Examining Changes In A Construction And Maintenance Firm – Ascension Plc

Balogun and Hope Hailey’s Change Kaleidoscope Model

It is known that in order to overcome any organisation issues, organisations has to make necessary changes and adjustments into their activities. Bringing changes often bring success to the organisations and helps in regaining lost status (Hill, Jones and Schilling, 2014). The current study will be focusing on examining the changes that took place in a construction and maintenance firm, Ascension Plc. The company earlier faced significant decline in their performance and dip in the revenue. Therefore, it became tough for the company to survive. The management made important changes and modification which turned positive for them. In this study, different change models will be used to understand the growth of the company. 

Balogun and Hope Hailey’s Change Kaleidoscope Model

The model is useful in designing an effective change process that would help in growth of the Ascension Plc.

Time: Ascension Plc is having lot of issues inside their organisation such as profit has declined; costs have increased, lack of proper accountability and ownership and lack of cooperation. Thus, due to this company is facing tough competition from Babcock International, Balfour Beatty and Carillion Plc. Therefore, change is needed in quick time in order to come out from the fear of shutdown (Hesterly and  Barney, 2015).

Scope: Due to several issues faced by the company during the period of 2012, Ascension Plc has lost their status both from the customers and from the contract providers. Therefore, company was not able to win any fresh contracts. Thus, company required to make severe change in order to gain previous status and generate better profit and be productive that would help in surviving and retaining market share (Bettis et al. 2014).

Preservation: In order to ensure better organisation environment, Ascension Plc has to preserve equality feeling among employees and autonomy of employee. It has been seen that there was lack of collaboration between senior management team. Preserving qualified and experienced employees will help in getting over worst situation.

Diversity: It has been found that senior management team was not supporting each other and was complete miss of trust. Therefore, staffs and departments were brought together in order to gain higher success (Hitt, Ireland and  Hoskisson, 2014).

Capability: The staffs working in Ascension Plc are highly skilled and possess number of experience which can help the company in ensuring positive change. The employees can be assigned different roles which would be effective for the company (Goetsch and  Davis, 2014).

Analysis of Change in Ascension Plc

Capacity: The industry was not sort of time but they did not enough time. Moreover, company possess strong 400 unions. Therefore, Ascension was in bring positive change in their operation.

Readiness: The senior management team initially was not ready to adapt to changes but unions were fine with the changes. The new CEO communicated with senior team and they were then agreed to perform the assigned role. Therefore, they were motivated in change initiative (Goetsch, and Davis, 2014).

Power: The power was mostly held by CEO, Jack Warner and other senior executives in order to implement changes. On the other hand, employees were having power to counter change. Therefore, it was tough to get their consent.

It is effective in taking decision and reason behind any change can be well communicated. The change of Ascension Plc can be analysed as; 

High Competition: The Company has taken decision to change as they are facing severe challenges from Babcock International, Carillion Plc and Balfour Beatty. Therefore, implementing change, Ascension can gain competitive advantage.

Decrease Costs: The costs of operation can be controlled and the company can enhance organisational effectiveness (Chienwittayakun and  Mankin, 2015). As a result, company can be able to save more capital.

Market share: Ascension Plc. can be able to gain back their lost share due to weak performance and low profit margin.

Employee Collaboration: Implementation of change can ensure strong bonding and support between employees and senior management team. Moreover, the assigned role can be carried with higher skilled rate and chances of error can be minimized (Grant et al. 2014).

Increase in contracts: Ascension Plc can be able to gain more number of contracts for the maintenance of track and signalling and handling other projects. As a result, company can ensure themselves in generating higher profit and better return to the shareholders of the company.

Improve in customer relation: The relation with customers would be improved and much needed support can be provided to and received from the customers. This would help in building image of the company in the market (Landrum, Gardner and Boje, 2014). 

Low performance: In 2012, Ascension Plc faced major decline in their performance which resulted in low revenue. Therefore, company may take more time in getting higher competitive advantage.

Cost Monitor: The monitoring of cost is done in bad manner and if it is not corrected then it can be difficult for Ascension to decrease cost at expected level (Kaynak, Mockler and  Dologite, 2014).

Routines and Rituals

Support from employees: The implementation of change can be affected if it employee does not show any interest or oppose changes. Therefore, wining their trust can be a tough nut for the company to break.

Build Trust: Due to low performance and loose of contracts, it can be difficult to engage large number of customers and provide them with superior services (Simon, Fischbach and Schoder, 2014).

According to this model, the past and current culture of the company can be understood. Therefore, it would make clear whether implementation of change was effective for the company or not.

Routines and Rituals	Prior to change, company newsletter and smart memos were used to pass on the information to employees or to communicate with them. The routine of the job was not in structured form. The workers were involved only in their part of job and did not take any responsibility to support others. On the other hand, senior team was responsible in interacting with group level executive team and head office, due to that they were not able to solve the query related to customers (Joyce, Bryson and Holzer, 2014).
Stories and myths	The senior management team and other staffs told new CEO that previous CEO was unapproachable and adopted distant behaviour. Moreover, he was not interacting with anyone and mostly sits behind the closed door and guarded by a personal assistant. Therefore, he appeared as a villain behind the continuous decline in the performance of the company. On the other hand, people developed a thought that he is not willing to listen to the clients or staffs. As a result, it created a bad impression of the company on the clients and customers.
Symbols	The symbol of the company is pretty simple having a triangle shape as their logo. The company does not use any specific jargon in their organisational culture. The image of the company majorly focuses on providing quality service to the customers and employees and society (Jette, Breck and Johns, 2015). Moreover, till 2012, company newsletter and smart memos was very much in function.
Power Structure	The high percentage of power was in the hands of owner and he took all the major decisions in spite of disagreement of some employees. Without the clear direction of the owner, the employees were not sure which task to perform and what is the expected time limit for completion of task.
Organisational structure	The structure of Ascension Plc is on the hierarchical side and in formal way. The information was passed from one level to other level. It can be considered a good organisational structure (Özer and T?naztepe, 2014). Apart from that, when large projects were undertaken, taking responsibility and ownership was shear lacking.
Control System	The company is not able to combine the efforts of skilled employees and due to that company is not strongly controlled. As an outcome of that, cost had increased and revenue slowed down.

