Running head: BUSINESS LEADERSHIP CASE STUDY 1
Business Leadership Case Study
Name
Institution
BUSINESS LEADERSHIP CASE STUDY 2
Abstract
Change in organizations is not a mere fete, it is a tireless and conscious endeavor meted
out by many managers in a bid to grow output in every aspect or regard. Research has shown that
organizations that change, grow, and become increasingly sustainable. Without it, most would
remain obsolete. At the same time, research has brought to the fore aspects of change
management and or practices that can be introduced that enhance this endeavor.
Based on extensive research and case studies of organizations that successfully adapted change
and those that did not, it is clear to see that there are some underlined attributes in those that did
succeed.
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Business Leadership Case Study
Introduction
Change is the only constant. This is a common phrase denoted by many and it is not
limited to an individual perspective only; it also applies to organizations (Ayan, 2018). To
change is to adapt and to adapt is to thrive. Organizations that change tend to evolve and survive
in the ever-changing business landscape as things become increasingly dynamic and the global
business market increasingly smaller. There are facets to change that lead to success and those
that attempt to but fall short in one way or another. It takes both the leadership and employees to
implement the change. It cannot be done solely by the leaders of the organization (Buchanan, &
Huczynski, 2019).Change is normally from a preventive or curative context. Preventive in the
sense that it is used to pre-empt certain events or halt them from taking place for example, as we
shall see throughout the research paper, the process change by Shell was from a preventive
context in that the organization wanted to ensure that its processes were not only holistic but
uniform across the board too and this would in turn curtail certain events such as fraud and many
others (Everwise, 2017). On the flip side, the change in products by Microsoft as much as it was
innovative was from a curative context of working to merge departments and cut down the
overall costs of the organization (Everwise, 2017).
The objective of the change is to foster greater output by any enterprise. The underlined
factor is to identify the problem, seek ways to solve it through change mechanisms. On the flip
side, change can also come into play through the identification of a need that is yet to be met and
this could be internally or externally (Petrou, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, 2018). Thereby the
change is necessitated through wanted to meet this gap and ensure it does not re-occur or it is
fully satisfied within the context of the objectives of the organization.
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Best Practices in Organizational Change
There are underlined principles that denote how change in an organization ought to take
place to ensure that effective change is administered and that it is also continued throughout the
entire organization. The principles and best practices include but are not limited to;
Clearly Identify the Problem
Some change does come when it is least expected but in that environment, adaptation is
necessary. When a problem comes to the fore, it is essential to understand why and how it came
into existence and what needs to be done to remedy it (Waddell, Creed, Cummings, & Worley,
2019). God’s word is essential in identifying the truths around man (Merida, 2015). In
identifying problems it must be both factual and truthful There is also the dimension of change
that is planned and is commonly referred to as innovation. In this regard, it normally manifests
through the launch of a new product, redefining roles and or processes, a target audience, and
also addressing issues about the dynamics of the organization (Myers, 2019). Whatever the
underlined issue or problem, it needs to be identified, understood, and eventually solved.
Both the managers and employees of an organization have a vested interest in identifying
issues grappling a company or going deeper, a department (MacCormack, & Iansiti, 2009). The
common problems include managers demeaning employees, communication hurdles, unclear
goals, and many more. Every company has problems in how it manages or undertakes its
business but it is not every organization that makes it a priority to recognize and tackle those
problems. Among the ways of doing so is by first assessing the organization’s and department’s
deliverable or goals. One of the major problems in organizations is not having clear or well-
defined goals (MacCormack, & Iansiti, 2009).. If the goals are vague and lack extensive
information, for example, increase the customer base, then necessary changes need to be made.
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Then poll employees in a bid to gauge the weaknesses within the organization’s structure.
