MGTS7303:

Simulation 1
Reflections
Shantanu Subhash Ingle (46085706)

WORD COUNT: 2493 (EXCLUDING REFERENCES AND APPENDIX)

Objectives - Scenario 1
1. To envision sustainability goals and articulating them to the employees with effective
communication strategies.
2. To assist senior management in adopting change and helping them in communicating
existing problems and the necessity for carrying out the change process.
3. To assess the skill gap and train employees through a combination of internal training
and external training.
4. To carry out change management while maintaining high credibility such that change
goals and actions are aligned realistically.

Strategy for change initiative

• Establishing a sense of urgency by articulating and aligning organisation values with

expected change outcome.
• Setting up face to face interviews with the individuals belonging to the senior
management and recognising a group of targets set of individuals who are willing to
undergo change and generate a substantial impact within its peer network.
• Communication of vision and its expected change outcome to the people belonging to
the organisation.
• Anticipate the gap between the existing skills and necessary upcoming skills for
bringing about the change and hire a pertinent external consultant for carrying out
required skill-building training.
• Alongside external skill-building carries out internal skill building for the ones who are
eager to change and find a direction to achieve end goals of the change.
• Once certain individuals are trained within the organisation, establish a coalition group
that will play a massive role in increasing the adoption rate and would remain
headstrong throughout the change management process.
• Organise necessary townhall with employees and understanding what they feel about
the expected change and engage in a walk the walk to establish a personal connection
with them.
• Clearly outline the goals and realistic deadlines for the change through thorough
negotiation with the senior management and their peer network.
• Implement a pseudo/ pilot project and inform employees about the progress report
through an email. Subsequently telling success stories to ones who are resisting.
 • Carrying out change implementation and eventually informing the resistors about
success stories from the progress report.

Reflections Scenario: 1

1. We decided that informing the employees about the organizational values was
important. However, unfortunately, the lever decreased the credibility down to 8 as the
lever only works for the employees who are either in the interest phase or trial phase
and substantially wasted over eight weeks in the beginning without necessarily
informing them about a new a proposal.
2. The idea of conducting a townhall served as an excellent platform for the employees as
it allowed to discuss a new change within the organization while listening to their
feedback about the new change. It would have made a massive difference if this lever
was pulled at the beginning of the change initiative itself. Employees tend to grasp new
information through interactive mediums such as town halls.
3. Walk the talk and telling success stories after a pilot project execution increased the
credibility by a good margin. Walk the talk helped in bonding with the employees and
convincing the importance of the change at a personal level. Employees tend to
recognize the CEOs interest in letting them know personally how he/she feels about the
change.
4. The recognition of the adopter was done substantially late, making it difficult to form a
coalition. It is paramount to have members from different levels of the company for the
coalition as it eases information flow process and resolves any resistance in case of any
information lapse.

New Strategy for Scenario 2

1. I aim to conduct a town hall at the beginning of the change initiative. Conducting a
town hall helps in making employees aware of the proposed change and understand
their viewpoints about the initiative,
2. Walk the talk with the CEO’s support after a townhall will help in understanding what
the employees think about the change initiative and form a personal bonding. Taking
substantial efforts to understand the viewpoint from the senior management acts as huge
deterrence to any future resistance.
 3. Once the senior management is motivated, the members who are interested or are
willing to conduct a trial can be further motivated by informing them about
organizational values. Why the organization needs to align its goal with the values
everyone believes in. This would substantially motivate people to thrive even under
existing circumstances.
4. Further by hiring an external consultant, the company can push a considerable number
of employees into trial phase, as the impact of an external employee than an internal
can play a significant role on a person’s motivation and inspire them to persuade the
change initiative.
5. After hiring an external consultant, the change initiator should recognize skills gaps
within the organization and should take substantial efforts in filling those knowledge
gaps through first internal assistance and then an external one if the internal member of
the organization cannot fulfil the gap.
6. Once everyone is under trial phase, the organization is ready to conduct a pilot project
to test the viability of the change program. After a project is executed, the success
stories help in building confidence for the change resistors.
7. Once the resistor is confronted, conducting a walk the talk after posting progress reports
will act as a considerable deterrence in gaining support from the resistance.

