Leading and Managing Change

Introduction

Change is a constant phenomenon which is applicable everywhere whether in business organisations or in the society. This assignment is about the organisational changes in accordance with climate or society, its impacts both negative and positive, its challenges and issues which come when the change takes place and the other factors of organisational change.

Here to describe the necessity and importance of change in organisational environment, Tesco Plc. has been chosen. It has it’s headquarter in England UK as a British multinational general merchandise and grocery retailer of UK. It offers the customers all kinds of household products ranging from clothing, electronics, internet and telecom services, toys, furniture, petrol, software and so on. It has a chain of supermarkets all across the world with around 6800 shops indifferent countries. Tesco as one of the world’s largest retailers serves millions of people every week from both the physical and online stores.

The essay below will present planned and unplanned approaches for the current economic climate changes. The external and internal strategies for handling the climate changes impacting the organisational functions are highlighted here. Some advices are also recommended which can be adopted by every organisation to mitigate the challenges of the changes with the involvement of human resource department strategies.

LO 1. Understand the strategic and operational importance of change in organisations

There are so many natural calamities which occur every year and make the changes in the climate. Some natural calamities which affect the most damages in the economic climate are Floods, Sea level rises and Heat waves. Morton and Holden (2019) stated that the most affected are the small and medium enterprises although big companies are also gets affected by these climatic changes. In past years, nearly around half a million companies got affected by the rising of the sea level linked with the soil erosion. With the increasing Arctic ice melting the sea level is raising which battered the coasts, drainage and roads overflows. According to the studies revealed by the UK Science and Technology department, it has been revealed that the vulnerability to the mitigation of the diseases due to the climate change.

The climate change is a recent rising issue which embroils people, business organisations and the government also. Moyo and Perumal (2020) opined that the impact of climate change has its negative impacts on the infrastructure which differs across the European commission which the information that in some of the countries being affected more dangerously than other places.

Tesco Plc. recognised the economic climate changes as the largest environmental issues and threats which the world faces where one could possibly pose challenges to quite a number of their supply chains. As a business entity, climate effects impact both the operations and supply chain of Tesco Plc. These impacts include greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity, agriculture, refrigeration and transportation system (tescoplc.com, 2021). In year 2017, Tesco Plc. announced science based targets for climate change which covers their supply chain system and other operational activities. Tesco’s supply chain system’s target for climate change is in line with only a degree of trajectory as 2 in number which is quite stretchable for the agriculture and food supply chain. The commitments of Tesco in context with economic climate change are mainly based on two aspects-

a. The suppliers of Tesco achieved the target of an absolute 7% reduction in carbon emission across all their businesses for manufacturing and agriculture.

b. The operational activities of absolute carbon reduction of about 35% in the functioning of Tesco business (tescoplc.com, 2021).

Planned & Unplanned Approaches to Climate Change

In this fast changing social, economic and business environment, every contemporary company must learn to be more flexible and adaptable for successfully facing the climatic changes. As suggested by Rossi (2019), in every organisation, the implementations of changes are mostly planned for specific goals or objectives. But the changes can be unplanned also sometimes which needs the organisation to be ready to face without any fail.

Planned Internal & External Changes

The pre-planned organisational changes can be termed as those strategic moves by the company with an objective of implementing to change the nature of that business in the way which it is currently going on. According to Velmurugan (2017), some of the planned internal changes are like change in the products or services which require a fair pre-planning, proper resource distribution and effective team coordination among the team members to meet the goals. Another change is the change in the organisational size and structure which is the restructuring the old hierarchical framework. Also the administrative system changes come under the planned changes. The external planned changes include the regular technological innovations in the market and society and the advancements in the communication and information processing sector which is relatively connected with the organisational functioning.

Unplanned External & Internal Changes

The unplanned internal changes are such as the demographic composition changes which results in sometimes increase or sometimes decrease in the joining of workforces in the organisation. Zhumabayeva (2019) advised that the internal performance gap is associated with the form of depletion in the profit margins or the non-performance of any product or service line in the market. The government regulations changes and the global economic composition changes are the external unplanned changes regarding the organisational functioning.