If from the poll, the employees consistently do not have adequate information on certain aspects,
then this denotes a communication problem between the management and the employees
(MacCormack, & Iansiti, 2009). The poll does not have to be limited to management only, it can
be broad and as such, cover extensive areas that need to be enhanced or improved.Once the
polling has been done,assess how work is assigned or delegated within the organization. This
gives an in-depth analysis of the division of labor and or specialization which is crucial in any
change process and also sit in routine or recurring departmental meetings (MacCormack, &
Iansiti, 2009). Meetings are indicative of the general happenings of an organization and where
there are cracks and the changes that need to be made
Drive New Direction With Culture
This is basically how employees engage and work with each other. Change can disrupt
the existing work-flow and or status quo (Ahmadi, Salamzadeh, Daraei, & Akbari, 2012).
Leaders must, therefore, inculcate culture in their change methodologies in a bid to comprehend
and avert any resistance emanating from the transition process. One’s heart must always be
guarded against ingratitude (Merida, 2015). A culture of gratitude enables staff to embrace what
is the current state of the organization and at the same time make room for what lies ahead
through change. Leading with culture also assists in maintaining how the staff engage and relate
with each other (Sagie, & Koslowsky, 2014). It is an integral aspect of ensuring that there is
alignment throughout the entire organization.
There are certain aspects of incorporating culture and at the same time changing the
culture to drive a process or new change as follows; evaluation of the current company culture.
Before setting out to bring about change, it is as said above essential to both understand and
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assess company culture. If the current culture occurred naturally it might not present the
company’s ideals. Evidence of the organization’s culture needs to be both tangible and
observable. Only then can the organization evaluate if it is aligned to its values. Next, the
organization needs to identify if the current culture is what it wants and how the change being
instituted will affect the existing culture. Existing culture should have been developed through a
clear and concise Vision, Mission, and set values from both a value-based and strategic context.
Questions can be asked on the same to establish the appropriate culture or enhance what
currently exists before implementing the change;what are the most important values to the
business, are those values reflected in the current organizational culture? If not, why not? Do the
staff members comprehend, possess, and work towards attaining the said values?Are the Vision
and Mission clearly expressed and disseminated to all and lastly,what cultural elements or
dynamics can enable and or enhance change?By doing so, the organization allows itself to both
create and or improve organizational culture depending on the circumstances and at the same
time, use culture to perpetuate change.
Unify Top-Level Leadership
An organization is only as reliable as the sum of all its staff members including the
leadership of the organization. All higher-level executives and leaders must always depict a
united front to both clearly and effectively communicate the same information to those who
report to them (Vakola, & Nikalaou, 2015). This is crucial in ensuring that the entire
organization is on the same page and acts congruently. When dealing with change, managers
must be united to ensure effective, continuous, and consistent change. There are two dimensions
of change, the process part of change and the people of change and both require leadership hence
the need for leaders to be united.
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Three main categories denote a united and effective leadership in bringing about change
notably are communication, collaboration and commitment. When it comes to communication,it
is essential to not only communicate what that is bringing about the change but both the what
and why behind the change (Vakola, & Nikalaou, 2015). Leaders who disseminate to employees
the reason or purpose of the change and linked it to the values of the organization created a
stronger buy-in and need for change. Collaboration on the other hand means uniting and bringing
staff together to plan and implement change is essential (Vakola, & Nikalaou, 2015). Successful
leaders encourage employees to break out from the mold and do not tolerate competition among
employees that is toxic. They additionally include employees in the decision-making process
right at the onset of the planned change thereby enhancing their need and commitment to change
and finally change is not easy and can be difficult (Vakola, & Nikalaou, 2015). Leaders need to
be resilient and persistent in ensuring that change does take place. It at times means stepping out
of the comfort zone and being overly devoted to the cause for change focusing on the bigger
picture.
For change to take place effective management is necessary. Through strong change
management, projects are less likely to fail as the entire organization will be well prepared for
any dynamics about the change. A strong change management leadership also assists in
eliminating confusion and maintaining the budget. It tackles the fear of change and it eliminates
the uncertainty that comes with new business processes among others. Change is expensive. It is
through strong leadership that the budget is adhered to at all times and modification necessitates
approval before them being made.
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Involvement of All
Change shakes an organization right down to its core. Therefore, every employee is
affected in one way or another unless the change initiated is primarily departmental. Involving
the management especially middle-level management as soon as the change process commences
allows staff members to express their opinions and has any logistical and overall work loopholes
they see from the onset thereby allowing the organization to work out the glitches right at the
beginning of the project. It also allows the management to explore the impact of the change on
its respective department, the organization at large, and its existing and or potential customer
base.
