W3 Discussion “Leading Change When Business Is Good” 

   Strategies for Change      

Week 3: “Leading Change When Business Is Good”

If your ship was sinking, it would be easy to inspire everyone to pitch in to try to create change. After all, their lives depend on quick action. However, when the sun is shining and everyone is relaxing on the deck with a good novel, it’s far more difficult to inspire them to put their books down and spring into action. So what can you do to lure your employees away from the sun and a good read to come help you facilitate change– when it likely looks to everyone else that things are perfectly good just the way they are?

Initial Post Instructions

Read “Leading Change When Business Is Good: An Interview with Samuel J. Palmisano” then think of a time in your professional life when everything seemed to be going very well. Identify one thing during that time that you could have improved from good to great. Identify the values present in your situation. Now how could you have used the five steps to successfully implement the change required to go from good to great? Explain what you would do in each step. In your opinion, are these five steps important? Why or why not? What role does communication play in these five steps? Use and cite a minimum of three scholarly references beyond the texts used in the course to defend your reasoning.

Follow Up Posts

After your initial post, read over the items posted by your peers and your instructor. Select at least two different posts, and address the following items in your responses:

i. Try to find a peer response whose views are opposite or different than yours. Explain how your views differ and offer research or examples to respectfully support your opinion.

ii. Try to find a peer response whose views are the same as yours. What additional insights or arguments can you add to support their opinion?

Carol Marquez                 

I remember one occasion when I was doing a masters degree in Venezuela, my born country. The professor invited the CEO of one chain of supermarkets very famous. Since this new CEO took his position 5 to 6 years ago, the organization had been doing great. Then he was explaining to us how he had been keeping his team of managers on the different departments motivated, enthusiastic, and more critically engaged, in the process of keeping the excellent service that the organization has been offering for the last six years. He used to meet with them every month, and do brainstorms. He would ask, you have to come up with a possible problem something does not exist or have never happened before at the organization. As a group, they will come up with three different potential issues that the organization may encounter in the future and select one. Then the entire group of managers will have to work during the following month in resolving the problem creating a process and policies to avoid that situation to become a problem at any time.  Many staff members thought he was crazy to have them looking for problems that did not even exist. But he was aware of that. And in reality, along the next years, some of those situations appeared in some form, but they were no longer a problem because there was a contingency plan in place. I believe that these are the perfect example of how to keep staff motivated when the sun is shining, and the wind is blowing in our favor. In my opinion, all five values are exemplified in this situation.

References

Review, H. B. HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Change Management (including featured article “Leading Change,” by John P. Kotter). [VitalSource Bookshelf]. Retrieved from https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781422172063/

Patricia McCarthy                 

Every time that I am transferred from one organization to another, I always look for ways to make it better and make an impact.  I have made impacts, but always leave with the feeling that I could have made it better.  Sometimes the problem is that I am only there for a short time, so trying to make something better is sometimes difficult.  We have talked about the importance of change and the difficulties we have when making trying to make it happen.  I find it interesting in how everything we have read brings little thing into perspective. 

There are different values that we live by in the military and sometimes it seems that these values have slowly started to disappear throughout the years. Values in an organization are important especially when change is needed.  Plump (2019) stated that it is important for organizations to align their values with their employees because it increases morale, performance and retention. 

Using value-based management in an organization that is having difficulties can beneficial to their overall success.  It might not be an easy process, but it will be definitely worth it if the company is able to join the values of their employees with the organizations value to make positive changes.  Schultze, List, Schabert & Dinh (2018) had stated that value-based management was introduced to decrease conflicts within an organization that came from ownership and control.  In an organization we have several decision makers that sometimes can cause issues.  Values has a big part to play when it comes to decision making.  During Palmisano’s interview he mentioned several things about decision making for instance he stated values help with decision making that are set in line with culture and brand and that it is important to allow managers to make risks and therefore trusting the decisions that are made (Kotter, 2011).  Clear communication plays a big role when change needs to happen, especially when values are involved.  

Kotter, J.P. (2011). HBR’s 10 must reads on change management. Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. Boston, MA. Retrieved from https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781422172063/cfi/6/14!/4/2/[email protected]:0

Plump, C. (2019). How giving voice to values can transform a toxic workplace culture. People & Strategy. 42(3), 40-45. Retrieved from www.web.a.ebscohost.com

Schultze, W., List, T., Schabert, B. & Dinh, T. (2018). Economic consequences of implementing and communicating value based management systems. Journal of Business Finance & Accounting. 45(6), 511-543. doi: 10.1111/jbfa.12297.