Leadership and change management

1

Running head: CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROPOSAL

2

CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROPOSAL

Change Management Proposal

HR006: Leadership, System Thinking, and Change Management

Yasmin Abdulghafour

Walden University Comment by Dr. Steve: Yasmin – this report is intended to be one paper (two parts) – please combine your Part I and Part II into a single document when you re-submit.

Executive Summary

Organizational change is the process in which any organization brings or desires to bring changes in its organizational culture, structure, strategies, functions or technologies to cause the change within the company to achieve certain goals and improve the overall performance of the company. This study is based on proposing a change management model for Ronald Reagan UCLA medical Medical center Center which is located in Los Angeles. UCLA medical Medical center Center is focused on continuously improving its services by implementing the concept of “True North” which suggests to improve and idealize different aspect of services including quality, equity, care experience, safety, financial stewardship, and workforce development and care.

This change management proposal recommends the use of Kotter's 8-step change model to bring the change in the organizational culture of the UCLA Health System. This proposal also highlights the role of communication in bringing change in the organization. Moreover, this study suggests the strategies to motivate employees to embrace the process of change and recommends the training strategies that can be used to implement the process of change successfully. This study also provides a guideline of how the change process can be evaluated and measured on the basis of organizational and individual performances. Comment by Dr. Steve: Good

Change Management Proposal

Introduction of the Organization

Ronald Reagan UCLA medical Medical centerCenter, a 520-bed facility, is a medical service providing organization located in Los Angeles. It was founded in 1955 and initially started as UCLA medical Medical center Center but, later it became Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical center Center in 2008. The medical center has highly qualified staff which provides 24 hours of medical services. This center offers many clinical services including cancer services, cardiovascular services, pediatric services, transplantation facilities, men and women health services, and weight management programs, etc. the facility has about ten 10 floors, and every floor contains dialysis storage, satellite pharmacy, respiratory therapy workrooms, and restrooms for doctors and residents. What is your resource for this information? Comment by Dr. Steve: Run on sentence – try re-writing this as two sentences

The mission of UCLA health Health is to deliver timely and leading research, education, and patient care. It is aimed at healing humankind by providing medical services and acts of kindness. UCLA Health is focused on providing the best health care services through the latest medical technology. Staff including physicians, nurses, doctors, and other members are supervised by competent leadership including Johnese Spisso who is president of UCLA health and CEO UCLA hospital system, and John Mazziotta who is CEO UCLA health and Vice-Chancellor at UCLA health system (UCLA HEALTH, 2019). Comment by Dr. Steve: Same caution as before regarding use of actual names

Desired Organizational Changes

The leadership of the medical center is now focused on further improvement by bringing change by implementing and applying a handful of the metrics at the organization level that is explained as "True North." The concept of “True North” means that all the functions within the company should be performed in an ideal way. Some of the aspects of the functions and services that need to be idealized in medical Centre center include quality, equity, care experience, safety, financial stewardship, and workforce development and care (citation?). The efforts started with implementing DMS (daily management systems) (DMS) for urgent care unit, emergency department, and pediatric services. DMS helps engage team members in identifying and resolving issues. Implementation of DMS led to measurable improvements including quality improvement and increase in capacity to see clients in urgent care clinic, reducing wait times in pharmacies, and decrease decreasing in cycle times for patients in the emergency department. DMS is yet to apply in other services. UCLA Health is also aimed at developing leader traits which truly support the philosophy of enabling, aligning, and improving at all levels of management in all departments.(citation?) Comment by Dr. Steve: Yasmin – this is unclear – how does DMS connect with “True North?” The way you have it written, I cannot tell if it is part of this initiative or a separate information technology initiative.

Driving force that is demanding changes

The driving force behind bringing the change in UCLA health Health is to gain sustainable competitive advantage. The only competitive advantage in today’s world is the ability to adapt, change, and evolve better than the competitors. It is the requirement of the advanced world to have an improved system for bringing change and an understanding of important issues which guide change management (Salman & Broten, 2017). Patient safety needs means more than just preventing, eliminating, and complying the situation. So, it is crucial to ensure that the healthcare system is resilient to a larger extent, and everyday functions have more probability of succeeding than they fail. Thus, the motivation behind implementing this model is that this paradigm would help facilitate flexibility and increase the capacity of UCLA health to deliver more healthcare more effectively. This change will also make the system flexible which can adapt changes under different situations. Comment by Dr. Steve: This is not clear Comment by Dr. Steve: Your explanations of the forces driving this change are not clear. You begin by discussing gaining a competitive advantage, then you go into patient safety, then to organizational resilience. You need to describe succinct, discreet reasons why the organization has chosen to make this change.

Expected Resistance

Bringing change requires the leadership challenge the already existing practices, norms, and habits of established behaviors. It requires time and commitment on the part of the leader. All the staff needs to be well involved to implement the changes at the organizational level. Otherwise, there can be many difficulties to implement these changes. All the stakeholders may not accept these changes in case these changes are imposed on them. So, it is necessary to properly convey the need for the change to all staff and persuade them.