It is interpreted that managing the organisational changes is one of the most essential pre-requisite thing for adapting the competitive challenges and transforming the business for betterment.

LO 2. Critically evaluate change management theory, strategies and tactical options

Change Management Strategies

The change management plans supports smooth transitions and do ensures the employees must be guided through the changes taking place. It is a real fact that around 70% of the change initiatives fails due to the careless and negative employee attitudes and their unproductive behaviour towards their work and responsibilities (Cowne et al. 2018). The change management strategies can help by up to 30% to ensure the winning position as studies and researches states. Few of that type of strategies which can live up the change management are –

Before starting the change management plans a clear definition and perspective needs to be declared to everybody and align them with the business goals so that the employees can understand the seriousness of that plan.

The next strategy to take is to make them understand that who will get affected by these plans and determine collectively with them that what will be the result of the change.

It is very important and essential that how the change management is communicated and shared with everybody since on that depends the interest of employees to actively participate in that. So a clear and effective communication is must.

To attain and acquire the change plans a proper training is necessary to that every employee will be able to adopt them smoothly. Donald (2019) stated that training programs can be either face to face or micro learning online modules or on-job training sessions.

During the change plans there will be a need of a support system to the employees involved in it so that if any issue arises they can get help from the support system. So implementing an effective support system is essential.

Change Management Theory

Change is an inevitable phenomenon which brings peoples’ attitude on board. According to O'Neil (2018), change management theories are designed to act as compasses that will navigate the difficulty in the transition process. There are numerous types of change management theories such as Nudge theory, Deming cycle, Satir change model, Bridges’ transition model, McKinsey 7S model. One of the most effective theories is the McKinsey 7S model which is consisted of the 7 S namely strategy, structure, system, shared values, style, staff & skill (Piña et al. 2018). The first three Strategy, structure and system are soft elements of the model which are easier to identify and influencing the management. The remaining four elements are related with the personalisation of the employees. The primary key to maintain and keep all the seven elements together in harmony is to analyse how they can be interacted to each other and affect each of them. McKinsey 7S theory is a perfect model to identify what’s wrong in the organisation and address the issues.

Change Management Tactical Options

The hardest part of change management is not convincing people to adopt it but to ensure that the change sticks and sustains to its objective for which it has been adopted. As per Waterhouse and Mann (2021), the requirement of a stable behavioural shifts and the implementation of that tactics after adoption is important.

The first tactic is to activate the understanding among the employees that why the change is necessary. The reason behind the change plan must be made understand to them from their perspective of viewing. Only then they will be able to understand the need and also to make sure that what changes are required to fulfil the set objectives. Rossi (2019) disclosed that the describing of the reason and necessity of change strategies builds awareness among the participants.

All employees are no capable of doing and handling everything so before setting the change it is important to train them properly so that it will get easier for them to adopt the change positively and move ahead with the plan sticking to the goals.

The continuous listening to employees about their efforts, issues they are facing and keeping them appreciated makes the tactics alive so that all the employees can feel that they are actively participated in the change plan (Piña et al. 2018).

After completion of the change plan, employee effort recognising and awarding or praising makes them encouraging working harder and give more efforts. The success celebration is also a part of change management.

LO 3. Synthesise unplanned and planned change and organisational development approaches

In order to develop an organisation it is important to drive the full range of effectiveness and benefits towards the organisational development approaches. Few of the organisational development approaches are such as Goal attainment approach, Systems approach and Competing values approach. All these approaches work for a smooth organisational development process.

Goal Attainment approach

This approach as the name states is relevant with the actions to achieve the business goals in an effective way. This approach is developed to make sure that there is a process of continuous goal achieving process in the company because regular setting up of goals and attaining them creates an energetic environment and improves the enthusiasm in the employees (porcinehealthmanagement.biomedcentral.com, 2020). The goal attainment is one of the most used criteria of effective development. Its main motives are like high productivity, profit maximisation, employees’’ morale. It has certain rules like-

• Organisation must set their ultimate goals
• The goals must be identified first and then defined for a better understanding
• There needs to be few goals and should be achieved one by one, else it will be a failure and unable to manage them
• The goals which are listed must be measurable else its effectiveness and success cannot be analysed
• There needs to be a general agreement of all the participants for the decided goal since everyone’s acceptance is necessary

However in this approach the managers must be able to identify and measure the goals so that the assessment can be done of the effectiveness of this organisational development approach.

