Reference no: EM132935421

Question
The Organisation This case study describes a 133-year old company

- Newton - that is seeking to transition from a company that focuses on producing consumer packaged goods that are sold to chemists and food chains to a more innovative and creative organisation. In the past, this organisation has achieved great success as manufacturer of high volume, low profit items with a business strategy focused on operational efficiencies and decreasing production downtime and errors. To achieve operational efficiency, Newton has adopted a hierarchical organisational structure. Newton's organisational culture has emphasized a focus on following rules to ensure efficiency and has emphasized the value of tradition and conforming to senior figures in the organisation. In such a culture, there is little room for innovation or creativity.

The Proposed Change Program
The CEO of Newton, Larry Graves, has recently informed the senior management team, that a rapidly changing market has resulted in a large drop in profits. Larry has expressed concerns that the organisation will not survive in its current form. Indeed, he has argued that in the absence of major organisational changes, the company will not be viable within an 18-month period. As a result, he has developed an ambitious change program, focused on transforming Newton into an innovative, fast-paced company that can quickly implement new ideas and respond to shifts in consumer demand. Larry has employed an external consulting company experienced in large scale transformational changes to work with the senior management team to develop a plan to achieve this cultural change.

Initial Diagnosis
The external consulting team has begun to collect initial data to guide the change efforts. Several interviews have been conducted with senior managers and with employees on the factory floor. The leader of the external consulting team, Krista Agast, has taken these initial results to Larry as she is concerned at the high level of anxiety and distress several senior managers and employees have reported when discussing the proposed changes. Krista also has noted that several senior managers and employees have discussed how previous organisational change efforts have gone poorly, with several interviewees being able to discuss in vivid detail examples of times when change went "horribly wrong". Some newer members of the senior management team and employees working on the factory floor, however, seemed interested in the idea of working in an organisation that was innovative and creative. It was notable, though, that the factory floor employees suggested that they would not feel comfortable expressing such a positive attitude about the change to their longer-tenured work group members. A couple of factory floor employees said that they would be "shouted down" by longer serving employees, who have strong opinions on how work should be down in Newton and it does not involve being innovative or doing things differently.

Overall, initial data collection has made Krista increasingly worried about whether her team will be able to meet the proposed deadlines for the change program. Krista feels like she is at a crisis point. She feels like they may need to rethink how the external consulting team will carry out the change process given initial data suggesting some challenges in implementing the ambitious change program in a company that seems largely hostile to the change.

Questions:
a. Conduct a "force field" analysis of the forces constraining and supporting change in Newton. That is, list and discuss in detail the forces that would be likely to constrain or reduce the likelihood of change in Newton. Similarly, list and discuss the forces that would support the likelihood of change in Newton. Identify specific strategies identified in 7012EHR that you would use to reduce the constraining forces and then identify specific strategies that you would use to build on the supporting forces in Newton.

b. Explain in detail what diagnostic model would be appropriate in this organisation and why. Explain what this diagnostic model involves including key assumptions and approaches. Discuss one diagnostic tool that you would use to "drill down" to understand the root causes of problems occurring in Newton. Explain how this diagnostic tool would be applied in this setting.

c. Initial evidence suggests that manager and employee attitudes to change are likely to be negative in Newton. Identify two specific negative attitudes to change that the external change consultants would need to explore in this context. Define and discuss these two negative change attitudes and discuss specific strategies identified in 7012EHR that could be implemented to address these negative attitudes to change in this organisation.

d. Identify three issues regarding the evaluation of any change activities that are implemented in this organisation that the external consultants would need to consider in the early stages of the change process. Discuss these issues in detail and explain how consideration of the issues that you have identified contributes to an effective evaluation of change.