Strategies For Transitioning From A Traditional To A Learning Organization

Addressing the Need for Change Using the Systems Contingency or Organizational Life Cycle Models

Based on the case scenario, it can be said that the case study company has many positive attributes like sales and its recent expansion to the international market. However, it lacks many other attributes like a creative workforce where it needs to consider a change to make it much more effective than before. Systems Contingency Model helps to evaluate the areas of improvement and indicates that the company is already into the pressure from negative impacts. The company seems like have successfully been through the input and transformation phase of this model; however, it is the output level where the improvement is required at both the individual and group level. The growth and expansion of the company suggest that customers are satisfied with its product portfolio; however, a lack of innovation in employees indicates that they do not have sufficient motivating factor to perform out of the box. In addition, the model helps to identify that the company faces the challenge for its outdated inventory management and an incapable organizational structure (Cameron & Green, 2015). These issues if persisted could become problematic for both the current and future business.  

Learning and traditional organizations despite having the same vision they evidently differ from each other. A traditional organization lacks a flexible approach and is more often satisfied with employees fulfilling their organizational roles and responsibilities. On the other hand, a learning organization is very flexible with its action and decision-making. It also wishes to attain the vision as a traditional organization does; however, it believes to nurture the mission into every single employee by promoting and encouraging a learning environment. In a learning organization, employees feel encouraged to think beyond their existing job role. This is how a learning organization flourishes a creative workforce (Kuipers et al., 2014).  

When evaluating from Woolner’s five-stage, the case study company appears to be at “Developing the Organization”. It is because the company is yet to become mature with the essential and integral elements of the organizational practice like unproductive training and development programs, and outdated software systems for inventory management. These issues require a change to be implemented across these sectors in particular. Once after the change is implemented, the organization will become mature with these processes (Lozano, Ceulemans & Seatter, 2015).

As stated earlier in the above question, the company is yet to redesign and invest in training and development, and in implementing the latest and updated software systems for managing inventories. The third stage of Woolner’s five-stage model is “the Mature Organization”, which is for organizations those that are in the continued process of identifying and implementing latest operations strategies and technologies (Lines et al., 2015). On contrary to this, the case study organization lacks a robust training and development practice. In addition, its inventories are managed with outdated software systems that affect its inventory management efficiency. Nevertheless, strategic, and technological advancements across the various levels of an organization is a necessity these days to be able to regularly compete with competitors.

Differences between a Learning and a Traditional Organization

Senge’s Five-Disciplines are shared vision, mental models, personal mastery, team learning, and systems thinking. These five principles are different from each other yet they are interlinked (Matos Marques Simoes & Esposito, 2014). An application of five disciplines on the case study organization can become challenging for a fact that is sometimes difficult to identify where to start from. There are a few companies that endeavor to pick one or a few of those disciplines. Some just focus on ‘systems thinking’ and ‘shared visions’ while not considering personal mastery, mental models, and team learning. However, it is rarely possible as every single stage is interlinked with the rest others.

Therefore, in the context of the case study company, every single stage will be applied to yield the desired result. “Shared Vision” needs a learning environment, so that, employees feel motivated to and are nurtured with the vision. A learning environment would require investing in training and development, and encouraging brainstorming sessions. These actions will supply both knowledge and motivating factors to employees. In this way, the workforce could be made aware of their capabilities and the impact of their actions on other employees and the management. This is what is called “Personal Mastery” of five disciplines. When employees are aware of their personal mastery and are able to incorporate their efforts with the shared vision, they will largely become the “Mental Models” for the case company. That team will have a motivation for a continuous learning, which according to Senge’s Five-Disciplines is the “Team Learning”. Team learning is essential to promote “Systems Thinking” at the company level. Once the case study firm is able to adapt to systems thinking, an analysis of organizational competency with reference to the market will then become easier. An adaptability with systems thinking is necessary to diagnose the needs for a change, plan and implement actions, and sustain the benefits (Belias & Koustelios, 2014).  

The nature of change will be an “Incremental”. The end result will be a “Transformation”.

The nature of change and the end result can be explained by Balogun and Hope-Hailey’s model. The company needs to transform from an existing traditional model to a learning organization. It clearly shows the need for a transformation (Smollan, 2015). The company follows a top-down management structure or the pyramid structure, which is one of the most common organizational structures. Despite the fact, it has failed so far to promote a learning and creative work environment. Instead, there is a need for a bottom-up structure to encourage shared vision and team learning. It all encourages cultural change to be accomplished over time. The change may also require new teams to be created and trained with an advanced system of training. These all are incrementing changes.

The four steps of the action research model can be applied to the change process such as from a traditional organization to a learning organization in the following ways (Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2015):

Problem Identification: The case company is existing in the manufacturing sector for the last 10 years. Since then, it has grown and expanded to international locations. However, it does not have a standardized training and development policy to cater to the needs of an international business. It additionally is incapable to effectively manage its inventories. There is a need for a transformation from traditional to a learning organization; however, the management is unsure of how to do all these activities.

Applying Woolner’s 5 Stages and Senge’s Five Disciplines for the Case Company

Change Management Expert Consultation: The case company has already approached a change management consultant. They are expecting a report consisting of essential elements of a change process for leadership.

Data Collection: The manufacturing company will assist the consultant in collecting data by giving them an uninterrupted access to business processes. The consultant will be allowed to observe meetings, conduct surveys and interviews, access to financial data, and other related information of the case company.

