Broad based action empowerment business essay

NameCourseTutorLeading and managing change in organizations‘ Making Sainsbury great again’ CaseIntroductionIn transforming an organization, there are several steps that are undertaken and should be followed and monitored to make sure that the company’s goals and goals are achieved. Leading and managing change has been a challenge to many managers because no one wants to advocate change. Change in the real sense is risky since in most cases, change is advocated where a company had been performing poorly in the recent past period. Pushing for change also requires experience and open-minded person. If one has no sense of sober mind, he or she cannot push for change in an organization. This exercise requires a risky taker and an experienced person (Beckhard & Pritchard 1992). In Making Sainsbury great again, Justin King pushed for change in all areas of business operations and processes. King was a risk taker and had experience that he had acquired from managing various organizations since he left school. Though he performed poorly in Organization Behavior subject, he had a passion of proving that, he failed theoretical side but not practical side of Organization Behavior. In the era of King in the management of Sainsbury as the CEO, many things that led to the well being of the company were realized and performed. King transformed the Sainsbury Company during the era of his participation in the executive management. In short, King followed the eight steps of leading and managing change in the organization behavior. Being a risk taker and having the required experience, formulating a clear vision or the organization and setting realizable goals and objects were some of the managerial characteristics that facilitated the success of King in changing Sainsbury from where it was few years ago. Sense of UrgencyDuring the era of King’s predecessor, Peter Davis, the employees were working throughout but there were no benefits to the organization. All they were doing was all in vain since they were not working towards achieving the organizational goals. Starting from the CEO Davis, the organizational members were driven by their personal interests and the way they were benefitting for being members of Sainsbury organization. There was false urgency in the organization (Herold, Fedor & Herold 2008). It was the duty of King to create a sense of true urgency by making sure that, the people are focused towards the realization of the goals of the organization. There was importunity for the company management to react urgently to the issue of customer needs and satisfaction. King ordered a quick survey of the customer needs and wants from the company. After the collection of one million views from the customers, King decided to make a summary and formulated a process that was to be followed. All other managerial and operational staffs were committed to the implementation of the strategies. There were also analyses that were made including market analysis, price, competition, and the distribution channels operations. King found it a challenge trying to convince people to do contrary to their norm or do what they were not used to be doing. However, King had no otherwise other than to recruit the personnel who were ready to bring change to the organization. In the changing process and creating of urgency, King made inclusion of all stakeholders, i. e. investors, customers, suppliers, creditors and other partnering organizations. He was not obliged to do things on his own; he wanted to create a changing organization behavior in the urgent course. Guiding CoalitionBring change in an organization is facilitated through division of labor. Each department should be dealing with a specific issue. This is normally called differentiation of labor. Bringing change entails setting goals and deadlines for each operational department in the organization. Building team or working in teams is the best way to ensure that, the company becomes innovative and creative in branding their products (Huber & Glick 1993). The coalition of different teams brings in the required change in the organization within the specified period of time. Bringing change entails bringing new ways of doing things. The management can achieve a quick change over through assigning different teams to different projects. The team leaders should thereafter be required to report to the CEO about the operations and the proceedings of their respective projects. In this way, the chief executive officer will be able to manage many projects simultaneously. King was very keen and worked with teams in monitoring and bringing change to the organization. He was both a team member and a team member. He was to receive the daily progress of all the other teams on the doing of the projects. For example, the distribution channels were prone to breakdown every day. When King took over from Davis, he ordered a through clean up of the distribution channels and a set up of new channels. There were some that were subjected to repair. The team in charge of distribution channels wrote its recommendation and King approved those suggestions. Marketing department team carried a survey of the preferences of the customers and their expectations from the company. King gave guidelines on the implementation of the findings. A new company started to take a shape. The integration of the teams gave the company a whole new look. Change VisionIn all organizations, people need motivation. The motivation can be in different ways. The employees need a clear vision of how the company will look like in future after it undergoes change. If the vision shows that, the organization will be the best in few years to come and everybody would be willing to be associated