Lower-level employees are an important part of the entire change mechanism. To ignore
them is to render an organization obsolete in certain regards more so in ensuring the objectives of
the organization are met. It is important to first and foremost alert them on projected changes,
why the organization wants to undertake the changes, and their role in the entire process. A Q&A
session can be incorporated when detailing the change process to have a feel on the various
variables and the reception of the overall change. This aids the organization in anticipating
impending roadblocks if any and making the necessary changes before commencement. It is
expensive to modify change processes along the way though some are unavoidable but
oftentimes what can be avoided, best to change it beforehand.
Utilize Change Agents
Change agents are normally informal leaders who can help the leaders within the
organization drive and champion change from within without primarily influencing the
employees but more through their existing reputation (Lewis & Sahay, 2019). They have already
earned the trust of the other employees even before the advent of change and it will not be
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challenging for them in any regard to getting the others on board. It is a very effective means of
employing change in an organization.
Change agents that are external offer a fresh perspective as their observations are not
subjective. Though expensive, their value addition is often high and through them, an
organization can easily propel itself forward to a seemingly lasting change process which at
times lags when it is only done by individuals within the company. Change agents often come in
the form of project managers hired to run with the project and all the tasks attached to it. They do
need the employees within the organization to propel the change and because of this, they are
normally given full access to the employees.
Define Critical Behaviors
Employee behavior will not change overnight (Ahmadi, Salamzadeh, Daraei, & Akbari,
2012). It is paramount to give employees a guide to why what and how which in-turn define the
critical behaviors required for the change to be effective. It also gives time lines of which
behaviors are required immediately and those that shall be integrated throughout the change
process. Old habits might be hard to break thereby necessitating the need for new practices to be
implemented immediately (Stanley, Meyer, & Topolnytsky, 2014). This could be done through
training and meetings that highlight and or detail the needed behavior going forward.
Case Studies in Organizational Change
Product Innovation Change at Microsoft
Microsoft is an organization that continues to evolve with each day both from within and
externally. One of the recent changes that the organization made was through the product
innovation offering that saw it combine its Microsoft Office into an Office Unit selling it as a
compartment and not individual products (MacCormack & Iansiti, 2009). The reason for the
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change was for the organization to broaden its dimension and think more of content creation than
looking at what each product has to offer to the masses. The innovation meant that the
organization would merge and have employees in one department instead of merging them into
groups such as Excel, Power-point, and others (MacCormack, & Iansiti, 2009). The employees
would instead be divided into consumer tasks and not product segmentation. This was a seamless
change or transition as most of the employees continued to do the same job but just changed
departments.
The organization was also able to seamlessly employ the change as the duties and
products did not necessarily change but the cluster changed in that all the products were
clustered into one (Everwise, 2017). The Chief Experience officer at the time, Julie Larson-
Green took the employees thorough what necessitated the change, why it needed to be done, and
how the processes would change going forward (Everwise, 2017). Through this, it was easy to
navigate the change process and the beauty of this particular change is that it led to a reduction in
costs in that the production process was lumped up.
For the employees, the change to tasks and not necessarily product segmentation did not
disarray them as they were already conducting the tasks before the change but now they would
be defined by it and not the product. For example, there would be employees tackling reporting
and analytic tools while others would focus on presentation and content creation and how to
work around it, enhance it, and overall, innovate (Everwise, 2017). The organization had this in
the pipeline for two years and worked on it continuously engaging the market to see how the
eventual launch of one singular product would take shape (Everwise, 2017). The management
moved in unison too right from the board to the employees of the entity ensuring that the public
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was well versed with the intended product change or clustering and through the above-concerted
efforts, the transition process was seamless.
Attributes of the change process that made it successful include;there was little or no
modification to the job roles of employees just the definitions or titles, the change was
announced beforehand giving consumers and staff time to adapt to the new changes (Everwise,
2017). Everyone within management was on board with the change making it a unified front
right from the onset and the employees welcomed the change and were clustered accordingly
(Everwise, 2017).
