Essay Sample on Business Change Management

Introduction

For a business or a firm to thrive and profit from its operations in the modern environment, change is no longer an option. Each and every business organization should be ready to change to remain ahead of the competition of other firms. The modern market is cast in cutthroat competition making it hard for new entrants to remain competent and versatile in the face of these challenges. First and foremost, business change is simply moving from one point to the other, specifically, moving from one difficulty level to a less difficult level (Raineri, 2011). These business movements are characterized by innovative approaches and creative solution provision, thus, ensuring longevity in market survival. In other words, it can be viewed as steps made by a business to gain profit and to compete with other firms and stay ahead of them. Business changes occur at three distinct levels that include: change in the workers employed in the firm, change in the structures and systems of the business and finally a change in interpersonal style. Employees working in a firm can change their habits, skills, values among others. These employee changes have deep and lasting implication in the progress of the firm as well as their ability to deliver quality and real-time services. As far as the change in interpersonal skills is concerned, a business can do this by changing how and ways it handles its customers, how it solves conflicts and ways by which it makes decisions. An organization is in control of how it treats its employees as well as how it approaches its operations and competition. Change can be further categorized as planned change as well as emergent change.

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The Need for Change for the Company

Many organizations face a turbulent organizational crisis that calls for effective changes in their operational structures. The Manufacturing Company in our case study is caught in the crossroads of seeking to overcome some of the leadership challenges that threaten to derail its operational progress. One of the areas that the company should change is their organizational structure. Normally, making decisions in a hierarchical organization is a difficult process due to the fact that it takes a longer time to make decisions. The long process of consultation, as well as protocols, are known to delay the decision-making process, thus renders the organizations unable to respond to challenges in real time. Decisions must move from up the hierarchy until it reaches the bottom of the hierarchy and furthermore the top management is too far to recognize the genuine challenges faced by the employees. Another reason that prompts a change in the organization is communication. As far as the company is concerned, employees are not given the chance and opportunity to make decisions nor any suggestions. Communication with the company's customers cannot be improved if there is a communication problem between the company's departments. The change of the top down communication process must be replaced by a horizontal communication process that will enhance cooperation as well as improved management in the organization.

Furthermore, The Manufacturing company does not give their employees a chance provide solutions for the emerging problems, this makes it hard for the company to grow its operations since the solutions to these problems take longer to realize. Moreover, the workers are not given opportunities to experiment and bring new ideas to the company; they are not encouraged to be creative nor given additional training and development opportunities. Due to the fact that the workers are not given opportunities, this has made the company lag behind in terms of its creativity in its production as well as in competition. This has been prompted by the fact that its employees, is a crucial part of the company, are not given sufficient opportunities and chances to boost the company's performance. Lastly, the company's processes and software for inventory management has become old-fashioned and outdated. Due to this fact, the company has not been able to manufacture up-to-date products. The supply of old-fashioned products in the market has made the company to lag way behind its competitors who have taken advantage of their slow-paced innovative approach to pull off and rule the market. Furthermore, the company lags behind in terms of competition as other manufacturing companies have been able to acquire new machines and technology, therefore, manufacturing better products.

Learning Organization and Traditional Organization

In a traditional organization, its formation often contains a person in charge and number of subordinate staff while a learning organization provides its members with adequate and appropriate learning and constantly makes changes for itself (Raineri, 2011). The differences between learning organization and traditional organization occur in terms of how the overall direction is determined; ways by which ideas are formulated and implemented, the nature of thinking within the organization, dispute solving methods and finally management and inspiration. To begin with, as far as tradition organization is concerned, goals are presented by the top management as well as make the decisions while the rest of the members put into practice the ideas decided. Traditional organizations thrive on top-down management style and the boss-servant engagement approach. Every employee is responsible for their jobs and they are not allowed or given any permission to relate their jobs to others. Employees are required to stick to their job description and are only evaluated on the basis of a achievement of the clearly spelled out key performance indicators (KPI). Additionally, in traditional organizations, conflicts and disputed are solved by the use of power and authority by the top management. Lastly, for the traditional organizations, the leaders present the dreams of the company as well as giving the rest of the members' inspiration through an allocation of rewards and punishments.

