Leadership And Change Management Development Plan

Importance of Change Management in Organizations

Discuss about the Leadership in Organizations for Issues and Key Trends.

At present day the world is changing its structure in terms of management every day. So with the advancement of technology every organization would like to implement the new techniques into their company for the growth of Business in the market. For this a special leadership qualities are required to plan the changing criteria and executing it according to the designed structure. Change management is the key factor for any organization for the success. In this competitive world, the essential skill of the manager is to show the effectiveness of identifying the capability of adjusting to the changes according to the situations and grab the advantages from the changing structure (Goetsch & Davis, 2014).

The change management plan includes planning of the process from all the aspects of how the changes are happening and from which structure to what state and the areas that are being focused for the change. The change of management is expected for the development in future desired area (By, Burnes & Oswick, 2012). The activity of changing process should be planned accordingly and taken forward with good analytical skills as whole process here is interlinked. Since the changing process is linked with various other aspects such as

• Set time frames for the actions
• Prioritizing the planned steps
• Assigning of responsibilities to the officials
• Reviewing the process at every step to get away from the mistakes

By following all these criterion change management development plan should be done effectively with proper planning structure by exhibiting the best leadership qualities of managing the entire team and should be step forward of the process every time is the best way of exhibiting the leadership (Cameron & Green, 2015).

For the change management practices to be effective the mangers have to play the key role. The employees are made knowledgeable regarding the changes that are occurring and making them work efficiently to take the advantage of the changes (By & Burnes, 2013). For the change management to be effective three elements are required that are:

• Moving
• Unfreezing
• Refreezing

Moving is the case where a forward step is taken and allowing the change to occur. This means make a comfort zone by the change

Unfreezing is the case where by accepting and getting ready for the change from the previous state

Refreezing is the case where changes necessarily take place as the demand for this is seen everyday

The following plan should be implemented for the change management development which includes the process of three steps:

• In the first step, we need to note the requirement for the change to occur
• In the second step, we need to list down the differences and the favorable outcomes from the change structure to current state (Beck & Cowan, 2014)
• In the third step, the strategic designs should be encouraged from the employees of the team and get the idea of change and its effectiveness within them
• At the next level, implement the changes that are blending with the culture of organization so that it can be accepted easily and lasts long
• Finally, acquire the necessary skills and features which need to be incorporated to make the change a big success

Essential Qualities of a Good Leader in Change Management Plan

The leader is expected to exhibit his qualities of leadership by making people complete work efficiently in the given time frame and achieving the goal. His vision should be completely focused on the success of the organization with quality of work. The basic concepts of leadership should be followed by the person (By & Burnes, 2013). They should be self-confident before taking the authority to drive their ambition on the employees. Dedication to work and creativity in the activities should be shown.

The leading mobile company Apple was always successful in implementing the change management practices every time as it believed in this practice. It bought the changes in the organization whenever it felt it was required. The company has its own practice for innovative ideas and made changes according to it with the advancement in technology and did not follow any other business strategies (Belias & Koustelios, 2014). Their product is being run in the market successfully because of the innovative change management plan in the organization. The driving forces that are changed by the management are increased to low down the effect of forces that confine the change management practice.

The best practice that is followed by this company is the ADKAR model which represents the Awareness, desire, knowledge, Ability and the Reinforcement. As known if product is going to be released or it is in the market it needs proper awareness to be created by letting the customers know the usage and the advantages and how it is helpful to them. That is what is done by the Apple Company (Carter et al, 2013). It has created the craze for the product in people by its effective features by awareness.  With this practice it has planned proper activities of change management and filled the gaps of loopholes where ever required by diagnosing them. The apple phone has experience a drastic changes from its starting model to the latest one by following this practice. They incorporated their innovative ideas through the leadership knowledge and made people to have a desire of Apple phone with its attracting features (Finkelman, 2015).

Depending on the project type whether it is large or small, variations are expected on various aspects. In case, for a projects which are large and have broad range of users the implementation step of the process is quite complex an often challenging and the time required would be more than compared to the other stages of development (Avolio & Yammarino, 2013). A proper preference has to be given for the implementation stage of project development so that it can benefit the plan very often. The following recommendations are suggested to consider mainly for the projects which are large which are in a requirement of wide spreading their business and implementing the change management systems for their business.

