Fluent Essays

DUE IN 24 HOURS ATTACHED INSTRUCTIONS FOR ALL RESPONSES:    Responses to peers should be at least two paragraphs and be substantive in nature. Substantive means that you should add something to the discussion, referring to the original post. Referring to any reading or other scholarship is always a plus. · Respond to two different peers’ initial posts, other than yourself. That is required and you will lose points if you do not participate to this minimum extent. · Approach to Change Management Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your classmates’ posts. JALISHA’S POST: Approach to Change Management – JMA Define and compare the change management concept with the contingency approach. Drawing from this week’s lecture and readings, provide a specific example for either the change management concept or the contingency approach. “Change management draws on theories from many disciplines, including psychology, behavioral science, engineering, and systems thinking. A central idea of all change management theories is that no change ever happens in isolation. In one way or another, change impacts the whole organization and all of the people in it. But with good change management, you can encourage everyone to adapt to and embrace your new way of working” (Mind Tools Content Team, 2021).  For an example, in the library system we just change leadership within our technology department and this guy is great and has an outstanding background, but he will have to adapt and embrace the way our system does technology.                                                                    “The contingency approach refers to the idea that business leaders need to adjust leadership styles based on the situation at hand. It becomes a balance of a business leader’s natural style and understanding when and where it needs to be altered” (Leonard, 2019). For instance, I am currently facing an issue where one of my employees show up late to work every single day, although schedules are made a month in advance and it’s the same time every day because our hours are consistent. We don’t really have a “no tardy” policy, but I feel as if it’s common sense; also, the worker is a very good worker once she clocks in. I just feel as if soon the other workers will follow suit and think it is okay. I have spoken with the employee, but now I think it’s time to take it a little further. How might cultural barriers and communication constraints affect the change process? Although change is inevitable, people are still allowed to be skeptical and adjust the way that works best for them. Cultural barriers and communication constraints affect the change process when people don’t try to understand and learn the different ways to communicate and the background on cultures. When a business has multiple cultural perspective it helps build an understanding of the employers, employees, and the customers, while encouraging creative ways to solve problems. It’s all about finding the positive in situations.   Leonard, K. (6 Mar 2019). Contingency Approach Use in Business. Small Business.         https://smallbusiness.chron.com/contingency-approach-use-business-33893.html (Links to an external site.) Mind Tools Content Team. (2021). The Four Principle of Change Management. MindTools.         https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_87.htm (Links to an external site.) Palmer, I., Dunford, R., & Buchanan, D. (2022).  Managing organizational change: A multiple perspectives approach (4th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.   DYANI’S POST: It is thought that in a diverse environment and economy, every organization or business must be continually evolving to meet the specific needs that people may provide at any given time. The goal of change management is to make changes quickly, adjusting to industry needs but also making them as smooth and uncomplicated as possible for employees, to avoid changing their perspectives toward their work and maximizing their acceptance. The principle behind the contingency approach is that management effectiveness is contingent on the interaction between management actions and specific events. In other words, the management style should adapt to the situation (Leonard, 2019). Because organizations, people, and situations fluctuate and change through time, the contingency approach to management assumes that there is no simple answer to several questions. The contingency theory takes a comprehensive view of the situation, including contingent aspects such as leader competence as well as other factors. Organizations benefit from contingency theory because it allows them to learn from specific scenarios and apply what they've learned to sustainable management of the same or similar situations. Change management concepts such as the ADKAR (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement) model seeks to concentrate on individual outcomes and is a goal-oriented approach that tries to reduce organizational resistance to change (Palmer et al., 2021). The team I oversee within my organization has undergone several organizational changes that included meeting individual goals over the last few years. While some individuals have adapted, others have resisted to the changes. The ADKAR model could apply to this situation since the goal is minimize resistance to organizational changes. The model is outcome-oriented, and it can be used to help people change by establishing specific goals to achieve during the change process. I work amongst a diverse team from various backgrounds which could create cultural barriers thus affecting the change process. Aside from the apparent challenge in comprehending people who speak a different language, there are other variables that make it challenging during a change process. People from various places of the world have diverse frames of reference, and they may express emotions and behave differently as a result affecting change. According to Penn (2019) different societal views help people understand each other better and motivate them to come up with innovative solutions to issues. Everyone benefits from learning to communicate and draw on the beneficial qualities of each culture, especially during the change process. References: Leonard, K. (2019). Contingency Approach Use in Business. Chron. Retrieved from Contingency Approach Use in Business Palmer, I., Dunford, R., & Buchanan, D. (2021). Managing organizational change: A multiple perspectives approach (4th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education Penn, S. (2019). Cultural Communication Barriers