Primary Diagnosis: The stage just after the data collection is a primary diagnosis. The consultant will come up with their diagnoses. The case study company has itself diagnosed the issue and has found that there are low morale and motivation in employees for performance.

“Innovation Roles” and “Exploration” would be the two recommendations considering the case study scenario.

The management should use the “Exploration” to explore the innovation. The exploration of innovation will boost the formation of a creative workplace, which is one of the critical factors to success for a transition into the case company. Exploration could only be implemented if the management follows a bottom-up approach over its existing top-down management. A bottom-up approach will encourage employees’ participation in decision-making and shared goals. In these circumstances, employees will feel valued and motivated for performance (Kreimeier et al., 2014).

Kotter’s 8-step model also consists of “Sense of Urgency”. The sense of urgency indicates that if the change is not implemented on a priority basis, the case company can also face a severe crisis. Due to its rapid growth, outdated software systems, and low motivation in employees, the company can face a crisis in the form of autonomy and clear direction. An autonomy is required to encourage employees to participate in decision-making. Clear direction will be needed to support the shared vision (Cummings & Worley, 2014).

First and foremost, there is a need to create a sense of urgency to help this change to happen. The sense of urgency won’t just help to suppress the internal resistance for the change but will also assist in accumulating required resources for it. Moreover, there will be fewer chances for a communication gap between management and employees, which is essential throughout the change process.

A clear vision and strategy can also be developed to support the change process. The case study company thus far had been vastly successful; however, they never had a clear vision. It is one of the reasons why employees’ participation in creative thinking is very low in this company. By creating a clear vision and the strategy, the manufacturing company can communicate that it has given a serious thought to the change. The commitment level of employees has been low in terms of decision-making, implementation of actions, and creative thinking. However, these all might change with a clear vision for the transformation.

Employee engagement will be highly needed in this change process. On contrary to this, the company enjoys to have uncommitted or half-hearted employees. To effectively implement the change process, the case company must find ways to motivate employees’ participation in the process. There are no short-cuts to employee motivation for the change; however, brainstorming and feedback sessions can still be the good options to go with. Feedback sessions can be used to review and evaluate the change process and understand the level of participation of employees into it. On the other hand, brainstorming sessions will produce a huge data set of range of ideas. These ideas are necessary to lead this company on a different note.

End Result and Nature of Change Using Balogun and Hope-Hailey’s Model

The last stage would be to generate short-term wins, which would help to monitor, control, and apply ideas to mitigate barriers and successfully move to the next level. A change process traveled over such short intervals will probably have limited threats of failure. In addition. Short-term attainable change goals are important to be in line with the change. However, the company cannot afford to be overwhelmed with the success but rather is required to be equally concerned with the next level of the change.

Leadership is one of the five pillars of sustainable change. A leadership approach is needed at the different levels in the case company. A leadership in managers will motivate them to work collaboratively with employees. Employees, on the other hand, will support the change by participating in feedback and brainstorming sessions.

Without a strategy, the consultant for the case company could not have arrived at figuring out the entire change process and ways to accomplish it.

A culture of change can help to reduce the internal resistance, and boost leaders to proactively look towards identifying the needs for change and applying thoughts to it.

An organizational structure as identified in the case study firm is one of the critical success factors to the change. With the earlier organizational structure, the firm had no clues of how to plan and conduct the change.

Without systems, there won’t be a clear and detailed analysis of the problem and identification of solutions to those problems. For example, the consultant was able to identify issues faced by the case company and to recommend solutions.  

Conclusion 

Therefore, it can be concluded that the case company can successfully launch the change process by applying in practice all strategies being discussed in this study. The findings of this report is a learning guide for organizations those lack the five pillars of a successful change process.  

References 

Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, S. (2015). Changing organizational culture: Cultural change work in progress. Routledge.

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

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.

Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2014). Organization development and change. Cengage learning.

Fuchs, S., & Prouska, R. (2014). Creating positive employee change evaluation: The role of different levels of organizational support and change participation. Journal of change management, 14(3), 361-383.

Kreimeier, D., Morlock, F., Prinz, C., Krückhans, B., Bakir, D. C., & Meier, H. (2014). Holistic learning factories–A concept to train lean management, resource efficiency as well as management and organization improvement skills. Procedia CIRP, 17, 184-188.

Kuipers, B. S., Higgs, M., Kickert, W., Tummers, L., Grandia, J., & Van der Voet, J. (2014). The management of change in public organizations: A literature review. Public administration, 92(1), 1-20.

Lines, B. C., Sullivan, K. T., Smithwick, J. B., & Mischung, J. (2015). Overcoming resistance to change in engineering and construction: Change management factors for owner organizations. International Journal of Project Management, 33(5), 1170-1179.

Lozano, R., Ceulemans, K., & Seatter, C. S. (2015). Teaching organisational change management for sustainability: designing and delivering a course at the University of Leeds to better prepare future sustainability change agents. Journal of Cleaner Production, 106, 205-215.

Matos Marques Simoes, P., & Esposito, M. (2014). Improving change management: How communication nature influences resistance to change. Journal of Management Development, 33(4), 324-341.

Palmer, I., Dunford, R., & Akin, G. (2016). Managing organizational change. McGraw-Hill Education.

Smollan, R. K. (2015). Causes of stress before, during and after organizational change: a qualitative study. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(2), 301-314.