In a learning organization, its operations are quite different from the traditional organization. First, goals are shared among the members and the work of the top management is only to make sure that the goals are cultivated properly. The workers are encouraged to share in the goals and mission of the organization and are at the center of their realization. Ideas in a learning organization are also generated and put in to practice at all stages of operation(Raineri, 2011). Furthermore, although each member is responsible for their work, each and every person is aware that their jobs are connected with that of other members. Disputes within the organization are solved through mutual understanding. This is achieved by allowing each participant to express their views and opinions as far as the dispute is concerned. Finally, the top management within the organization constructs a shared goal that increases dedication and commitment on the part of the members. The case study organization is in between Woolner's first stage, the formation of the organization and Woolner's stage two, development of the organization.

The situation in this company can be justified as follows; first, the company possesses outdated and old processes and software systems for inventory management. Second, the employees are not encouraged to be creative or make suggestions or decisions nor allowed to experiment and bring new solutions to existing problems. They are also not trained and given development opportunities. However, the company has a rock-solid business model and product line. It has a strong brand name which it can leverage on to improve its performance in market and to overcome its competitors. This is evidenced in the company's sales that increased from one million dollars to one hundred million dollars; this, by all measures, is not a mean achievement. Due to the above reasons, the company can be classified between the two stages due to the fact that the companies have the characteristics of both stages is concerned, An organization can use his disciplines to become a learning organization in the following ways. First, is creating and developing a shared vision. The company should be able to form goals by communication and interacting with its workers. The main method to form a shared vision is by taking into consideration even the employees visions and goals. The company should be able to stop allocating all its attention on individual issues but should start focusing on the entire organization Furthermore, managers should be able to get that all their decisions and actions and their respective consequences are related to one another. Therefore, the management must be careful that it does not mess up the organization further than it already is. Another discipline is the mental models. All workers should be able to get what the business entails as well as its values. The company should learn and accept changes within the company in order to compete with other manufacturing companies. Another discipline is team learning. The company should be able to learn as a team rather than consider each other as a rival. Last but not least, is personal mastery. Each and every member of the company should be able to know the goals, visions, and missions of the company (Raineri, 2011). As the company is transitioning to become a learning organization, there are several changes it must put in place. For instance, the use of a shared vision, employees being exposed to lots of relevant opportunities and being allowed to make decisions as well as bringing up solutions to existing problems among others. Allowing the workers to make decisions and come up with ideas to help the company may make the company introduce new ideas in the market. This can help with the existing competition with other firms. Exposing employees with relevant opportunities will enable them to work harder leading to better products.

How the Action Research Model Can Be Applied To the Change Process

One of the steps of the Action Research model the case study company could apply is the selection of a focus. The company should be able to select a goal or a vision which they should focus on and nothing else (Raineri, 2011). Selecting a vision will enable the company to know its purpose and work towards it. Organizations goals enable a company to harness its resources and focus towards the realization of the same; to ensure that they do not scatter their attention, thereby losing on their mission and vision. Next step on the Action Research model is clarifying theories. In case the company is in need of having responsible, focused and hardworking members, then it will be appropriate for the company to clarify which approach to implementing (Leitch, 2017). For instance, through rewards and punishments to the employees. Rewards encourage the employees to work harder, while punishments make them be careful with their decisions and performance. The company should also allow the employees to experiment with new ideas. Innovation is the key to the survival of any organization, devoid of which spells doom for the same. Next step is the collection of data. The company should collect ideas and information from its workers to succeed and fulfill its goals as a manufacturing company. Next is analyzing of data in that after the company has collected the opinions, the top management should be able to deeply analyze them as they can be a way to aid the company in a difficult situation. Lastly, is the taking of action. After the data has been reviewed by the management of the company, relevant actions should be taken.

Recommendations to the Management Of The Company

First, the company should allow the employees to experiment with their ideas and also allow them to bring up solutions to solve the compan...