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MY TEAM MEMBER HAS ALREADY RESPONDED TO THE QUESTION BELOW. I JUST NEED YOU TO ADD TO IT ABOUT 200 WORDS SO THAT I CAN ADD MY PART. I HAVE ENCLOSED PART OF THE TEXT THAT EXPLAINS IT.

Discuss Figure 9.2 on page 176 the “8 steps to Transforming your Organization” (Hacobian, 2016). Be prepared to discuss in class. Create a one-page executive summary describing what your team discussed about the “8 steps to Transforming your Organization.”

Team One Executive Summary

Summary: Steps to Transforming an Organization

Establish a Sense of Urgency: Show why the need for change exists. Either identify the need through analysis or demonstrate the need through a glaring issue. This highlights the importance of addressing current problems and helps get everyone on board.

Form a Powerful Guiding Coalition: Forming a coalition gains foundational strength and collaborative effort. This helps you gain more followers and see the change through different lenses. A strong team of respected leaders who support the change is crucial for driving the process.

Create a Vision for Change: You must be able to see the end state and demonstrate why the change will have an appreciable impact on that end state. This vision should be inspiring and realistic, making the change movement part of a larger movement that attracts people's natural desire to be part of something larger than themselves.

Communicate the Vision: A clearly articulated vision is essential to gaining credibility with those you try to convince. Use short, succinct, and intelligible statements to demonstrate your change leadership competence and inspire confidence. Good communication keeps everyone informed and excited about the change.

Empower Others to Act on the Vision: Share responsibility for aspects of the change with others. Provide training and remove obstacles so employees can contribute effectively. This will give them buy-in and make them a part of the process, playing on their natural desire to rise to the occasion and perform.

Plan for and Create Short-Term Wins: Have a plan of action and milestones to show that the change is trending in the right direction. Achieve and celebrate small successes along the way to keep momentum and motivation among the team. These quick wins help prove that the changes are working and mark measures of performance and effectiveness.

Consolidate Improvements and Produce More Change: Consolidating improvements allows you to build upon incremental wins and produce additional change. After achieving some success, continue pushing for more changes and avoid becoming complacent. Ensure the changes stick and find new goals.

Institutionalize New Approaches: Institutionalizing change requires time to become standard procedures due to team turnover, personnel leave, and culture changes. Embed new behaviors and practices into the organizational culture, making them part of daily life. Building a culture where innovation is celebrated can help keep this eight-step process cyclical.

Conclusion

Implementing transformative change within an organization requires a thoughtful and multi-faceted approach. By following the 8 steps outlined above, leaders can effectively navigate the complex process of transformation, from establishing a sense of urgency to institutionalizing new approaches. This framework provides a comprehensive roadmap for managing change, emphasizing the importance of clear communication, strong leadership, and celebrating successes along the way. By committing to this process, organizations can unlock their full potential, drive innovation, and achieve lasting success. Moreover, this transformation journey can foster a culture of continuous improvement, where employees are empowered to adapt, innovate, and thrive in an ever-changing landscape. Ultimately, embracing transformation as a cyclical process can propel organizations toward a brighter future, where they can stay ahead of the curve and make a meaningful impact in their industry.

PLANNING THE CHANGE

Engaging Stakeholders and Defining the Desired Future State

Planning the change involves engaging key stakeholders in the design and implemention of the desired future state. Drawing on Kotter’s (1995, p. 59) eight step transformation processs (see Figure 9.2), this dimension

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176  A. HACOBIAN

Figure 9.2 Adapted from Kotter’s (1995) Transformation Process. seeks to engage the right people throughout the change process while set-

ting realistic expectations of the path forward:

The change process goes through a series of phases that, in total, usually re- quire a considerable length of time. Skipping steps only creates the illusion of speed and never creates a satisfying result.

This dimension requires change agents to develop a solid understanding of the organization at an individual, function, and system level, enabling them to serve as a trusted advisor on the change process as the client begins to move toward its desired future state.

When facilitating conversations around the desired future state, an ap- preciative inquiry (AI) approach is recommended, in which the change agent invites dialogue around possibilities, even those perhaps not previ- ously imagined. As Watkins, Mohr, and Kelly (2011, p. 243) argue, “If or- ganizations are imagined and made by human beings, then they can be re-made and re-imagined. The constraints of scientific management theory that imagines organizations as machines are lifted and the possibility of new approaches and configurations emerges.” Throughout the process, the change agent can help the client evaluate emerging possibilities against the current reality of the system. The primary objective in this dimension is to define an appropriate desired future state that can be supported by a realistic implementation plan.

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A Change Agent Compass for System Transformation  177

Turning back to the “Global One” intervention, the project was orga- nized into three distinct phases: planning, implementation, and evaluation. The planning phase focused on initial stakeholder orientation to the “Glob- al One” project and its objectives, as well as data gathering to understand the current organizational landscape and the various perspectives for how the desired future state for the Division might be defined. At this point, the primary stakeholders were the members of the 15-person leadership team, and I conducted interviews with each member and then gathered further data via survey. A planning team was then formed to help with analysis of the data and preparation for a two-day Leadership Offsite. The implementation phase kicked off with the Leadership Offsite, which delivered a leadership team charter, vision, and draft guiding principles for the desired future state. Four critical workstreams were created to involve and engage the broader organization: Extended Leadership; Sites/Functions Roles & Responsibili- ties; Project Team Member Assignments; and Prioritization of Divisional Resources/Activities. The Extended Leadership workstream called for the formation of an extended leadership group beyond the executive leader- ship team, in an effort to empower the next level of leadership and drive accountability for decisions to the right level of the organization. Implemen- tation was also supported by a communication plan to promote awareness and understanding of the vision and guiding principles, and to highlight objectives and milestones across each of the workstreams.

Finally, the evaluation phase reviewed progress to date, clarified roles and responsibilities of the leadership team and extended leadership group, and developed metrics to assess the ongoing health of the organization as it worked to realize its vision. The “Global One” project plan as described above spanned nearly 12 months across all phases, and was developed very early on in consultation with the leadership team. Kotter’s (1995) eight-step process served as a valuable reference for this planning phase. Too many change efforts start out with a good design but ultimately fail due to poor planning during the implementation phase and unrealistic expectations about the length of time necessary for real organizational transformation. In the “Global One” project, during the latter part of the evaluation phase the Division was between Kotter’s fifth and sixth steps—between the need to empower others to act on the vision and planning for and creating short- term wins. System transformation that can be sustained over time, transfor- mation that involves true shifts in behaviors, mindsets, and culture, requires much more time than typically realized: “Until changes sink deeply into a company’s culture, a process that can take five to ten years, new approaches are fragile and subject to regression” (Kotter, 1995, p. 66). This is where the change agent can play such a critical role, working with stakeholders to un- derstand and plan for the real pace of change, while maintaining the ability to build engagement and commitment throughout the process.

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