standard interfaces and interoperability with our friends andallies.As a result of this changing acquisition environment, DoD finds itself with few alternatives but to drastically alter the way it develops, produces and supports its weapon systems. It is neither economically nor technologicallyfeasible to continue traditional closed design approaches. DoD has been compelled to move towards a moreopen weapon systems design alternative.

Q4. Describe the role of leaders in managing change.

Ans.The leaders play an important role in the change management. The leaders at different levels in theorganisation will have different roles to play. The leaders work towards achieving the goals in theorganisation.

Whenever the leaders are planning to manage change, it is necessary to follow few principles. Theyare:

Different people react in different way for the changes:

The opinion of different people varies in a different way. Some people like to follow the old systemand they want things to be as it is, so they like to be at the stability end of the spectrum. Some otherpeople encourage for the new upcoming change, so they like to be at the change end. Manyproblems come when the people find that their opinions do not match with the situations. In such acondition the individuals will be dissatisfied, experience stress, and dislike individuals at the otherend.

Stability………………………………………………………………..Change

The above drawing shows the spectrum of change. The opinion of the people varies from person toperson. There are some people who like to follow the old system and they will be at the stabilityside of the spectrum. There are some other people who will be encouraging the change process sothat the people will place themselves at the change side of the spectrum.

Everyone has fundamental needs that have to be met:

The need vary depending on the people. There is some degree for each of the needs. The changeprogramme has to meet the control, inclusion and openness needs of the individuals otherwisethere is chance for negative reactions ranging from the resistance to the opposition.Will

Schutz, a famous psychologist have identified three fundamental needs in people's reaction tochange.They are:

- The need for control. - The need for inclusion.

 - The need for openness.

Change often involves a loss, and people go through the "loss curve":The loss of curve explainsthe feelings of the individuals as the time proceeds in the change process.

 

The loss curve depends on the extent of loss in the chain management programme. If someone is promoted to higher position then the loss in the lower position is not a big issue, since something better has replaced the old one. But if someone is made with a purpose of getting a new job then the losses will have a harmful effect.

The common factors that can be found in all loss curves are:

At the initial position, there can be no sinking of the change. For example, there are some people in the organisation who will be very confident that the changes will not occur at all. In such a situation, it is very difficult to start with the new process. Whenever there is a loss then the individual hits a deep low. The depth will be more if the loss is sudden or unexpected.Adjusting to the new situations takes a longer time.

Expectations need to be managed realistically:

Some of the enforced changes do not meet the expectations of the employees that time certainlythey will be unhappy and the expectations have to be set at the realistic level. For example: Supposethat we are a contractor for any project and we expect to be paid in 14 days but the contract says30 days

then we need to discuss and make sure that we get what we are expecting. If this not happening then we must make sure that the expectations are managed by both contractor andbuyer.

Fears have to be dealt with:It is the tendency of human beings to go out of the window, whenever there are some significant changes. Some people fear the worst since their minds will not be very conscious to know the things better.

There are many fears which an employee faces during a changing phase.Some of them are like:

Loosing the job.Inability to survive in changed setupNot getting a new job.Future problems arising due to loss of job.The fears have to be addressed by leaders in an understanding way by making them understandthat the redundant people can get the better job.

Main roles of a leader in change

According to Senge, Leadership occur at different locations in an organisation. Some leaders havethe traditional hierarchical leadership they are more formal. Some local leaders have to transfer thevision into an action. Network leaders have the job of connecting different parts of an organisationthat are involved in the change.

Bate has given the list of roles of leaders according to his idea of five dimensions of cultural leadership. The five dimensions are: - The aesthetic culture deals with the ideas about the change. This is the sensate, ideational and

idealistic culture. This is the species culture.- The political culture deals with the meaning of change and involves putting ideas into the

words.This gives the ownership to that political idea of the community.

- The ethical culture deals with the standards in the change and involves the guiding of learningprocess. This involves some ethics that have to be followed in the organisation.

