CIL_A7

LDR 6302, Current Issues in Leadership 1

Course Learning Outcomes for Unit VI Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

3. Explain how leaders are developed and equipped for organizational shifts and changes. 3.1 Evaluate individual experience with organizational change. 3.2 Identify the use of Kotter’s 8-Step Process for organizational change.

Required Unit Resources In order to access the following resources, click the links below. Amadeo, K. (2016). What is competitive advantage? 3 strategies that work. The Balance.

https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-competitive-advantage-3-strategies-that-work-3305828 Kuppler, T. (2013). The 9 clear steps to organizational culture change. Talent Management & HR.

https://www.tlnt.com/the-9-clear-steps-to-organizational-culture-change/ Reissner, S. C., Pagan, V., & Smith, C. (2011). ‘Our iceberg is melting:’ Story, metaphor and the management

of organisational change. Culture and Organization, 17(5), 417–433. https://libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direc t=true&db=bth&AN=69838611&site=ehost-live&scope=site

In the resource below, please read the following portions: pp. 50–62, 72, 90–92, 95–96, 101–103, and 134. Please note that you may need to copy and paste the link into a browser for it to open correctly. Tunner, W. H. (1998). Over the hump. http://media.defense.gov/2010/Sep/28/2001329799/-1/-1/0/AFD-

100928-057.pdf

Unit Lesson Kotter and Change Leadership Let’s begin this lesson by looking at the big picture of corporate business and competitive advantage. What is competitive advantage? Think about your favorite sports team. What do they do to gain a competitive advantage? Well, they draft great players out of college. They have a superb strength and conditioning coach. They hire a high-quality staff that is creative with offensive and defensive structures and plays. They also have great leadership. Across the board, we now see that they have talent, they continue to develop their talent (never becoming complacent), and they strive to remain on top. Competitive advantage is the part of you, either as an individual or business, that sets you apart from others (Amadeo, 2016). So, competitive advantage requires continual change to remain on top. For a business, competitive advantage requires change in cost structure, change in product development, change in staff, and sometimes a change in leadership. Now that you have a baseline of competitive advantage, you will begin to see how change leadership affects a company remaining at the apex of its business or an athlete remaining at the apex of performance. When complacency sets in, this is when companies lose their competitive ground with product, price, and creativity, and they lose customers. The same can be said for athletes—when athletes get complacent with physical conditioning, they can no longer exploit their opponents’ weaknesses, and they lose games and fans.

UNIT VI STUDY GUIDE

Organizational Change

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Influence and Change According to Bell (2002), there are five principles of organizational resilience: leadership, culture, people, systems, and settings. It sounds easy, does it not? In fact, it is not easy at all. Throw into the mix poor strategy, competition, loss of competitive advantage, continual technological change, international economic integration, ethical behavior issues, and poor communication practices, and what you have is a recipe for failure. So, what is the solution? Leadership influence through change is key. What causes failure is complacency. Think about it—when you are complacent, you let things slide, you do not pay close attention, and you fail to have the correct focus and influence you need to motivate people. You look for the shortcut, and you look for the easy way out. When you do this, you compromise your integrity, you compromise the foundation of good ethical leadership, and you compromise the organization and its people. In his book Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail, John Kotter (1995) highlighted eight errors and their consequences that are common to organizational change efforts. As you look at them, think about where you have seen them occur at your work, in society, and in government.

Common Errors Consequences

1. Allowing employees to become too set in their ways

1. Changes are not effective.

2. Failing to create unity 2. Acquisitions do not achieve expected synergies.

3. Undervaluing the vision 3. Reengineering takes too long and costs too much.

4. Failing to communicate the vision 4. Downsizing fails to save money.

5. Making it challenging to meet the vision 5. Programs aimed at creating quality fail.

6. Failing to create short-term goals

7. Celebrating wins too early

8. Not solidifying change

Kotter’s (1995) solution was the development of an eight-step process that has been validated through his 15 years of analysis of organizations going through restructuring, goal-setting, and change.

Click here to view an interactive slide of Kotter’s 8-Step Process. Click here to view the transcript of the slide.