Web Model for 2014

Routines and Rituals	After incorporating change in the company, new CEO abolished smart memo and newsletter and gave major focus on face to face interaction with employees to take their views. On the other hand, CEO management structure was re-organised and brought down to supervisory level in order to provide higher responsibility to the senior management team. Furthermore, CEO took the responsibility to interact with head office and group level executive team so that senior team can involve them in customer service (Vandaie, and Zaheer, 2014).
Stories and myths	The performance of the company improved and in turn customer speaks well about company and gave better ranking on service. On the other hand, staffs said that new CEO is very cooperative and does not sits beside doors rather more active in his approach.
Symbols	The symbol or logo of the company was kept similar as the logo is well settled into the minds of clients and customers. Apart from it, CEO did not make use of any management jargon and focused on honest chat with each staff.
Power Structure	The power was beholden by new CEO and he gave responsibility to most experienced staffs of the company to work and guide the employees. However, CEO did not make any wrong use of power and used the power to improve the performance and make staff realise their importance in the growth of the company.
Organisational structure	No change was done to the structure of Ascension but the role of many staff was changed according to the requirement and move senior staff from their comfort zone. This was done to use their knowledge and experience for the betterment of the company (Lacerda, Ensslin and Ensslin, 2014).
Control System	The change was successful and it reflected on the behaviour of staff and they were able to build trust and connection with others. Moreover, they were able to control the activities of company in better way which resulted in increase in profit.

Urgency: The change was required as Ascension Plc performance was going down and was losing contracts due to that they registered fall in their revenue and rise in costs. On the other hand, if this situation would have continued that company might have to shut down their operation. Therefore, new CEO made necessary changes in the management structure of the company and assigned responsible roles to senior management team (Lungeanu, Stern and Zajac, 2015).

Coalition: CEO, Jack Warner takes in interest of employees to response to change. In order to do that, he concentrated on two-way communication and generated a feeling and problems that are related with change to them. Therefore, it turned effective in convincing the employees and further used their skills and experience in the operation of the company.

Vision: The strategic vision was developed by Jack Warner and focused on building a collaborative working environment and handle all sorts of problem faced by customers. Furthermore, team working skills and project management skills have to be enhanced to ensure better performance all the time (Weeks, 2014). Moreover, Future First became the priority of the company.  The main vision of the company was to provide large quality service to the customers and involve them greatly in social responsibility.

Communicate Vision: In order to communicate the set vision and change, the CEO interacted face to face with the employees and talked about the change. Therefore, it helped in building trust and relationship between CEO and staffs. As a result, unions, senior management teams and other staffs were willing to accept the change and were ready to contribute their effort to bring the company up from drowning (Joyce, 2015). The new CEO did not used company newsletter or smart memos rather used two-way communication channel and try to understand the viewpoints of the staffs so that best can be done for the company. On the other hand, management jargon was completely ignored too.

Stories and Myths

Empowerment: In order to make the change work, the CEO has disbanded the size of senior management team that were associated to TED. Moreover, management structure was reorganised at supervisory level so that each activity of the company can be effectively monitored and improved. Therefore, flatter organisation was created and assigned strong responsibility to the staff so that they can make large contribution in company’s development (Nadolska and  Barkema, 2014). Apart from that, employees were encouraged to face risk and also they were motivated to provide ideas in the change initiative of the company.

Consolidation: The employees of the company was trained and promoted and some were brought out from the comfort room. On the other hand, the efforts of the staffs were combined and strong bonding was build between the staffs. As a result, it turned beneficial for the company and each staff was providing valuable support to others. Thus, performance of the company slowly started to improve which further converted into bigger success (Goetsch, and Davis, 2014).

Institutionalise: As per this change process, the company was successful in making relation between corporate success and behaviour of the employees. The CEO has started Future First initiative to make the employees concentrate on the vision of the company. Therefore, Ascension Plc was able to gain new contracts and better relation with the customers. On the other hand, employees took part in social events and company did charity as well. 

Conclusion

From whole study, it can be concluded that change is important for the organisation to combat organisational risk and place the company in effective position. It has been seen that prior to change, Ascension was going through tough phase and was not able to generate enough revenue and as a result, cost increased.  Thus, it made a situation of close down of the company. However, the positive approach of new CEO and his initiatives turned fruitful for the company and were successful in working together with the employees and with honesty. Apart from that, it can be mentioned that Balogun and Hope Hailey’s Change Kaleidoscope model was effective in understanding the scenario of the company and where the changes is required so that best can be done for the growth and image of the company. On the other hand, Lewin’s Forcefield model was useful in knowing in which section strong decision is to be made and what can be the possible result from such decision. Thus, it proved a great point for the company in dealing with the situation and solving the issues. Furthermore, the Johnson’s Cultural model has helped in understanding the position of the company in 2012 and in 2014. This model has been used to know whether the adopted change turned effective for the company or not. Lastly, the Kotter’s 8 Change Steps model is valuable in understanding change process that undertaken at TED. Thus, overall it can be concluded that incorporating change in the business turned beneficial for Ascension Plc. 

Symbols

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