Discuss Four Models Of Strategic Change Business Essay

Now-a-days all organizations are facing a variety of challenges caused by change in internal and/or external environment of the organization. Change itself is changing at ever increasing rate resulting in uncertainty and insecurity.

For organizations to carry through growth and development stage need to have a proactive approach to strategic change management.

There are many theories about how to “manage” change. John P Kotter, Leadership and change management expert, introduced his eight-step change process which is very successful. According to these steps:

1: Establish a sense of Urgency

When some people in the organization notice some susceptibility, need to change takes place. It then involves simplifying goals and objectives, setting deadlines, establish consequences and finally feedback. It motivates the people and leads them to action.

2: Form a Powerful guiding Coalition

It highlights the level of uncertainty involved and the level of collaboration that is required to overcome the resistance to change. Generally starts with one or two people then gradually grows involving more and more people who believe that change is in anyway unimportant.

3: Create a Vision for Change

When you first start thinking about change, there will probably be many great ideas and solutions floating around. Link these concepts to an overall vision that people can grasp easily and remember.

4: Communicate the Vision

What you do with your vision after you create it will determine your success. Your message will probably have strong competition from other day-to-day communications within the company, so you need to communicate it frequently and powerfully, and embed it within everything that you do.

5: Remove Obstacles

If you follow these steps and reach this point in the change process, you’ve been talking about your vision and building buy-in from all levels of the organization. Hopefully, your staff wants to get busy and achieve the benefits that you’ve been promoting.

6: Create Short-term Wins

Nothing motivates more than success. Give your company a taste of success early in the change process. Within a short time frame (this could be a month or a year, depending on the type of change), you’ll want to have results that your staff can see. Without this, critics and negative thinkers might hurt your progress.

7: Build on the Change

According to Kotter that many change projects fail because success is declared too early. Real change runs deep. Quick success are only the beginning of what needs to be done to achieve long-term change.

8: Anchor the Changes in Corporate Culture

Finally, to make any change stick, it should become part of the core of your organization. Your corporate culture often determines what gets done, so the values behind your vision must show in day-to-day work.

Model 2:

Then there is another theorist Kubler-Ross who presents five stages transition cycle and according to Kubbler’s model for many years, people with terminal illnesses were an embarrassment for doctors. Someone who could not be cured was evidence of the doctors’ fallibility, and as a result the doctors regularly shunned the dying with the excuse that there was nothing more that could be done (and that there was plenty of other demand on the doctors’ time).

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross was a doctor in Switzerland who railed against this unkindness and spent a lot of time with dying people, both comforting and studying them. She wrote a book, called ‘On Death and Dying’ which included a cycle of emotional states that is often referred to (but not exclusively called) the Grief Cycle.

The Extended Grief Cycle

The Extended Grief Cycle can be shown as in the chart below, indicating the roller-coaster ride of activity and passivity as the person wriggles and turns in their desperate efforts to avoid the change.

The initial state before the cycle is received is stable, at least in terms of the subsequent reaction on hearing the bad news. Compared with the ups and downs to come, even if there is some variation, this is indeed a stable state.

And then, into the calm of this relative paradise, a bombshell bursts.

Denial stage: Trying to avoid the inevitable.

Anger stage: Frustrated outpouring of bottled-up emotion.

Bargaining stage: Seeking in vain for a way out.

Depression stage: Final realization of the inevitable.

Acceptance stage: Finally finding the way forward.

Model 3:

While many change management projects focus on the steps necessary for organisational change, ADKAR emphasises that successful organisational change occurs only when each person is able to transition successfully.

The ADKAR model consists of five sequential steps or actions:

Awareness of the need for change.

Understanding why change is necessary is the first key aspect of successful change. Planned communication is essential. When this step is successfully completed the individual (employee) will fully understand why change is necessary.

Desire to participate in and support the change.

In this step the individual is able to reach a point where they make a personal decision to support the change and participate in the change. Building desire is partly achieved by addressing incentives for the individual and creating a desire to be a part of the change.

Knowledge on how to change.