Systems approach

In some cases the goal attainment approach yet being the most common approach may not be the appropriate one from the view point of multiple goal setups where it is obvious that conflicts will arise between team members. It may be possible that in regards with some goals, the performance may be highly encouraging but there exists a dismal failure in case of some other goals since this is a multiple goal approach (sciencedirect.com, 2020). In that case the system approach is the remedy. In this approach the performance of every goal related task is evaluated separately to get the final result of which is attained successfully and which one failed to achieve. The elements of this approach are-

• Adaptability which means the ability to react flexibly and solve the sudden issues in the changing business environment
• A sense of identity which means the detailed knowledge and insight on the part of the organisation and the feeling of being responsible for how the goal can be achieve and what will be the process to achieve
• Capacity to test reality which means the ability to choose the accurate, clear and appropriate interpretation of methods in the business environment

In fact this approach focuses on the specific ends of each of the goals with its limitations.

Competing value approach

Basically the competing value approach underlies the criteria of actual value assessing the effectiveness of the organisation of various aspects such as investment returns, market share of the company’s products and services, development of new products and others (springer.com, 2020). These depend on the interest of the employees of the company which they represent. This approach is needed for integrating all the primary variables in the domain of the organisational effectiveness and in such a situation the integrated approach is offered by the Computing value approach.

The different stakeholders such as unions, shareholders, management, suppliers, employees and public all of them represents the various interests of the organisation. It is not at all surprising that all these stakeholders involved in the organisation evaluates and analyses the organisational success and effectiveness according to their own interest respectively. So in this approach the assessment of target achievement and effectiveness is measured by each of the involved stakeholder as per their room of interest and profitability (sciencedirect.com, 2021). However it can be said that collectively this approach is a better way to adopt the change management plans in the organisation.

LO 4. Critically assess the key areas of organisational and individual resistance to change

Organisational resistance is the tendency of both an individual and organisation as a whole to resist the changes happening and wanting to maintain the present status. The companies who suffer from inertia become incapable and inflexible to adopt the internal and external demands for change in the surroundings.

The individual resistance to a change exists in the basic human nature or characteristics which are influenced by different perceptions, personal backgrounds, personality related needs and differences (Cowne et al. 2018). It is very much important to know the factors that trigger the individual resistance towards change in order to resolve it. The reasons for individual resistance to change are –

a) Habit of the person is that characteristic which doesn’t develops quickly and is as hard as nearly impossible to change it. The habit of resisting changes in the surrounding of a person makes him/her rigid towards not accepting the organisational internal and external environment (porcinehealthmanagement.biomedcentral.com, 2020). Some times this causes due to a fear to accept and adopt the happening change. A person thinks in such a way that he/she may not be capable enough to welcome the change and as a result they resist.

b) The resistance also comes from the rigid thinking that there is no need to change the current status of working or current method of doing anything. There comes the fear that they have lack of knowledge and information about the future change (springer.com, 2020). Sometimes the future impact of the change also causes the resistance towards organisational change.

c) Another reason of individual resistance to organisational change is the fear or thought of losing anything old but valuable thing. There comes a threat to individuals that financial or personal security or losing the health of individuals leads to the resistance of change in the organisational behaviour. There also comes a lack of acceptability or tolerance when there is the talk of occurring some change in the organisational environment (Cowne et al. 2018). This built up over the period of time when the change fatigue is also built up in individuals. These reasons can be tackled by the help of effective communication with the individuals making them aware of the positive results of the changes.

