Change Management: Organizational Plan

Change management is a process by which organizations constantly renew their capabilities, strategies, organizational plans, procedures, structures, technologies, and directions to realign operations and deal with the ever-changing needs in the marketplace. The change process allows the organization, teams, and individuals to transition from the current situation to the firm’s anticipated future state to achieve the set objectives and remain competitive.

The current business environment is uncertain, complex and dynamic, requiring the experts and leaders to benchmark, manage and handle these unpredicted external and internal situations.

As a leader of change in an organization that has acquired a small company and must integrate people and systems, it is vital to ensure that the change management efforts lead to a successful transition of the organizational plan. This research paper aims at using Kotter’s eight-step change process to create a plan for managing acquisition in NETCO, a fiction company.

Managing Change in an Organizational plan Using Kotter’s Eight-Step Change Process

Aligning the change in a company with the right change model is critical because it can help leaders and workers realize the desired outcomes while addressing the challenges or complexities associated with the change (Jordan, 2019). Kotter’s eight-step change model is a well-known framework that practitioners and leaders use to implement change in an organization since it is straightforward and simple to apply (Kang et al., 2020). It consists of eight steps some of which are:

Creating a Sense of Urgency for Acquisition

Change management necessitates extra effort and informs workers and other stakeholders of the urgent need for change to prepare for it. NETCO was encountering diminishing revenues, stiff competition, and market changes affecting its operations and its ability to promptly satisfy customers’ needs (Jordan, 2019). As a result, there was an urgent need for change to help the company attain profit and become more competitive, which made its leader opt for acquisition as the best strategy to increase the technological advancement of NETCO so that production could be enhanced and delivery time minimized.

The acquisition would help the firm get new capabilities and know-how, and access to the technology needed to grow its market share. By explaining to employees and managers about the sad state of the status quo leading to poor firm performance. They are likely to understand the company’s challenges and see why the change is necessary to improve future work. In this step, the leader should ensure that every member feels the need for change. As a result, they will gain maximum support, keep the momentum of the change initiative and attain lasting transformation.

The strategy in this step is to create a forum to discuss the organizational plan on issues and threats. Additionally, allow the employees and other stakeholders to offer possible solutions. Employees and managers should be allowed to talk directly and regularly with unhappy customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders. This helps them understand their concerns, which can be an eye-opener for why change is necessary. The leader should ensure honest and clear communication to gain the commitment of stakeholders for the change effort.

Building a Powerful Guiding Coalition

A leader cannot implement change management independently. Therefore, establishing a team helps to guide and lead the firm through the acquisition process. The team should be characterized by members with the right skills, reputation, qualification, connection and power. Through this, they can offer leadership and influence stakeholders throughout the change process (Kang et al., 2020). The leader of NETCO should develop an effective team composed of a sponsor or an executive leader. One who can provide the needed resources to undertake the acquisition initiative. The team should also include managers with sufficient authority in the area of decision-making.

Therefore, these members should be able to gather relevant resources to support the project. They are also responsible for coming up with strategies and vision, removing obstacles and resolving conflicts. Other members are the supervisors and managers whose responsibility is to ensure successful and timely completion of tasks.

 

Change programs

 

They also design the change programs to focus on the achievement of the set plan. A leader in NETCO should ensure that the change team has a shared understanding of the need for change.

The group should also have a universal mission, purpose, objectives and goals. This is to ensure that the change management strategy goes as planned. According to Gupta (2011), the guiding coalition should understand the challenges and risks linked with the change initiative. They should also use their knowledge and intelligence to overcome these issues for successful change to occur.

The strategy in this step is to give the teams enough organizational power and resources.  They will  also work on behalf of the senior leaders by leading the change effort and keeping it going. The leader should give the teams ownership and inspire them to be open-minded to solve problems during the change process. Empowerment and inclusion help opens new ideas because the team members become change agents whereby they air their views and opinions of how they expect the firm to be in the future. Through this, the leader encourages the team psychologically and physically by giving them autonomy to engage in this change process.

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