Implementing the new policies too fast can also face resistance as no one will be ready to adapt to this innovation too quickly. Employees can also resist if they are not fully aware of organization goals and mission. So, it is the role of the ethical leadership to lead from the front and develop interpersonal trust among the leaders and staff. Lack of interpersonal trust can also cause resistance in the process of bringing change (Lewis, 2019). Comment by Dr. Steve: This is vague; please provide specific examples of the resistance expected to this change; who will resist the change and why will they resist it.

Organizational Change Model (Kotter’s 8-step Model)

Change management refers to how organizations implement organizational change. There are many approaches to bringing change in the organization. One of the models is Lewin’s model which breaks change process into three smaller stages including unfreeze, change, and refreeze (citation?). Unfreezing eases the process of bringing change. Another model is AKDAR model which uses a people-focused approach to bring change. It involves creating awareness and desire for change, educating people, enabling, and reinforcing to sustain change (Ford, 2018). Comment by Dr. Steve: Why aren’t these models appropriate for this change?

Kotter’s 8-step Model

But, here weThe leadership of UCLA Health will use the Kotter’s 8 step change theory or model to implement the desired change in UCLA facility. This model was developed by John Kotter in 1996. The eight steps are classified in three broad categories which are discussed step by step and clarifies how the change process can be accompanied in every stage as shown in figure 1 (Small et al., 2016).

A. Creating a climate for change

Many initiatives do notn’t succeed because organizations may lack interest in the desired change or put insufficient efforts to bring change. Some of the steps required for creating climate change are discussed below.

1. Increasing Urgency

In this step, change leaders need to create a sense of urgency about the desired changes. This includes identifying the crisis which requires change. In the case of UCLA, the factors like a competitive advantage of competitors, rising costs due to routine practices, and reimbursement problems due to lack of competitive services can be identified to create the sense of urgency among workers (citation?).

2. Build a strong coalition

After creating a sense of urgency, UCLA must bring the right team members together. It includes forming the right team having commitment and trust to perform the required task. This step also includes confronting problems which are normally avoided. The team should be emotionally honest and capable of speaking the unspeakable, persuading the others, and perform a job without any fear of reprisal(citation?).

3. Form a vision

This step needs to define a vision of change and identify the desired changes. In this step, UCLA needs to define all changes including implementing DMS, developing leader traits which truly support the philosophy of enabling, align, and improve at all levels, and idealizing the functions including patient safety and care, workforce development and care, equity, and continuous improvement in quality(citation?).

Figure 1.: Kotter’s 8-step Organizational Change model (citation?)

B. Enabling and engaging the organization

This stage involves communicating the strategy and vision. Some of the steps involved in this stage are discussed below.

4. Communicate for Buy-in

The objective of the change is to have as many individuals on side, i.e. working for the shared goal. So, iInformation provided to all the staff should be relevant, and they should be allowed to ask frequent questions about the change. Good communication is not just about transferring the data. Change can lead to conflict, so, honest and open dialogue is essential at this stage. If there remains a gap between deeds and words, the destructive force of mistrust may grow. This situation can cause difficulties in bringing the change. So, the behavior of the change leadership should be consistent with the defined vision(citation?). Comment by Dr. Steve: This is not clear

Communication should be simple and relevant. The message should be conveyed after understanding the mood of the audience. Anxieties, anger, and distrust of the people should be addressed if there are any issues. Clear communication channels like seminars or face to face meeting can be conducted to make sure that messages are highly understood and visible(citation?).

5. Remove the barriers

This step involves identifying the individuals, processes, or structures which are resisting the change. Obstacles to change should continuously be checked, and appropriate measures should be taken to remove the obstacles to empower the people in order to execute the vision(citation?).

6. Creation of short-term wins

Change at organizational scale requires a sense of achievement, momentum, and optimism. So, it is necessary to achieve quick results by setting small targets. Short-term wins can provide the leaders with feedback regarding the validity of strategies. These achievements reduce mistrust and motivate those who are not actively participating(citation?).

C. Implementing and sustaining the organizational change

7. Sustain acceleration

This step is about maintaining progress and momentum. Many projects related to change fail because they declare their victory too early. Short-term wins should only be considered the beginning and the real change should be brought that runs deep. Success should not be declared unless all the objectives are achieved and the change process should continue with the same momentum(citation?).

8. Anchor the changes

This step requires making changes part of the organization. The values behind the vision should be depicted in daily routine. Members of the change team should be recognized publicly. Change values and ideals should be included while hiring new staff. The members who act in accordance with new norms should be given visible and influential positions. The most important thing is to reinforce the new culture through coaching and training(citation?).

Why Kotter’s Model

The reason behind suggesting Kotter's 8-step change model for the UCLA health Health system System is that this model focusses more on stakeholders experiencing the changes in the organization rather than the changes themselves. It is believed that successful change happens if there is a sense of urgency, commitment, stakeholder engagement, clear vision, openness, good communication, innovative leadership, and well-planned plan. Kotter's 8 step model determines each of these factors during the process of bringing change(citation?).