Along with the individual resistance there exists the organisational resistance also towards the changes which needs to be done in every organisational environment of both the internal and external changes. The factors or reasons for the resistance in the organisational behaviour are such as-

a) The possible threats in regards with the resources, power and expertise also cause the organisational resistance to change at an organisational level. Any such type of devolution of power or the transfer of the organisational resources from any such agencies or some group to some other group or agency it will definitely leads to the thoughts and feeling of a fear or inertia to face the change initiatives in the organisation (sciencedirect.com, 2020).

b) One of the major reason for the presence of organisational resistance towards change is due to the business structural limitations and rigidities which happens in the bureaucratic situations who focuses more on the stability, set methodologies, control and routine of the business organisation (springer.com, 2020).

c) The inertia from the various groups involved in a business may sometimes resist to the changes in the organisation just like the individuals, groups equally needs to follow the set behavioural pattern and culture or norms and as a result of that change those groups might sometimes have the fear of losing their existing ways of behaviour or conduct (sciencedirect.com, 2021).

Conclusion

This assignment concludes that According to the studies revealed by the UK Science and Technology department, it has been revealed that the vulnerability to the mitigation of the diseases due to the climate change. The climate change is a recent rising issue which embroils people, business organisations and the government also. The change management strategies can help by up to 30% to ensure the winning position as studies and researches states. The continuous listening to employees about their efforts, issues they are facing and keeping them appreciated makes the tactics alive so that all the employees can feel that they are actively participated in the change plan.

This above written essay declares that Habit of the person is that characteristic which doesn’t develops quickly and is as hard as nearly impossible to change it. The habit of resisting changes in the surrounding of a person makes him/her rigid towards not accepting the organisational internal and external environment. Another reason of individual resistance to organisational change is the fear or thought of losing anything old but valuable thing. There comes a threat to individuals that financial or personal security or losing the health of individuals leads to the resistance of change in the organisational behaviour. Finally it can be concluded that accepting and adopting the climate and organisational change can be made easy if appropriate steps and measures have been taken.

References

Books

Cowne, E., Frankl, C. and Gerschel, L., 2018. The SENCo Handbook: Leading and managing a whole school approach. Routledge.

Donald, M., 2019. Leading and Managing Change in the Age of Disruption and Artificial Intelligence. Emerald Group Publishing.

O'Neil, E., 2018. Leading—Not Managing—Through a New World Order. Generations, 42(1), pp.41-44.

Piña, A.A., Lowell, V.L. and Harris, B.R., 2018. Leading and Managing e-Learning. Bloomington, IN: Association for Educational Communications and Technology/Springer.

Waterhouse, J. and Mann, S., 2021. Mapping Domain Knowledge for Leading and Managing Change. The Serials Librarian, pp.1-8.

Journals

Morton, B. and Holden, R., 2019. Conversations About Change: Leading and Managing Change at CaseX. International Journal of HRD Practice Policy and Research, p.59.

Moyo, Z. and Perumal, J., 2020. A systematic review of research on women leading and managing education in Zimbabwe. Gender & Behaviour, 18(2), pp.15688-15697.

Rossi, P., 2019. Conflicts in Leading and Managing Change: Towards a Reflexive Practice. Leading Change in a Complex World: Transdisciplinary Perspectives.

Velmurugan, R., 2017. Nursing issues in leading and managing change. International Journal of Nursing Education, 9(4), pp.148-151.

Zhumabayeva, E., 2019. LEADING AND MANAGING CHANGE: POSSIBILITIES AND CHALLENGES IN THE CONTEXT OF TEAMWORK. Вестник Атырауского университета, 55(4), pp.11-20.

Websites

porcinehealthmanagement.biomedcentral.com, 2020. Effectiveness of alternative measures to reduce antimicrobial usage in pig production in four European countries, available at: https://porcinehealthmanagement.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40813-020-0145-6 [Accessed on: 6th November, 2020]

sciencedirect.com, 2020. How are European countries planning for sea level rise?, available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0964569120304191 [Accessed on: 24th November, 2020]

sciencedirect.com, 2021. Two decades of forest-related legislation changes in European countries analysed from a property rights perspective, available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S138993411930526X [Accessed on: 17th January, 2021]

springer.com, 2020. Overcoming the Challenges of Water, Waste and Climate Change in Asian Cities, available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00267-019-01137-y [Accessed on: 7th December, 2020]

tescoplc.com, 2021. About Us, available at: https://www.tescoplc.com/about/ [Accessed on: 16th January, 2021]

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