Process Change At Shell
After the oil crisis, a myriad of changes was initiated in Shell. For starters, the
organization hired a new chairman known as Jeroen Van Der Veer who started a company-wide
change known to many as the Downstream-One (Everwise, 2017). The initiative encompassed
both information technology and the change of processes in a bid to standardize them. The
changes affected over eighty Shell operating units. The entire process aimed to have simpler and
standard processes within the organization that touched on every aspect from invoicing to its
distribution networks (Everwise, 2017). The program aimed to simplify and ensure that the
processes are standard but not only locally but globally. The roles and responsibilities were
implemented before the implementation of the system and this was done in phases.
A team of professionals including senior leaders and experts changed with change were
introduced to lead the change. The system put what was best for Shell globally as the precedence
and not what it offered locally. This was through linking the goals and values of the organization
with the project. The project improved the functional capabilities of the staff and enabled the
business to work faster and more effectively. It covered operations in over 35 countries and was
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to be used by 29,000 staff members (Everwise, 2017). The system also had provisions that
allowed for the future growth of business and expansion in new territories including the use of
mobile technology through applications. Through the platform, employees can uniformly access
the same system, data, processes, and have a uniform way of reporting on the organization’s
performance.
Attributes of the change process that made it successful include;the problem that brought
about the change had been identified, analyzed and a solution created for it which as the
Downstream-One project (Everwise, 2017).The corporation had hired a new leader and therefore
change was inherently expected more so after being brought in once the crisis had
happened.Management offered a united front right from the beginning of the project and the
change was aligned to the organization’s goals and values.
Employees were trained beforehand and any eventualities that would arise were tackled
through the training process (Everwise, 2017). Proper planning and clear and concise
communication aided the process to be seamless and senior managers and change experts were
brought it to add value and aid the process of change (Everwise, 2017). Moreover, the process
flows were spelled out and gave the enterprise a uniform structure globally which was well
received by both managers and staff alike and considering the time and money poured into the
project, the leadership was resilient with its overall objective of bringing about simpler and
standard processes for the organization
Product Innovation Failure by Google
Google is a highly profitable organization but even well to do organizations with
impressive margins, fail too. Google is one such organization. Product innovation is a form of
change within an organization set up and the product launched by Google that failed, was the
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launch of the Google glasses (Doyle, 2016). A brief product description denotes that the glass is
a wearable head-mounted computer featuring a form of eyeglasses. The Google glasses function
is similar to a hands-free smart-phone that allows uses to browse, take photos, use maps, and the
calendar too (Doyle, 2016).
Attributes that led to its failure include; the product had no clear function meaning the
organization had not explored the product and how it would meet its goals and objectives. Being
an internet provider already, the organization did not need to get into the gadget space but
broaden its horizon in the internet and or social arena (Doyle, 2016). Therefore, the product did
not tie to its vision and mission.It did not meet the needs of the consumer market. Many Google
customers predominantly know it for being a service provider predominantly internet related
services, therefore, its target market was not looking for a product from the organization.
The organization was not entirely on the same page in launching the product. Some of the
managers were on the fence about it and as such a unified front was not offered to all (Doyle,
2016). The launch of the new product required management to add workforce to the organization
that was not well received by the rest leading to a resistance in change and hence the failure of
the product to effectively lure in potential clientele and lastly,the product had safety and health
concerns (Doyle, 2016). Again, this was not Google’s core area and did not tie into its vision and
mission. This was new territory for the organization that did not necessarily tie into its values
and as such, mistakes would be made easily.
Conclusion
Change is inevitable in any organizational set up and requires best practices so as to be
successful.It must be deliberate for it to have meaning and at the same time move an
organization forward. Deliberate from the context of proper planning, budgeting, employee
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behavior among others. For the actual change to take place, a lot needs to happen before then, in
the full glare of employees and also within the background of the organization. This endeavor
aims to bring about notable changes that give rise to greater output for the organization within
the short or long term duration of the enterprise.
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