• The strategy of implementing the change management developing plan should be handed over to the people who are appropriate in working with the system that is new. The idea of selecting those people is that they would have a strong interest it carrying the things in the right fashion.
• Have a proper understanding of the practices that are locally working and get the support from the superior managing team. Before that get the idea by collecting the information from the survey of what kind of changing management plans are being expected from the market view (Johnston & Marshall, 2016). This gives the basic structure that the changes that are being implemented would not affect the current state and will make a perfect fix.
• The implementation team should be given the strong support from the head of the organization so that they can work effectively. The chairperson also should involve himself in presenting the changing plan by explaining it to all the employees of the organization and its beneficial part.
• Training should be given to all the team members involved from different areas as the change management plan is connected with the entire process in all levels. Extended levels of training should be given to all users involving a various number of sessions to all the managing team, project heads and implementation team and their team members. The training is never ending. Short sessions of the required step can be split into many parts. The beast training session would be in the form of basic level of training followed by a two sessions of follow ups in the intervals of monthly difference (Johnston & Marshall, 2016).
• For implementing the changes, get the ideas from the people such as users who are very expertise in using the products and can suggest the ideas and motivate for the changes.
• Effective measures should be taken to know the track of the implementation process and its progress with the timely manner

Best Practices in Change Management: Apple Company Case Study

Figure 1: Change Process

Source: (Johnston & Marshall, 2016)

The above figure briefs out the structure of the plan that is going to be implemented for the change management development plan.

Here is the description for the structure of the plan which goes as follows:

Propose the reasons behind the change: Factors responsible for the change management development should be listed and the decision led to this which might be gaps in the performance, development of advanced technology or any other organizations motto (Johnston & Marshall, 2016). The present state in the organization and the changing plan that is going to be implemented should be described.

Scope and type of changes should be defined: Give the brief structure of change management plan nature. Know whether this change has any adverse effects on other roles in job, or any changes in other process, any change in policy and the organizations structure (Belias & Koustelios, 2014). List out the systems or areas that might undergo changes.

Stakeholders support description: Any organization members such a project heads, managers, team leaders or any employees are being victim of the change and whether stakeholders is okay with the change (Carter et al, 2013).

Change management team should be created: The team’s main function is to communicate with other members of the organization such as stakeholders and making note of their concerns and making sure that changes are smoothly processed without any effect on others. People with good communication skills and with high credibility are to be chosen.

Organization management approach should be developed: Get support from the higher officials of the organization for a successful change to occur which is very critical. Get feedback from the senior officials of the organization and make a good support with them to implement the changes (Avolio & Yammarino, 2013).

Make a plan for every stakeholder: All stakeholders even who are involved in plan should be warned with the risks and their concerns should be considered. The change management team should be responsible for addressing them.

Prepare a communication plan: Any process requires communication so here also it’s the important factor. Make a frequent communication with the person being affected. Support the changes and reason behind it and what kind of benefits if brings.

Keep a track of records: Make the track of change management developing plan progressing steps at every moment of the process.

References

Avolio, B. J., & Yammarino, F. J. (Eds.). (2013). Transformational and charismatic leadership: The road ahead. Emerald Group Publishing.

Beck, D. E., & Cowan, C. (2014). Spiral dynamics: Mastering values, leadership and change. John Wiley & Sons.

Belias, D., & Koustelios, A. (2014). The impact of leadership and change management strategy on organizational culture. European Scientific Journal,10(7).

By, R. T., & Burnes, B. (Eds.). (2013). Organizational change, leadership and ethics: Leading organizations towards sustainability. Routledge.

By, R. T., Burnes, B., & Oswick, C. (2012). Change management: Leadership, values and ethics. Journal of Change Management, 12(1), 1-5.

Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2015). Making sense of change management: a complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.

Carter, M. Z., Armenakis, A. A., Feild, H. S., & Mossholder, K. W. (2013). Transformational leadership, relationship quality, and employee performance during continuous incremental organizational change. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34(7), 942-958.

Finkelman, A. (2015). Leadership and management for nurses: Core competencies for quality care. Pearson.

Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. pearson.

Hayes, J. (2014). The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave Macmillan.

Hechanova, R. M., & Cementina-Olpoc, R. (2013). Transformational leadership, change management, and commitment to change: A comparison of academic and business organizations. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 22(1), 11-19.

Jacob, N. (2014). Leadership and Change Management in a Crisis Situation: A Case About Administration of an Indian District Collectorate. South Asian Journal of Management, 21(2), 151.

Johnston, M. W., & Marshall, G. W. (2016). Sales force management: Leadership, innovation, technology. Routledge.

Storey, J. (Ed.). (2016). Leadership in Organizations: Current Issues and Key Trends. Routledge.