Reflections – Scenario 2

Introduction

With rising environmental concerns voiced by the consumers about Spectrum Sunglass, it
became necessary for the company to change its product strategy and bring about change within
its production ecosystem. As the director of product innovation at Spectrum Sunglass, I felt
there was a need to share my thoughts about sustainability as a critical differentiator for market
positioning (Kotter,2007). Despite gaining a no objection gesture from CEO Hasan Ashraf, my
ideas faced significant challenges ranging from senior management raising issues about
legalities and production challenges. In contrast, one section of the management was eager to
incorporate change. Though there was no resistance from the CEO of the company, I still had
no formal authority to command over the day to day operations to bring about organisational
change. Despite having a favourable perception in terms of trust and competency, the new
change management challenge required a new set of strategies to be implemented, which could
push people into adoption stage within two years. I implemented a change strategy that took
around 66 weeks with a credibility score of 10 and a change efficiency ratio of 0.30. As a
middle manager, I used a combination of Top-Down and Bottoms up approach, as my task was
to gain support from the senior management and legal counsel while bringing about attitudinal
change within frontline workers (Michael Beer & Nitin Nohria, 2000).

Simulation Performance (What worked, what did not work)

1. Mobilisation to Movement Phase

As a Director of the Product innovation at Spectrum Sunglass, some of the early challenges in
the mobilisation phase was to make employees in the organisation aware of the change
initiative. So, I implemented levers like “Hold town hall meetings” and “Walk the talk” to
establish a sense of necessity for the change and how it could impact the company’s brand
positioning. Townhall meetings helped in conveying change vision and create a dialogue with
colleagues, while Walk the talk assisted in developing a personal bond with the employees of
the organisation (Kotter,2007). But instead, the levers acted as a strategic mistake while
dramatically reducing my credibility over a period of 5 weeks. I realised that creating a personal
bond without substantial credibility will not help me in creating awareness about the change.
CEO plays a crucial role when targets for transformation through change is an entire company
(Kotter,2007). Getting the CEO’s public support turned out to be a key turning point where it
had a significant impact by pushing the organisation from mobility to movement phase. I realise
I could have saved a crucial time if I had implemented this in the first few weeks, which would
have led to faster awareness among the employees. My credibility substantially rose from 4 to
6 between week 5 and week 7. As a result, the organisation moved from mobility phase to the
movement phase, where 19 employees in the organisation entered the awareness phase. I then
focused on convincing the senior management to take substantial interest in the change
initiative.

Based on the relationship network, I decided to interview three members of the senior
management and an executive assistant who had a high impact on their peer network. I chose
Mari, Deborah, Leslie and Barth as they all had the CEO as part of their close network. This
action was successful as it led Mari, who had a strong peer network, to move into the interest
stage. However, the outcome of the interview revealed that the other three would be motivated
to pursue the initiative only if their colleagues agreed to invest time and money into the new
proposal. To raise awareness within the organisational peer networks, I implemented a series
of change levers, which were enabling in nature. It included getting the consultants support and
issuing an email notice which led to increased interest among the employees. A crucial turning
point which assisted employees in moving to the trial phase was building coalition support
followed by providing internal skill-building. Making a political alliance was beneficial,
especially with employees like Deborah and Mari, who showed commitment towards the
change initiative during the interview.

Additionally, providing internal skill-building assisted in expanding the top executive’s

capacity to understand the change initiative, accelerating their stage from interest to trial. By
week 32, 17 employees successfully reached the trial stage due to “tell the success story” being
pulled promptly. In the same week, two others also adopted the change initiative, which led
week 32 to pave the way to steady growth in adopters. Deviating from the strategy and
implementing levers like walk the talk and get consultants to support post this week had no
impact whatsoever.

2. Movement to Sustain Phase

While there was a struggle to enter the next phase between weeks 32 and 55, there was also a
steady growth in the number of adopters from 3 to 12 in the subsequent weeks. By week 55,
the organisation had entered the sustain phase. According to the strategy developed, I pulled
the “conduct pilot project” lever during week 62. While the idea behind this was to test the
viability of the change initiative, it had a negative impact, and the outcome was not as desired.
My credibility dropped to 8, mainly because the pilot project was to be conducted among co-
workers belonging to the same department. However, as predicted in my strategy following it
with a success story led to three more adopters. While my strategy involved dealing with a
resistor, I did not implement the confrontational lever. The reason behind no resistors is that I
ensured that I conducted a pilot project only when there were maximum individuals in the trial
stage. The final three weeks were solely focussed on having an impact on employees who had
not yet adopted the change. By highlighting the organisational norms and culture through
telling a success story and implementing walk the talk, the adopters quickly grew from 15 to
20, thus achieving the critical mass.
Two Key Learnings

