Table of Contents
Introduction
It is no doubt that the business environment is highly dynamic and to stay abreast of other competitors engaging in constant change management, just to ensure that all their processes are congruent with the current technological advancement as well as current demand. My role at Spectrum Sunglass Company in the change management simulation and in particular the Power and Influence was the role of the Director and the founder of the company. As the director, based on my evaluations from external business articles, I was considering the sustainability as well as innovation of the company. From my evaluations, I had found out that environmental sustainability is paramount for the success of any organization and will have the significant positive ripple impact on the company (Marlon et al. 2008). Consequently, based on the fact that I want to be unique and differentiate my product on design and price from our competitors, I decided to embrace environmental sustainability as my preferred new strategy that would foster the company farther. With this, I was certain that it would make a significant impact for the entire company. Therefore, my goal in the simulation was to prevail all my employees to also embrace the idea and adopt the action; however, it was not going to be a smooth sail.
Simulation process
At first, when I started the simulation, things did not go well as anticipated. My first step was to inform some notification to the managers within the company. However, since the initiative is big to the company, unfortunately, no one responded to my notification. From that, I learned how hard it could be to get people out of their comfort zones. Despite the notifications being snubbed, I was hopeful that getting a transformational program started to need an aggressive cooperation of different stakeholders. Without motivation, it is no doubt that people will not help and that the effort can go nowhere and thus motivation of stakeholders is very paramount in change implementation (Kuratko, et al. 2005). I, therefore, went to the consultant to gain support for the change initiative for the managers to have fate in the change initiative, however, the result was not satisfying. Despite, gaining the support of the consultant, people did not show much support for the initiative. In a bid to motivate them on the initiative, I tried to clarify organizational values to them so that they could understand the significance of working together.
The first four moves did not argue well, and I felt frustrated. However, by engaging in private interviews, I managed to make things go on the rail. Private conversation is integral in gaining information about the change target including things such as who is in their social network and what they feel about the proposed change initiative. I chose the first four senior managers of the company Paul, Andrew, Deborah and Luke Filer to be my first interviewers. Fortunately, the interview brought in good news to the initiative. However, some were resistant to the change.
Comparison of the scenarios
After conducting both scenarios, I found out that despite the initiative is similar, that is to implement the environmental sustainability proposal, it was much easier to implement the proposal as a CEO as compared to when one is a middle manager. As a middle manager, I was hard to convince the entire management team to embrace the initiative. I had to move from one manager to another trying to persuade and convince them to support and embrace the initiative. In most instances my
The second scenario regards engaging the scenario as a CEO. As the CEO with the powers vested in me I was able to convene a meeting and in the meeting made my proposal to the team and gave them an opportunity to brainstorm on the initiative, it was relatively a success. During the meeting, different managers have different opinions on the initiative with most of them denouncing the initiative.
The change model that guided my thinking during the simulation was the one I thought was least effective at leading change. This is because there were a lot of struggles that were involved during the change model. However, to some extent, it helped me to attain the goal that I wanted to achieve. The third scenario of the simulation was the most challenging. This model needed some urgency though I wanted to use the first few weeks to create a little rapport before progressing into the more critical and serious stages of the process. I started by giving out a notice concerning the meeting that we just had to keep the initiative in the mind of everyone though this immediately lost me the credibility. Without having the email response, I wanted to initiate the pilot project so that I could prove the initiatives sustainability. This did not go well either. This now became a great challenge and threat to me during the whole process. When this did not gain my interest, it appeared a very critical time to get some assistance and support. This made me contact the CEO and ask for his support so that I could make up some ground though did not work either because the CEO was not interested anymore. This made me declare deadline so that I can put pressure on but this also was ignored. I was therefore required to walk the talk to show that was still in the right direction though no one seemed to care anymore after all these had happened. This prompted me to hold some meetings so that I could get some connections but this also did not appear to lead me to any direction. When several weeks had passed, I needed some resurgence that would get attention and enable me to rebound, so I restructured the company. This did not bring any positive impact. With a restructured organization, a revised reward system would only be effective when it is in line with the changes that have been made. This was the change model that guided the whole simulation. Ther3e were a lot of challenges during the process and for once I thought that there was nothing good that was going to come out of it I thought that the whole process would come to an end with no success. The challenges formed a clear guideline as I treated the whole scenario as a transition point (Manzoni, 1997). I was able to understand some of the challenges that I made and learn from them. Afterward, I was able to make the right decisions that helped the whole simulation to be a success.
It is difficult to lead a change in a low urgency situation. This is because, with a low sense of urgency, it is normally perceived that there is more time to achieve the required or the needed results. A lot of employees do not see a strong incentive to spend time on the initiative if there is no sense or a great urgency of what is to be done. When something is not urgent, then it is not considered as a priority. Without an incentive or a motive to immediately spend time and go out of the way to attain the uncertain change, there is nothing that will compel someone to go to start the initiative. This is very dangerous for the organizations as the consequences are always negative. In most of the cases, it will be noticed that people will procrastinate waiting for when they are urgent and are a priority. However, in most of the cases, in the near time when things are urgent, there will be much more that will acquire attention. This will lead to a situation where employees will be rushing towards attaining a lot of things at a very less period. The result is that things will not be perfectly done compared to how they could have been done when there was still time (Brown, 2011). This also explains why it is so difficult for a middle manager or director to lead a change in the organization. It is very challenging to lead a change as a middle manager because this position does not give the power to make the very vital decision that can initiate critical change. In most of the cases, this position does not have the power over those that they are trying to get on board with the necessary change. What the middle manager as the authority requires in an organization is required to relate with those that are in upper management positions with a much different approach compared to those that are in a low-level position. It is very challenging as a middle manager does not have the required mechanism to develop interest. Therefore, acquiring the needed attention for cooperation from other departments with other specialties with officers that are of a higher rank will need a lot of efforts. As a middle manager, a lot of efforts and work must be put in to show those that are in a higher position that indeed the critical decisions made by middle management can initiate change in the organization. CEO of an organization and other managers that are in top management of the company can easily initiate change in the company, unlike middle managers that have to do a lot of consultation and convincing that whatever action they take will propel the company to a major change.
Analysis of the simulation results
The strategy-realignment simulation is aimed towards building a consensus inside the organization and also increases the credibility of the company. The simulation does affect various lawyers of the organization such as the organizational culture and strategy. The primary goal entailed changing the technology to materials that are dependent on oil and replace with the raw materials and change the structure. This requires the management to aim at what needs to be learned and from whom they will acquire the needed learning.
Summary
From running the simulation, I have been able to le4 earn a lot of things. Firstly, I have been able to learn the various decisions that can have a huge effect on a company and particularly concerning trust and credibility. It has also shown me the importance of open communication and co-op methods that can assist an organization to increase their credibility levels. Also, I have also learned how challenging it may become to have change management and the challenges that come with such decisions (Balogun, 2004). Despite the difficulties that are involved, change is sometimes needed to save the company.
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