with it, then the employees will be motivated to work hard and enter into the history books of the company as the person who made the company to be as it is currently. A company or organization without vision is neither going forward nor backward (Quinn & Cameron 1988). One cannot estimate where the company is and where it has come from. The employees cannot tell where they are working towards. It is hard to evaluate the performance of the employees. King made the vision of Sainsbury look doable. He developed a change vision that took into account the current situation of the organization and the realities by the time he took over the management. He also set a couple of goals that were truly ambitious and challenging. The stoke holders of the organizations were convinced that, the firm will be at a better place in the near future if they all aim at the change vision. King made strong and credible strategies that were evident to the stack holders that, the company had the potential to do better than never before. King developed a communicable vision that was flexible and feasible and when everybody is focused, they can imagine it. He launched a recovery programme to assist in attaining the vision in the future. The sales of the organization products started to grow vigorously. Communication of VisionKing turned the Sainsbury into a learning organization. This entails the passing of knowledge from one person to the other, from one department to the other and from the management staff to the subordinate workers and vice versa. King did not keep on holding meeting or giving out speeches to the organizational members; this could be a waste of time. Similarly, giving out memos and circulars to the departments cannot be enough. However, giving out calendars and charts to all departments can be a very good way of reminding the workers on where the company is intending to be in the future. King embraced technology in business communication. For example, he ordered for mails to be sent to one million customers. A copy of the mail can be kept for future reference. Therefore, the communication is repeatable. Transforming the organization through embracing the technology can facilitate the efficiency of change in the organization. Reducing the time spent in transferring a message from one place to the other through a message personnel and increase use of electronic mails and fax messages signifies change happening in the organization. In leading and managing change in an organization, the managers should realize that, actions speak louder than words (Paton & Mc Calman 2000). There should be more actions in the organization operations and activities than speeches. In changing the Sainsbury, King used to walk the talk. He was an example of the new corporate culture. Inconsistent actions by leaders can undermine a communication program. King used to back up his words with his behavior and that was how he was able to convince other people in the organization to embrace the change. Therefore, there was less resistance from the organizational members. Communication is the backbone of change in any organization. Broad Based Action EmpowermentDuring the time of Davis as the chief executive officer of Sainsbury, the management structure was very complex and there was no flow of communication between the management and the employees. When King took over the office, he rearranged the bureaucracy and hierarchy of powers in the organization (Hammer & Champy 2001). Previously, the management thought that, they were customer focused and therefore, employed more people in the marketing department. This could not increase the sale revenue of the company but it could only increase the operational expenses and wages. According to King, the company was supposed to be embrace universal customer appeal. This means that, the customers need to be considered in the same manner despite their geographical location. Bearing in mind that, the company should increase its market share in the local and international market, there was need for a management information system that could record all the necessary information about the company. Removing barriers that prohibit the customers from accessing the information and the products is a factor of change. Customers were also required to give in time feedback about the services of the organizations. The MIS system also helps the management to analyze the market opportunities and match them with organizational strengths. Another barrier that King dealt with was troublesome managers (Kanter, Stein & Jick 1992). There are such managers whose interest is to criticize the effort of the other managers. They see nothing good in other people. These are the people who keep off the outside shareholders who have interest with the organization. They should be eliminated from the organization structure so that, the like minded managers can move on with the operations of the company with no human challenge. The empowerment of the projects and activities is very vital when it comes to change issue. Short Term WinsGenerally, individuals need physical rewards for them to be motivated to work. Similarly, many buyers get attracted to the promotions and incentives that the companies are offering to the purchase of their products. For example, decreasing price of products attracts many customers therefore leading to high sales volume. This pricing strategy makes the people in the organization to perceive that, the changes undergoing in the organization are paying in the short run. Those with spirit of resistance will be encouraged to accept the change. The market share of the organization will also increase because there will be many customers who will be willing to buy at the reduced price. Other incentives such as ‘ buy and win’ promotions also increase the market share of the company. People will be familiar with the tastes and preferences that the company manufactures (Kehoe & Alston 2007). King re-launched the products with a half price sale. His initial aim was to increase the sales volume. He also wanted to create and increase awareness of the Sainsbury’s products to the international and local markets. He also introduced other sales incentives such as ‘ shop and save’, ‘ switch and save’ and ‘ cook and save.’ According to King, change also extended to price altering and product rebranding. There are other cases where the employees are rewarded for their extra contribution. For example, if an employee is working during the overtime hours, he or she should be rewarded or paid a higher rate than the normal wage rate. As a chief executive officer, King had to try all ways and means in which he can mobilize the organizational members to accept change. Due to short term wins, the true urgency to perform was realized and accomplishment of goals and objectives will be cemented on a more firm foundation. Resistance to Let UpHaving attained the set goals or some of the set goals, there is no need to rest. In fact, the work becomes harder than before. If a certain team has successfully attained its objectives, they should be assigned a harder responsibility. The aim of the company is to move forward and not to rest at a certain point. There should be no limit to the vision. Whenever a goal is accomplished, the management should define another underlying challenge and formulate another set of goals. This requires that, projects should not be interrelated and all departments should not be interdependence on each other. The management of change should be ensuring that, the changing process is continues (Stringham 2012). This entails adding major projects once some are accomplished. The process of recruiting new employees should be continues in order to ensure that, new skills and talents are being introduced to the organization. King was first concentrating on the increment in the market share. After the market share had gained roots, he shifted his concentration to the revenue increment. This was accelerated by opening stores and supermarkets to different parts of the world where there are potential buyers or users of the Sainsbury’s final products. He did not announce the achievement every time the company made profit. He was still thirsty for more achievements. Instead of letting up, he made sure that, the initial practices are well grounded and are adapted by the organizational members as an organizational culture. This is to ensure that, even after he has left the organization, the new management will be able to progress the spirit that he had set. Making It StickCreating an organization culture requires a recurrent series of activities so that, the norm sticks into the minds of the organizational members. The culture should be publicized right from the time of recruiting a new employee and should be clearly put in the human resource policy booklet of the company. The new structural system should be written clearly into the minds of the employees and the operational managers. When the organization has undergone all the eight steps of change over, the culture will have taken its shape and it will take time to change that culture again in future. Change can be sustained. While everything else changes, change will forever be change. King facilitated managed change by influencing the organizational members in many different ways. First, he formulated long tern policies and strategies that will keep the change on the process. He reinforced new culture and values with incentives to the customers and rewards to the workers. Making sure that, the reward and incentive programmes are made as major activities of the organizations makes it a culture (Isaksen & Tidd 2006). Even when one is not in the organization, others will conduct the reward and incentives programmes smoothly. This is how King maintained change in the Sainsbury. He proved that new ways of doing things in the Sainsbury were more superior to the old ones. The people would, therefore, prefer changing to resisting change. According to King, sustainability is nothing but getting prepared to go through the process again. He believed that, nothing is good enough and he taught his employees this phenomenon. They were, therefore, to keep on trying and doing new things towards the well being of the organizations. ConclusionIn a learning organization, changes are unavoidable. Contrary to this, if the gravity of the business does not pull learning organization aspect, there will be no change to the organization culture. Even if the vision of the company is clearly stated, the force of managerial leadership is very essential. Learning organization requires smooth flow of communication; a two way communication. There are some management structures that only allow communication on one way; from top to bottom. In a company with such structure, the change will not happen. The structure itself is a barrier to the change agents. Others do not inhibit espirit de corps. The team work is the best source of ideas and one channel of communicating change (Huber & Glick 1993). In team works, there will be a reduction of resistance in the change agents. Leading and managing change depends on the commitment of the managers or the person on behalf of the company. If the person wants the changing process to go at a slow pace, he has the ability to do it. If he wants the changing process to stop, he can make it happen. Finally, if he want the change to be continues, it will be like that. The change over process can be done in different ways; pilot changeover, parallel or simultaneous.