Application: Is My Iceberg Melting? Review the Reissner, Pagan, and Smith (2011) article titled, “Our Iceberg Is Melting; Story, Metaphor and The Management of Organisational Change,” which is located in the Unit VI Required Reading section. The metaphor begins on page 420 and concludes on page 425. At the conclusion of this portion of the article, reflect on “Table 2: The eight-step model” and “Table 3: Key metaphors and their meaning.” Now, let’s ask ourselves the following questions:

1. What is the iceberg where I work? Is it melting fast, and are there any cracks developing? 2. Where are the cracks, and has anyone noticed? 3. When the information about the cracks and melting was brought forward, did leadership take action? 4. What is the biggest challenge at this time for the group to fix the cracks? 5. Has a change agent stepped forward and suggested a plan to the group? 6. Has a group within my organization bonded to develop a plan to solve the problems? If so, what

plan? 7. Has a review process been established, and have policies been put into place to prevent future

cracks? As you think about your iceberg, are there any other icebergs in our society that are being ignored? Examples may include our budget deficit, social security, terrorism, and race relations. The leadership case study below is about Lt. Gen. William Tunner (Berlin Airlift) who was hired to turn around the China Air Division cargo operations during World War II (1942). Tunner was a transformational leader who created change by following the procedures expressed in Kotter’s 8-Step Process, which was not even

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developed yet. The case highlights the changes in people, operations, morale, motivation, and mission accomplishment. Case Study: Lieutenant General William Tunner: 1942 India-China Division The stage was 1942 when the Japanese occupied Burma and cut off all inland roads that supplied Allied forces with supplies to continue the war effort. The only way to get supplies into western China was through airlift. Transport command established the India-China Division to deliver 2,500 tons of supplies per month with an increase to 10,000 tons per month to support combat operations (Tunner, 1998). However, the leadership that was initially put in place at the India-China Division lacked deep leadership skill sets, vision, and mission accomplishment. Lt. Gen. Tunner was brought in to turn around the division and get results. He developed a “three-legged stool” to increase tonnage to meet higher command objectives, reduce accident rates, and improve morale (Tunner, 1998). Challenges: Tunner faced a number of obstacles in his position. Some of the challenges that Tunner had to overcome are listed below:

• The area received 200 inches of rain a year, producing difficult flying and landing conditions (Tunner, 1998).

• Navigational aids in 1942 were less than stellar, and flying through the surrounding mountain range with instruments only was near impossible.

• Turbulence in the mountains was another factor producing extreme wind shear.

• Spare parts for planes were hard to come by due to resupply, pilferage, black market operations, and logistical support.

• Maintenance crews for the aircraft were inexperienced.

• For every 1,000 tons flown into China, an aircraft was lost (loss of three American lives) (Tunner, 1998).

• Pilots were on a rotation based on flight hours. After flying 650 hours, they could rotate back to the States. Pilots accelerated their flights to rotate back to the United States, hence they were flying under extreme fatigue and stress.

• Morale was at ground zero (flying hours, mortality rate). Solutions: Tunner replaced the ineffective India-China Division leader and, as you will see, implemented elements of Kotter’s 8-Step Process. Tunner brought in an innovative leadership style, and he matched the right person to the right job in his newly restructured flying unit (Tunner, 1998).

• Temple Bowen, a businessman with regional fleet experience who was commissioned as a Major, was designated as Chief of Supply.

• Lt. Col. Robert White from Standard Oil New Jersey (background) was to be in charge of maintenance and inspections of aircraft.

• Colonel Andrew Cannon was brought in as the new flight commander to establish discipline and military code of operations.

• Captain Kenneth Stiles was selected to be Tunner’s “number cruncher.” Stiles developed a statistical program to track everything from aircraft maintenance and discrepancies to accident statistics to developing new safety programs (Hope, 1995).

Additionally, Tunner instituted production line maintenance (PLM), which was a database of parts, maintenance operations, resupply dates, and new inspection standards (Tunner, 1998). Changes (two-year plan): Tunner proposed a two-year plan to address the aforementioned issues. The changes that were implemented as a result of the two-year plan are listed below:

• PLM tracking and implementation procedures reduced the 100-hour aircraft inspection by 25% and increased flight utilization by over 50% (Tunner, 1998). There was a better man-machine ratio, and aircraft part delivery improved.