in the Workplace. Chron. Retrieved from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/cultural-communication-barriers-workplace-13888.html Vision and Organizational Change Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your classmates’ posts by reflecting on their proposed revision. SCARLETT’S POST: Organizational visions help to provide a unified future state goal for the company and if strong and effective they can have great impact on the organization’s success (Palmer et al., 2021). Organizational change is closely related to the organizational vision as change is how the vision, or future state aspirations can be realized. Essential to facilitating change towards fulfilling the organizational vision is the leader creation and communication of vision. Effective communication of the company’s vision can help to motivate followers and overcome resistance to change (Venus et al., 2019). When Satya Nadella took over as Microsoft CEO in 2014, he was tasked with leading a company experiencing stagnant growth and at a crucial turning point in the technology industry. In his early days as CEO, Nadella shared that the company was lacking a driving purpose or mission and that his goal as CEO was to revive the company, transform the culture, and create a new mission and vision. He has stated that a clear sense of purpose and culture is critical to success (Stanford Graduate School of Business, 2019). While the Microsoft website does not have their vision posted, Nadella has shared that his vision for the company is to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential and to fulfill this, the company will switch their focus from software and hardware and focus on cloud-based services and artificial intelligence (Stanford Graduate School of Business, 2019). In the interview with the Stanford Graduate School of Business, he shared to fulfill his vision for the company, he had to completely change the strategy and business-model of the organization. One of the most significant changes he made was transforming the organizational culture which was previously regarded as toxic. The vision statement Nadella has shared does meet the challenges of the changes he had proposed for the organization. Additionally, the vision is flexible so that as technology and the company evolves it can be revised to reflect the changes. Nadella is a great example of how leaders can use vision to drive organizational change that will lead to success for the company. From the very beginning, he used his idea of purpose and vision to make business decisions and changes that turned the company’s stagnant growth around improved their competitiveness in the market. References Palmer, I., Dunford, R., & Buchanan, D. (2021). Managing organizational change: A multiple perspectives approach (4th ed.) [E-book]. McGraw-Hill Education. Stanford Graduate School of Business. (2019, October 15). Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft [Video]. YouTube.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtgN27z0oi0 (Links to an external site.) Venus, M., Stam, D., & Van Knippenberg, D. (2019). Visions of change as visions of continuity. Academy of Management Journal, 62(3), 667-690. RAJESH’S POST: With the invention of the internet companies around the globe started planning on the best way to change their infrastructure and workforce culture to stay competitive in the market. The early 2000 was the peak period of growth of internet-related technologies in the global market. As per an article by Yaun (2006), IBM did heavy investment of its capital and resources to build one of the strongest intranets to change their products and work culture. As per the article, IBM’s were the pioneers in enabling the remote work culture, they state that more than 40 % of their workforce were empowered to work from a remote location. Yaun (2006) further says that there were tens of thousands of employees “who've never set foot in an IBM office in their entire career” (para. 3). Such a unique cultural change in the early 2000s was a rare and risky proposition. Such a huge and risky change had to be done with a lot of planning and care. The change management team at IBM unanimously agreed to use the internet as a platform for culture change. They formed sub-teams across the globe and ran unique projects to get feedback from their employees across the globe. for this cultural shift. They also brought in new CEO Sam Palmisano in 2002 for fresh ideas and to set up new values, who enforced a big change in their culture of when employees formulate a corporate. IBM’s vision-mission statement states “IBMers believe in progress - that the application of intelligence, reason and science can improve business, society and the human condition” (About IBM, n.a.). I believe, this statement means IBM wants to build a team that makes progress through building workforce intelligence that will enhance the services and products they offer. This also includes building a team that demonstrates high intellectual capabilities so that, the team is efficient to deliver services as needed. Hence I believe that their vision statement meets the challenges of the overall change initiative. Kraaijenbrink (2021) states that missis should be not too generic so that it could be used interchangeably. I believe IBM’s mission statement is not too generic, but if it could have some mention that their vision is to produce such products mentioned in the current vision statement. That means the mission statement could have been “IBMers believe in progress - that the application of intelligence, reason and science can improve business, society and the human condition via their service”. Adding one more aspect of creating tension, as mentioned by Kraaijenbrink (2021) it might be changed to :           “IBMers believe in constant progress - that the application of intelligence, reason, and science can improve business, society and the human condition via their service”. The rest of the concepts like the statement is not too generic, distinguished, clarity, etc as described by Kraaijenbrink have been addressed in the current vision statement.  -Rajesh N References: Kraaijenbrink, J. (2021, April 13). Why your mission and vision statements don’t work (And what to do about it) (Links to an external site.) . Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeroenkraaijenbrink/2021/04/13/why-your-mission-and-vision-statements-dont-work-and-what-to-do-about-it/?sh=487aa5dc34e2 (Links to an external site.) Yaun, D. (2006). Driving culture change by consensus at IBM. Strategic Communication Management, 10(3), 14–17.