"An in-depth examination of strategic planning, organizational development, and change management from a continuous improvement perspective. Students understand the connection between strategic planning and change management process. Additionally, examination will demonstrate how this connection affects organizational alignment, cultural transformation, and financial viability. Students develop planning and implementation strategies with emphasis on methods to best develop individuals, enterprises and community."

--Siena Heights University

I was assigned five stakeholders to interview as a part of our team’s group effort to gather information regarding our organizational change task. Our team is working very well together and sharing the load while keeping each other informed of our findings has been not only productive but has also been a good way for us to build a team environment among ourselves. I was tasked with interviewing Maurice Gagnon (chairman of the board), Brian Johnson (president and CEO), Jennifer Smith (VP of technology), Guy Tremblay (VP of human resources), and Anne Price (HR manager).

Maurice Gagnon

         Maurice Gagnon founded the company and was its CEO until Brian Johnson succeeded him. Maurice was a more hands-on leader than Brian who was promoted from the R&D department. He thinks the company should split into two divisions (military and commercial) and thinks the union leader is part of the problem as the union is resisting change.

Brian Johnson

         Brian is the president and CEO. Brian came from the R&D department and is well thought of for his technological abilities. He likes the idea of having teams but realizes there is a downfall to teams when they do not communicate. He feels like he has failed because they have had to hire consultants to help with change. He blames the union leader Ron Johnson for making union members believe they are cash-strong and that the only reason the consultants are here is to help gain concessions in negotiations in a couple of months.

Jennifer Smith

         Jennifer Smith is the VP of technology. She was originally hired to head the R&D department. She was put into her newly created position to integrate production, marketing, and research and development.  She spends most of her time putting out fires between the groups. She loves the thoughts on teams including cross-functional teams, she sees the major problem being communication and does not necessarily feel that they have the support of senior management. She sees that each department runs on its own and there is no one integrating the departments to work toward the big picture.

Guy Tremblay

         Guy is the VP of human resources. He agrees with Brian that there needs to be some fresh unbiased perspective. He believes that cross-functional teams is the way forward. There is no view of the company as a team, each department is “guarding their own turf” as he stated. No one person is the problem he thinks that they should integrate teams to focus on individual products and functional structures.

Anne Price

         Anne is the HR manager. They have outsourced training which makes it easier to cut and has become a problem. Employees are not involved in the planning or problem-solving so they feel no one else cares why should they? Lack of communication allows the union to take charge of the narrative. The combination of downsizing and training cuts leads employees to doubt their future. She feels involving the front-line staff in the process will improve things and improving communication throughout will also be highly beneficial.

Conclusion

         Overall, it seems that the company itself is made up of quality employees who know how to do their jobs well. It seems that the company is split into different groups which have built silos around themselves. Each group is staying to themselves and has adopted, almost, a bunker mentality where it is us against them. There is a lack of communication throughout the company which has led to the union taking charge of the narrative to the point that front-line staff do not understand the predicament they are in. Frontline staff is also not included in the planning or problem-solving process so they feel that no one cares and have adopted that attitude. Mid-level and frontline staff can determine whether a change event succeeds or fails (What is change management? A guide to organizational transformation, 2023). Gagnon et al. also found that involving a collaboration between upper management and frontline staff was critical in affecting positive change (Gagnon et al., 2024).

         Change planning with the whole group is necessary to garner buy-in throughout the company. Regular communication both vertically and horizontally would also be an effective way to help staff become more of a team, it has been found that persuasive communication and story-telling, by upper management, can improve their influence when instituting change in an organization (Sadaric & Skerlavaj, 2023). Adding cross-functional teams would help bridge the divide between departments and would be an effective way to bring products to market that would be more easily sold. Bringing people together, letting them be part of the process that moves the company forward, and being more communicative are some of the changes that would be productive.

References:

Gagnon, J., Breton, M., & Gaboury, I. (2024). Decision-maker roles in healthcare quality improvement projects: a scoping review. BMJ Open Quality, 13(1)https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjoq-2023-002522

Sadaric, A., & Škerlavaj, M. (2023). Giving Sense to Change Leadership: Towards a Narrative-Based Process Model. Economic and Business Review, 25(1), 41-63. https://doi.org/10.15458/2335-4216.1317

What is change management? A guide to organizational transformation. (2023). Cio, https://sienaheights.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/trade-journals/what-is-change-management-guide-organizational/docview/2837262846/se-2

                I began the process of categorizing the different change activities that were available to choose from. I began by separating two groups the Align strategies and the Engage strategies. I then further broke down those groups into their components.

         The align category can be further broken down into three categories (understand, enlist, and envisage). Understand is the process of gathering information to understand the real problem. Enlist entails getting a person or persons together to help lead the charge to cause change and envisage is the process of explaining the vision of how and what change will happen to fix the problem.

         The engage category can be broken into four parts (motivate, communicate, enact, and consolidate). Motivate is the task of getting staff to do what you want them to do to help move the change process forward. Communicate is the action of making sure that information is passed throughout the organization to make sure everyone is included and on the same page. Enact is the process of actually doing the work of the change plan and Consolidate is reviewing the changes to make sure that the changes are bringing the desired results, and if not, making further changes to better reach the goal.  

         One of the first things I realized while doing this exercise was that many of the tasks were difficult to put into just one category. The whole process is set up to work in order so it is important to get the actions categorized correctly or it can affect the results. An example of this is the sharing of financial information within the company if you understand it to be a continuous process, such as a quarterly report to give updates on how things are going, it should be put under Communication. However, if it is a report of our current state and the need for change then it should be put under the Understand category. Walk the floor could also be important in the information gathering phase to root out problems so it would be put in the Understand section, however, it could also be seen as a Motivate tool as the big boss is down shaking hands with the frontline workers showing solidarity and a team atmosphere. It could also be put under Consolidation as it could be used as a tool to see what is happening to make sure it aligns with the big picture. Understanding and categorizing each action is key to making sure that the path is followed most effectively.

         Another thought that I had during the budgeting process was some of the wording for tasks. For instance, there is a task by the CEO to give a speech to the team. I like that idea as a way to bring people together, show leadership, and send a singular message. A CEO’s persuasive abilities can have an effect on the change recipients' buy-in to the change process (Sadaric & Škerlavaj, 2023). However, the message being sent was weak, non-committal, and frankly not something I would have recommended. His message was that they were going to try teams, but if that did not work they would try something else. To me, this message tells my people not to buy in because leadership does not know if this will work so we are going to try it for a bit. This message needed to be stronger so I left it out of the process even though a message from the CEO would have been effective, this exact message, in my opinion, would have done more harm than good.

         From the information I gathered throughout the process, I focused on communication, team-building activities, motivational activities, and including all levels as much as possible. I think these activities will coalesce our people into one big team working on a shared vision to get us through the process. Successful team-building activities include the team leaders meeting with the activity leaders, the team-building event, a quick review after the activity, and another review later (Adams, 2009). We see evidence of a similar process in our change activity as the team leaders meet with the consultants and a plan is developed (Understand), the plan is enacted (Enact), the results are reviewed throughout the process and tweaks are made to make sure the path forward continues (Consolidation).

References:

Adams, S. (2009). The four stages of effective team-building. Training & Management Development Methods, 23(1), 317-320. https://sienaheights.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/four-stages-effective-team-building/docview/202607331/se-2

Sadaric, A., & Škerlavaj, M. (2023). Giving Sense to Change Leadership: Towards a Narrative-Based Process Model. Economic and Business Review, 25(1), 41-63. https://doi.org/10.15458/2335-4216.1317