"leading Change" Simulation

Organizational Leadership and Change Management LDR/515

"Leading Change" Simulation

By:

Angela Cassidy, Carl V. Gibson, Angela Hairston,

Trey LaRoe, and Troy Neumann

Mentor: Mr. Bruce W. Webb

University of Phoenix

Date: June 4, 2007

Week Four Leading Change

"Leading Change" Simulation Exercise

Run the "Leading Change" simulation found on your rEsourceSM course page as an individual before meeting with your Learning Team. Then, as a team, complete the following assignment.

Cultural barriers to change can cause the most well-planned change management process to fail. This 1,250-1,500-word paper will focus on recommending what management strategies are necessary to identify and overcome commitment barriers. You will consider barriers that might inhibit long-term sustainability from an organizational culture or human perspective. The necessary information for this assignment will be obtained from the simulation your team has just completed and a minimum of two to three peer-reviewed journal articles. Each team member will need to take notes during the simulation regarding the major systems and players involved in the scenario.

Required elements of the paper:

a. Provide a brief summary of the change process or plan presented in the simulation.

b. Identify the key stakeholders that are affected by this change and describe their perceptions of the proposed change. Compare and contrast these perceptions and categorize them into common categories that the team will construct in a brainstorming session. For instance, you might consider categories such as job retention, payroll/salary, or communication. These are only a few examples. Feel free to construct your own categories as appropriate.

c. For each different stakeholder perception listed in each category, determine if it poses high risk or low risk to long-term commitment to change.

d. Develop a strategy to address each stakeholder perception listed in each category.

e. Develop at least one goal that could be used to measure the success of each strategy developed.

f. Based upon your research, propose monitoring and evaluation tools that would be useful in determining progress toward these goals.

CHANGE MANAGEMENT: CrysTel

Change Management: CrysTel Telecommunications

MBA 520: Transformational Leadership

Marsha K. Hardeman

January 29, 2007

Change Management: CrysTel Telecommunications

Introduction

Change is constant. Change in organizations is said to often be made in three areas: 1) structure, i.e. new services or programs; 2) technology, i.e. alteration in equipment and/or automation; and 3) people, i.e. selection, hiring, training, relationships, and attitudes. The book, Managing Change, states that, "...because organizations are interrelated systems, a change in one of these three areas is likely to involve a change in the other two areas as well" (NHSC, n.d.). The key to incorporating and managing change is to begin the process with preparation in the areas which will be affected. Preparing for employee resistance to the change process can give leaders and managers the upper-hand in trying to avoid the negative implications to organizational change.

Effective leadership can develop a "learning culture and promotion of innovation for organizations to help sustain change" (University, Building a culture for sustaining change, 2004). This change management plan for CrysTel Telecommunications will identify implications of change, potential resistance to change, monitoring progress of change, and recommendations for continued success as CrysTel implements change within the organization.

Implications of organizational change

CrysTel Telecommunications hired a consultant to determine the level of resistance to change within the organization. A communications company with 2500 employees and $200 million in annual revenue, CrysTel must prepare for impending and emerging changes in technology in order to increase products to consumers (University, Building a culture for sustaining change, 2004). Hiring a consultant to determine which departments have the greatest resistance to change will allow for CrysTel's leadership to address specific behavioral indicators in order to successfully implement organizational change as needed.

In Workplace Change: Managing Workplace Change, Becker, Tennessen, and Dahl state that some implications to organizational change are:

"...addressing concerns about job security and the workplace, increasing change acceptance, identifying the benefits of the change and create incentives for acceptance, perceive management commitment for satisfaction and commitment to the new workplace strategy, broadcast information through interactive dialogue, explain broad goals, and discuss personal implications" (1997).

These implications can result in both positive and negative effects within an organization depending on the way change is handled in an organization. Becker et al, also state that the most common question employees will have, when it comes to change, will be, "How does this affect me?" (Workplace Change: Managing Workplace Change, 1997). In order for employees to feel as if management has considered the implications of organizational change on employees, leaders and managers should avoid the following common mistakes when managing workplace change:

"...do not rely on formal presentations and written materials; do not assume that since you've "told them already," you don't need to tell them again; don't assume that change management starts with move-in and stops after it. It begins when the project begins and continues after occupancy; do not focus on the physical