Management

Read the Stakeholder Responses to Organizational Change document.

Create three additional facts of your choosing to add to the above scenario for purposes of this assignment.

Prepare an Executive Summary for Harry and Rosalie on how you, as Human Resources Director, want to make them aware of these change issues and how you will handle the various stakeholder responses to the new anticipated change.

Write a 700- to 1,050-word Executive Summary in the third person voice and address the following:

Identify the existing psychological contract for Josh Raymond and Griselda Lopez. In what ways will the change disrupt the existing psychological contracts? Given the individuals and the context, what reactions do you anticipate?
Identify the different phases of change that Josh Raymond, Griselda Lopez, and all other stakeholders are going through and will go through.
Identify strategies that you, as Human Resources Director, can use to help Josh Raymond, Griselda Lopez, and the other stakeholders work their way through the different phases.
Identify strategies that change leaders have used, or could use, to help people work their way through the different phases.

Use tables, figures, models, or diagrams to aid in explaining the change issues or strategies discussed in the Executive Summary.

Use organizational change terminology consistent with what is used in your text.

Use a minimum of two sources other than the Organizational Change text.

ANSWER

Change is paramount in today’s business environment that is always changing. According to advisory firm that performed a research on business models in the digital world, every organisation has undertaken a drastic organisational change in the past three years (Smits 2020). The change is even expected to multiply in the next three years. This is similarly what is happening in FusionTastic, the organisation is about to undertake a drastic change and some employees are not enthusiastic about this change. The case scenario explains that FusionTastic is about to acquire a small-scale costume party by the name Chameleon Costumery that comprises twenty stores. Shareholders and employees have been writing to the CEO and the CFO about their disdain about this acquisition. Among the employees who feel this is Josh Raymond and Griselda Lopez who also happen to be in charge of this acquisition. Amongst the stated fears from the employees is that the company’s reputation is at the risk of failure by choosing to include inexpensive and low-end line of products. The concerns are valid but the founders, Harry and Rosalie Smith, who serve in the company’s highest executive seats seem to undeterred to making this acquisition a reality. Josh Raymond and Griselda Lopez have to be on the frontline of this change for it to get accepted by the rest of the team and the task lies with the human resources to ensure that. This paper analyses this change and its impact in the disruption of the existing psychological contracts, the stages of change the resistant employees and shareholders will go through and the strategies the human resources could employ to mitigate the negative consequences that could result from this change.

Griselda Lopez existing psychological contract with the company’s line of products can be easily classified as personal. It is evident that she is an artist, her creativity and vision has been a major contribution to the company’s success. She is sentimental about the products the company sells because she has had a hand in their creation since conception. The first thing that human resources must understand is that she is right. However, in business, sentiment and attachment never contributes to the success of a company, especially not a Fortune 500 company like FusionTastic. For Josh Raymond, his personality plays a long way in how he handles or is likely to handle change. Technical enforcers like Josh analyse situations on the terms of merit, if something works then it does not need to change. However, they are limited in understanding that whatever works today may not always work the next year or all the time. It is paramount for human resources to understand these facts before moving to act on the situation. In the future and if nothing is done, it is expected that Griselda could leave the firm, a catastrophe that would deny the firm the skills and creativity she possesses. Alternatively, she could stay, implement the requirements as given but do it without motivation that could very well mean failure for the acquisition before it begins. Josh would enforce the requirements and since technical people also depend on their passion to be perfect at their job, the acquisition team will be passionless, a flaw that could be passed to the entire team and also compromising the deal before it occurs and making it a catastrophic failure.

Kurt Lewin developed a model the describe the process of change at the work place in three phases, unfreezing, change and freezing (Burnes 2004). He suggested that the process of change “is not a series of individual processes but rather one that flows from one process to the next” (Burnes 2004). The first stage that Griselda, Lewis and other stakeholders must go through is unfreezing. This process involves changing an existing mind set. Unfreezing means understanding the defence system an employee could use to avoid making change. In this case changing the mind set of Josh and Griselda will involve outlining the positive impact the acquisition could have on the company that still maintains the positive progress and the creativity and distinction of the products. This stage majorly involves reasoning logically with the affected as team players with a mutual objective to see the company succeed. The second stage after selling the idea to the major stakeholders is ensuring the change itself occurs. The acquisition goes through successfully. Uncertainty is expected as no one can ever tell the future but all concerned must absorb the change and even if the new ways are still not clear, keep them going and excited to figure it out. Communication is key at this point where everyone must stay aware of the occurring changes and their reasons as well as the means required to achieve it. Lastly, freezing occurs where the new mind set is accepted as standard. Comfort is restored and adaptation takes hold. This last stage was highly criticised as in business, there is never a point when a change is permanent, more changes should be expected in the fast-paced world of information and technology.

Figure 1: Kurt Lewin 3 Stage Model of Change

Source: https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_principles-of-management 

The human resources can employ different strategies to aid the employees in their journey towards accepting change. The first one is constant communication throughout the whole process with the employees. This comprises letting all the employees know what the change entails and why it is necessary, this applies on transparency and discipline. Human resources could also apply emotional intelligence by leading by example where they also issue compassion and empathy to the most affected. The most difficult concept to absorb is the reason why the organisational change had to occur like for instance it may be an opportunity to improve financial decisions and efficiencies. Finally, leadership that takes into account the concerns of the employees especially on issues involving change are likely to be more successful.

References

Burnes, B. (2004). Kurt Lewin and the planned approach to change: a re‐appraisal. Journal of Management studies, 41(6), 977-1002.

Smits, W. H. A. (2020). Analysing organisational change due to market shifts (Bachelor’s thesis, University of Twente).