Improving Organizational Culture

The Step to Change Model

Cylvania Allen

Professor Brent Smith

LDR/535

06/12/2020

The Step to Change Model

Change is investable and accepting it would help every organization achieve success within and outside the industry of its operation, mainly when constant technological changes are being expressed in the business environment daily.

Step Model Kotter’s 8 of Change is an equipped model in which organizations acknowledging the presence of external and internal forces as attributes of failure and success can use to change their working environment to that of real progress (Appelbaum et al., 2012). Therefore, it is undoubtedly that Kotter's 8-Step Model can be used and applied as a unique plan to instigate change and define an individual purpose for an organization such as Walmart Incorporation. Kotter's Model would greatly help Walmart Inc. flourish today, especially within a competitive environment. Moreover, the Model's steps mainly focus on generating an appropriate environment that can be used as a platform by an organization to accept change, connect it to its changes, and eventually focus on change consolidation and application whenever possible. Thus, the Kotter's 8- Step changes would be used to give subsequent foresight on the areas Walmart Inc. should create change.

Step 1- Creation Sense of Urgency

A corporation like Walmart needs to create a sense of urgency for its employees before establishing any change. According to Kotter's, creating a feeling of urgency for your employees does not imply that an organization should push on asking employees to respond or deliver duties and responsibilities within a speculated time (Appelbaum et al., 2012). Urgency, according to the 8-Step Model of Change, refers to an instant to which Walmart Inc. provides awareness to their staff members about the need for change in the organization. Firstly, incorporating the staff member on the idea of change gives the staff an obligation to the Walmart Company and provides maximum support to the company and its management needs. The concept and process of Kotter's first step must be generated with an act of honesty through a dialogue.

Step 2- Formation of a Powerful Coalition

To achieve a feeling of agency in Walmart Inc., there would be a need to build a team that can guide others working in the organization to accept and steer the necessary change process the company is focusing on. Therefore, forming a powerful coalition will contentiously create a team of people who are willing to pull together using the company's resources in the same direction without looking at what they would achieve within the embedded change. However, choosing and selecting a friendly group of people to act within the dominant coalition may become a futile process if the right people are not ready to give their emotional commitment, trust, and teamwork towards the change needed. According to Kotter, the idea of step-2 in the change model is to create a group of enthusiastic people committed to helping Walmart attain an identifiable change (Appelbaum et al., 2012).

Step-3 Creation for A vision for change

In 2017, Walmart Company changed its vision to articulate the current existing needs of society in terms of economic and social gains. Comprehensively, Walmart Inc changed its vision, "To be the destination for customers to save money, no matter how they want to shop," which changed the working strategy of Walmart (Pathak et al., 2018). The focus of their goal has shifted towards charging amicable prices that their customers can afford. Invariably, successful efforts towards changing an organization are attributed to the ability of the guiding team formed in convincing the employees of the organization's goal orientation. Unfortunately, Kotter suggested that making a mistake during the creation of a vision for change can be tragic for Walmart and equally painful for the employees (Appelbaum et al., 2012). Therefore, it is always important to know what type of replacement is required and what vision should be imposed.

Step-4 Communication of the Vision

The success of any initiatives of changes in Walmart will not be triumphant if they are not communicated, directly, and with the focus to the employees. For an important message to sink into the staff's minds, Walmart should repeatedly enforce the message onto their employees by communicating it with honesty and openness. Importantly, the direction for change must be widely expressed so people can understand and buy in the whole idea. Kotter insists that a compelling vision should be desirable, focused, and communicable to the point that all individuals aspire to make the change become a reality in the organization (Appelbaum et al., 2012). Nonetheless, developing an inspiring vision is a tiresome process that an organization such as Walmart should formulate an effective plan to deliver.

Step-5 Remove Obstacles

Any change is realized if all employees in Walmart Company happen to breathe in the life of the new changes or vision put before them. Importantly, staff members should respond to the changes in vision by reacting to it and focusing on working under its oath. However, the incorporation of a new idea may be shuttered within the whole organization with various factors, such as the management system. Employees may be so willing and ready to embrace and assist in the development of the new vision in Walmart, but the management may create a barrier that shuts them from working towards the change. Therefore, it will be significant to shut down systems of disempowerment such as layers of hierarchal approaches, and rules and procedures that slow down the process of change. Kotter suggests that such sources of disempowerment should be removed to allow a smooth implementation of change (Kotter, 2012).

Step-6 Creation of Short Term wins.

The faithfulness of the adopted change becomes remarkable if organization tens to achieve constant wins within short term periods. Creating short terms wins within the changes empowers the employees to work consistently towards achieving the prospects and the needs in the new modifications created by an organization. Significantly, for Walmart, it would be necessary for the leaders to create conditions that can be used to fulfill the needs of the specific changes made in the organization. At this stage, Kotter observes that sometimes it takes success in enduring efforts, which may discourage how the workers level up to achieve the organization's goals under the changes made (Kotter, 2012).

Step-7 Build on the Change

Success in previous changes calls for more essential changes. Therefore, it would be vital to consolidate the old changes by building on more changes or improving the existing ones. Walmart Inc. must look at how to build on its momentum to rely on the changes by taking aggressive efforts such as getting rid of human resources policies that are wearing down or wear the organization down. Primarily, this step of the Model suggests scaring organization from the premature victory that they declare upon themselves after achieving short term success in the changes made (Kotter, 2012). Alternatively, an organization can use the success to create a basis for more changes.

Step-8 Anchor the Changes in Corporate Culture

This is the final aspect of change in Kotter's 8-Step Model for business change. The step calls upon the transformation of the usual traditions into new cultures that have a similar realignment with the real changes that were made. Subsequently, Walmart can create a formidable supportive environment that provides a sufficient change in the organization's culture without changing the employees working for them. According to Kotter, supportive culture in an organization will always provide a foundation in which employees can adopt the methods or ways of operating (Kotter, 2012).

On the whole, the Kotter's 8-Step Model for Change is attributed by the consistencies acquired from one step to the other. The more flexibility in the first step of implementation, the more significant the Model becomes for an organization like Walmart. Primarily, each step depends hugely on the success of the previous step in the Model for Change. Nonetheless, if the first step fails, reaching the final stage may become hindered, therefore, rendering the whole Model worthless.

References

Appelbaum, S. H., Habashy, S., Malo, J., & Shafiq, H. (2012). Back to the future: Revisiting Kotter's 1996 change model. Journal of Management Development, 31(8), 764-782. https://doi.org/10.1108/02621711211253231

Kotter, J. P. (2012). Leading change, with a new preface by the author. Harvard Business Press.

Pathak, A., Shankar, S., & Tewari, V. (2018). Impact of emotional intelligence on employability of IT professionals. Management Insight - The Journal of Incisive Analyzers, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.21844/mijia.14.01.4