The third building block of the model, providing knowledge about the change, can be achieved through normal training and education methods. Other methods of transferring knowledge, such as coaching, forums and mentoring, are equally useful, so don’t limit this process to formal training.

Ability to implement required skills and behaviors.

In the ADKAR model Ability is the difference between theory and practice. Once knowledge on how to change is in place (theory) the practice, or actual performance of the individual, needs to be supported.

Reinforcement to sustain the change.

This final stage of the model is an essential component in which efforts to sustain the change are emphasised. Ensuring that changes stay in place and that individuals do not revert to old ways can be achieved through positive feedback, rewards, recognition, measuring performance and taking corrective actions.

Model 4:     

The McKinsey 7S model involves seven interdependent factors which are categorized as either “hard” or “soft” elements:

Hard  Elements

Strategy

Structure

Systems

Soft Elements

Shared Values

Skills

Style

Staff

“Hard” elements are easier to define or identify and management can directly influence them: These are strategy statements; organization charts and reporting lines; and formal processes and IT systems.

“Soft” elements, on the other hand, can be more difficult to describe, and are less tangible and more influenced by culture. However, these soft elements are as important as the hard elements if the organization is going to be successful.

Task 1: B)

Evaluate the relevance of these models of Strategic Change to the Zurich Financial Services Plc in the current economy. (LO 1.2)

Explanation:  Above discussed all four models have a value in the change management strategy but how can we evaluate these models according to the current economical condition of Zurich Financial Services Ltd. Let’s have a look one by one to all given models and apply them to the Case Study given above.

Zurich Financial Services Ltd. is established since past five decades and committed to customers satisfaction company’s all stakeholders and its employees devotedly working with the company but the company’s decision of expanding globally create a kind of uncertainty among its employees as well as its other stakeholders. So why this is happening? And what should company need to overcome this issue?

According to Kubler-Ross transition cycle stakeholders of Zurich Financial company after hearing the decision of expansion have a kind of uncertainty about company and their own future in this way there is possible way of stakeholders to start looking some other place for their better and stable future and in this way employees are right on their side but if company creates a sense of belongingness with its stakeholders and give them importance clarify its decision and its need for not only company’s own but also for the more incentives for its stakeholders then according to this model stakeholder will realize the change process more easily and support the decision as compared to resist on it.

Prosci’s model is saying the same thing but in different way and according to ADKAR awareness of need of change should be established among employees and that awareness create a kind of future incentives desire in stakeholders then company provide knowledge or ability required for change that what steps should company required for future development and how to continue these skills and abilities for longer term sustainability.

McKinsey’s 7S are clearly defined all the elements which are directly and indirectly effect the company’s decision hard elements are easily to be carried with the decision taken by Zurich company but this is not possible for company to carried soft element also with its decision at the same time because soft elements required some time to accept any kind of change in their way of working or routine methodology.

So in short according to current economic condition company will not be able to carried out its decision without keeping all the aspects in mind and by doing so company will face an unbearable resistance globally which will not in favor of company’s future.

Task 1: C) Asses the value of using strategic intervention techniques in organaization. (LO 1.3)

Explanation: Any organizational development process starts with the identification of problems that can be solved within the organization. This process progresses through different stages and determines satisfactory progress made for additional involvement. The procedure is cyclic and terminates only when desired result is obtained. It can also be a series of trial and error and a discovery of the best practices that can be implemented in the organization.

Zurich Financial Services Ltd. is facing tha same problem but by using strategic change management model this company will be able to change its current cenario and remove all the obstacles with its strategic intervention and such interventions not only provide a boost to the company but also help it out to make a place in the global business what interventions will be more helpful for its productivity ?

These are:

• Problem identification

• Situational assessment

• Action planning/ planning of the intervention

• Implement plan/ implementing the intervention

• Gather data/ collect data to evaluate the intervention

• Determining the results

• Feedback

By using these techniques as the company’s future strategy interventions Zurich Financial Services Ltd. have bright chances not oly for its globally growth but also meet the up coming challenges with its strong team of all stakeholders.