1. Personal credibility plays a critical role as a change initiator:

The initial five weeks were lost mainly due to pulling impertinent levers. It was certain that
even enabling levers can misfire if the change initiator does not have credibility. The simulation
scenario was set for a low power change agent with less influence, unfit to develop a sense of
urgency. Therefore, maintaining credibility by focussing on short wins should have been the
initial approach (Kotter,2007). As I began the simulation with a series of errors which included
holding town hall meeting and walk the talk, I lost five weeks with no impact and a subsequent
loss of credibility with a lowest value of 4 in week 5. As a middle manager myself it was
challenging to impact co-workers or the senior executives with less credibility. A compelling
action which aims to motivate others and to maintain the credibility of the change initiator will
have a direct and indirect impact on the peer network (Kotter,2007).

2. Blend of Theory O and Theory E Strategy

While I followed the softer approach throughout the entire simulation, I changed the strategy
as a precursor to conduct a pilot project. I opted for a highly disruptive lever, which was
announcing goals and deadlines. The outcome that I was aiming for was that clearly outlining
the goals and performance objectives would lead to a successful transformation through change
management initiative (Kotter,2007). However, I realise that this was a high-risk action as a
low authority change agent cannot influence employees to follow crucial targets. Further, even
as a high authority change initiator this lever could be pulled only in the Sustain phase as this
can impact individuals in the interest or trial stage. An alternative approach would have been
to take a less formal approach and focussing more on leading through culture. There would
have been a high possibility that by taking the less formal approach, employees would prioritise
accountability and take ownership of their decisions and perform better (Chatman & Cha,
2003). Continuing with the analysis of the relationship network further which positively affects
the peer network would have been an option, which would have led to achieving the critical
mass in a shorter span of time
Recommendation for a wider business context

As change initiator, I would prefer to take a more person-oriented approach as opposed to a

task-oriented approach. The person-oriented method involves conveying information about
activities that are associated with the implementation of planned organisational change
(Eisenhardt, 1999). A more successful team conducts frequent meetings and take a more agile
approach in informing colleagues about the change initiative (Eisenhardt, 1999). More frequent
meetings help in resolving most of the nuanced issues within the team and affected entities.
Research studies on change management say that, when more than one person is working on
the same business strategy, there is a high possibility of a conflict of thoughts for a specific
problem (Battilana, Gilmartin, Sengul, Pache, & Alexander, 2010). Hence, real-time
operational issues confronted in recurring meetings can be resolved immediately without the
necessary intervention of any senior management. Apart from frequent meetings, gleaning and
sharing real-time data during the mandatory or compulsory meetings should be at the core of
building collective intuition (Eisenhardt, 1999). Strategic issues arise from contexts that
nobody in the team has given substantial attention. When addressed during recurring meetings,
the amount of delay is lowered, and change implementation becomes faster. People tend to
derive motivation to carry out change when they see a substantial increase in the value offered
by the company. Employees feel inspired about the change strategy when they see their
contribution has the potential to add value in people’s lives (Kotter,2007). Informing the
employees about the importance of environmental sustainability is not enough. Therefore, as a
necessity, the change initiator should educate people about the growth projections, which
explicitly talks about the company’s future offerings and the direct impact it could have on
people’s lives.
References

Battilana, J., Gilmartin, M., Sengul, M., Pache, A., & Alexander, J. A. (2010). Leadership
competencies for implementing planned organizational change. The Leadership
Quarterly, 21(3), 422-438. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2010.03.007

Beer, M., & Nohria, N. (2000). Cracking the code of change. HBR’s 10 must reads on
change, 78(3), 133-141.

Chatman, J. A., & Cha, S. E. (2003). Leading by Leveraging Culture. California

Management Review, 45(4), 20-34. doi:10.2307/41166186

Eisenhardt, K. (1999, April 15). Strategy as Strategic Decision Making. Retrieved October 29,
2020, from https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/strategy-as-strategic-decision-making/

Kotter, J. (2020, October 22). Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail. Retrieved
October 28, 2020, from https://hbr.org/2007/01/leading-change-why-transformation-
efforts-fail
Appendix:
1. Organisational Readiness

2. Personal Interview