• The flying safety program reduced mishaps. Pilots provided in-depth instrument readings and experiences after each flight during a debriefing session. Data was entered into a “data cruncher.”

• Standardized flight plans were created, and flight rest was mandatory.

• The 650-hour rotational hour requirement was abolished. Hours were tracked, which reduced flight

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fatigue and balanced experience levels in the organization (Tunner, 1998).

• Capt. Cannon developed team competition for the organization by realigning the division into smaller flight groups, creating smaller spans of control and a more closely knit community of pilots and maintenance troops and implementing team competition through soccer and volleyball events (Tunner, 1998).

Results: Tonnage delivery improved from 2,500 tons a month in 1942 to over 24,000 tons a month in 1944 (Tunner, 1998). Additionally, pride was instilled in the organization as morale improved, and the accident rate dropped. The division flew 1,118 round trips with a payload of 5,327 tons; every 80 seconds, an aircraft flew over the treacherous mountains, and a ton of cargo was delivered every 15 seconds into China—all without an accident (Tunner, 1998). The takeaway from this lesson is that influence is important. Looking at your readings, you can see how leadership influence, behavior, ethical foundations, behavioral frameworks, and the procedures that were later outlined in Kotter’s 8-Step Process contributed to Tunner’s turnaround of the India-China Division. Recall the case study discussed in the Unit III Lesson, which discussed Ed Breen, the CEO of Tyco International, who contributed to the turnaround of the company. Both Breen and Tunner had different leadership challenges—from ethics and governance to vision, mission, goals, objectives, and morale. Ask yourself the following questions:

1. Did Breen and Tunner have credibility and influence? How? 2. What if Breen did not release those employees and board members? 3. What message would he have sent the rest of the company and shareholders? 4. Why was Tunner so successful? 5. Where was his core strength of influence? 6. What are your thoughts on Kotter’s 8-Step Process?

Reflection So, what is the takeaway with regard to Kotter? Change leadership is the primary theme. Prior to Tunner arriving, the India-China Division was complacent in many areas: flight safety, pilot flight training, morale, motivation, internal logistics tracking, and psychological awareness. Basically, lack of leadership and inability to have a competitive advantage led to the unit’s poor safety record, high mortality rate, and failure of mission accomplishment. Tunner came in and immediately employed Kotter’s 8-Step Process before it was even invented. Look at the eight steps—can you see from the case where they were used with success? Also, think about data. Just about every decision that was made and every new process or procedure that was used was data-based. This definitely relates to corporate America and the biotech industry. Their clinical phases for new drugs are based on data.

References Amadeo, K. (2016). What is competitive advantage? 3 strategies that work.

https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-competitive-advantage-3-strategies-that-work-3305828 Bell, M. A (2002). The five principles of organizational resilience.

https://www.gartner.com/doc/351410/principles-organizational-resilience Hope, B. J. (1995). Lieutenant General William H. Tunner in the China-Burma-India “hump” and berlin airlifts:

A case study in leadership in development of airlift doctrine. http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/awc/hoppebj.pdf

Kotter, J. P. (1995). Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail.

https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/resources/marketing/docs/95204f2.pdf

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Reissner, S. C., Pagan, V., & Smith, C. (2011). ‘Our iceberg is melting:’ Story, metaphor and the management of organisational change. Culture and Organization, 17(5), 417–433. https://libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direc t=true&db=bth&AN=69838611&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Tunner, W. H. (1998). Over the hump. http://media.defense.gov/2010/Sep/28/2001329799/-1/-1/0/AFD-

100928-057.pdf

Suggested Unit Resources In order to access the following resources, click the links below. The article below covers several companies’ journey with organizational change and competitive advantage. Arnold, P. (2015). The 5 greatest examples of change management in business history. The Chartered

Management Institute. http://www.managers.org.uk/insights/news/2015/july/the-5-greatest-examples- of-change-management-in-business-history

This next resource contains PowerPoint slides on Kotter’s theories of organizational change. Kotter International. (2015). 8-step process. Kotter. http://www.kotterinternational.com/8-steps-process-for-

leading-change/