- The action culture involves the translations from cultural meanings into the cultural practices.This involves the practices that are followed around in the environment.

- The formative culture deals with the structures those are in change. This involves thearchitecture of culture. This involves the structures around the change.The role model leader provides the confidence to manage the change process and demonstratessome of the characters which play an important role in the change process. They are:

Wider context:The leader has the ability to deal the changes in wider way since it is not onlylimited to the organisation strategy but it is spread to the team, division and the organisation.

Empathy:The leader has the ability to see others and understand and acknowledge others formanaging the change process.

Communication or being straight:

The leader communicates directly to the people about thepresent and future changes and keeps the people well informed. Leader communicates both thegood and the bad news with the people. Leader will be honest in terms of the change and theconsequences of the change on the individual as well as the team.

Counselling:The leader counsels the individuals who are undergoing change and respects theindividuals change by understanding their emotions.

Challenging:The leader identifies the unacceptable attitudes and behaviours and suggests for theacceptable attitudes and behaviours and maintains the comfort among the individuals and groups.

Involving:The leader encourages the individual and team to involve fully in the change processand make sure that the change is successful.

Reframing:The leader has the ability to see the situation from different perspectives andencourages others to do in the same way. This helps to create solutions in order to put thesituations in a coherent framework.

Enable learning:The leader enables the people to learn new skills, gain knowledge and thebehaviours.

Reviewing:The leader ensure that the certain reviews are done on regular basis for the propermanagement process. Recognitions set a positive environment so it is necessary to give positivefeedback for the individuals as well as the group when they achieve their objectives.=======================X=======================X===========

Q.5 explain the strategies for competitive advantages.

Ans: a competitive advantages is an advantages over competitors gained by offering consumers greater value, either by means of lower prices or by providing greater benefits and services that justified higher prices.

Michael porter has given four generic business strategies that are analysed by him on his work in the competitive industry. There are four type strategy. And there are as bellow.

Strategy: Differentiation

There are the strategic which include the selection of one more criteria that can be used by the customers for taking the product in the market. This often involves the product with the premium price to demonstrates the production costs and the value added features that are present for the customer needs.

Strategy : Cost leadership

The main aim of this strategy is to provide with the less cost in the market. The lowest cost producer is its main aim. Even the market segments suggest the same things. The lowest cost producer will be benefits when the product rate is at minimum equal to the average price in the market. Usually this type of strategy is associated with the large scale industries which aim at offering the standard products with a minimum differentiations and perfect market. this will work out particularly when there is much of competition on the market.

Strategy : Differentiation focus

This strategy aims at differentiating the products with a minimum number of target market segments. This strategy is applicable to the needs of the customer. The customer well in advance informs the industry for the production of the special with the needs that will be differentiated with the already existing product in the market.

Strategy : Cost focus

This strategy focuses on the cost of the product which is the base for the business of the organization. There are some product, which have features that are not needed for the customers. That time the sale will also be less since the cost is more, which is not worth according to their needs.

Q 6. Define learning objectives. Explain need for learning organistion.

Ans: organization in which you cannot “not” learn because learning is so insinuated into the fabric of life. also he define learning organizational as “ a group of people continually enhancing their capacity to create what they want to create.”

We can define learning organizational as the organization which has embedded the philosophies like anticipating, reacting, and responding to change complexity and uncertainty. The competitive advantages mainly depends on the rate at which the organization can learn.

Need for learning organization

Many of the companies in the world focus on improving the existing products and services, and innovating things to excel in the business strategy. This result in the starting of many activities like TQM( total Quality Management) and BPR(Business Process Reengineering).these programmes can be successful or a failures, depending on some factors likes individuals skills, attitudes and organizational culture.

- Face sudden and unexpected changes where there are no responses for the existing programmes.

- Expect the changing situations.- Allow the staff to respond to the customer needs in a proper way.