Strategies to affect organizational change

To affect organizational change leadership should be more visionary and innovative. The administration should encourage individuals to take risks by giving them new challenges. People should be held accountable. Accountability and flexibility at the workplace promote innovation culture that can help adapt the change. Real-time decisions should be made, and action learning should be encouraged. Top management should quit the bureaucratic leadership style and respect the staff. Empowering staff will help in implementing the change in the organizational culture. Past performances should be used as the standard to measure future success which will motivate the staff to adopt change. Comment by Dr. Steve: Yasmin, you need to more clearly identify what your three strategies are, then describe each strategy. You also need to identify and describe at least one innovation that could be implemented to effect organizational change. Please cite your resources.

Role of communication in bringing change

As already discussed in the change model presented above, communication is the most important tool to cause a change in the culture of any organization (Elving, 2005). Change in the organization is directly related to the behavior of employees, and communication plays an important part in making these efforts successful. Explaining the purpose of change to employees is the first stage of change before it is brought directly in the company. So, cCommunication prevents resistance to the process of change as it alters the behavior of the employees. The behavior of employees affect the functioning of the organization, and once these behaviors are changed, real change can be brought into an organization (citation).

Strategies to motivate the stakeholders

All the stakeholders should be convinced about the personal and professional benefits of the change process before motivating them towards the “change process.”. As discussed earlier in the change management model, small targets should be set. Once these targets are achieved in short intervals, employees get motivated. Employees should be allowed to express their ideas and views. They should be encouraged if they make mistakes while adopting the change (Wright, Christensen, & Isett, 2013). Different aspects of change should be discussed together as a team rather than dictating them. Comment by Dr. Steve: Yasmin, you need to identify at least three strategies for motivating stakeholders to accept, embrace, and sustain the organizational change. Then you need to describe these strategies and provide a rationale for why you selected these strategies. You also need to identify key groups that might benefit from targeted motivation strategies. Provide rationale. Cite resources

Training and Support

Coaching or training is an important part of implementing a change in the organization as discussed in Kotter’s change model. Employees can be trained to learn new practices in many ways. Different sSeminars can be conducted to make employees aware of new methods. Practical demonstrations can also be given to make the employees understand the new practices. Leadership should conduct workshop and classroom training sessions at regular intervals to make employees learn continuous improvement strategies. New employees can be hired after training them before joining (Kroll & Moynihan, 2015). Comment by Dr. Steve: Good start, but your recommendations for training need to be specific for successful implementation of the organizational change you are discussing and you need to provide a rationale for your recommendations. Comment by Dr. Steve: Learning Objective 4.5: Recommendation of strategies for sustaining an organizational change is missing. Comment by Dr. Steve: Learning Objective 4.6: Explanation of how stakeholders are involved in and held accountable for organizational change is missing.

Ways to measure the success of organizational change

The success of organizational change can be measured in two ways. Comment by Dr. Steve: Please write this in narrative form

1. Measuring organizational performance

This category includes measuring the desired outcomes of the organization including adherence to change plan, the speed of execution, adherence to timeline, Benefit benefit realization, and performance improvement (quality of healthcare, speed of delivery), etc. (citation?)

2. Measuring individual performance Comment by Dr. Steve: Please write this in narrative form

This category measures whether the individual involved in change are making progress or not. As the individuals are units of change, individual progress can be thought of as a leading indicator in overall success (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015). Some of the parameters of his category include adoption metrics, proficiency measures, results of employee satisfaction surveys (employee development and care), number of complaints, adherence reports, and observations of changes in individual behaviors (staff’s behaviors towards patients) (citation?).

Summary or conclusion

References Comment by Dr. Steve: Good job with reference formatting

Al-Haddad, S., & Kotnour, T. (2015). Integrating the organizational change literature: a model for successful change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(2), 234-262.

Elving, W. J. (2005). The role of communication in organizational change. Corporate communications: an international journal, 10(2), 129-138.

Ford, T. L. (2018). Resistance to Acceptance in Project Stakeholders: An Exploratory Study in Change Management(Doctoral dissertation, Capella University).

Kroll, A., & Moynihan, D. P. (2015). Does training matter? Evidence from performance management reforms. Public Administration Review, 75(3), 411-420.

Lewis, L. (2019). Organizational change: Creating change through strategic communication. Wiley-Blackwell.

Salman, Y., & Broten, N. (2017). Leading Change. Macat Library.

Small, A., Gist, D., Souza, D., Dalton, J., Magny-Normilus, C., & David, D. (2016). Using Kotter's change model for implementing bedside handoff: a quality improvement project. Journal of nursing care quality, 31(4), 304-309.

UCLA HEALTH. (2019). Retrieved from HYPERLINK "https://www.uclahealth.org/reagan/about-the-medical-center" https://www.uclahealth.org/reagan/about-the-medical-centerhttps://www.uclahealth.org/reagan/about-the-medical-center

Wright, B. E., Christensen, R. K., & Isett, K. R. (2013). Motivated to adapt? The role of public service motivation as employees face organizational change. Public Administration Review, 73(5), 738-747.