I have thoroughly enjoyed this class and learning how to initiate change in an
organization. this class has shown me how important it is to have strong
leadership personnel in charge of change. This leads to a large growth in
employees and the organization. One major takeaway that I got from the class is
how important change can be when it affects employees. The use of employees
in change management is crucial in how well the changes can be implemented.
I worked for an organization that started to implement a new inventory tracking
system that is used to order, manage, and develop shopping patterns based on
the demographic. When the company started to implement the change, my
department was the initial start and the organization wanted to see how well it
worked. This initial start leads to resistance from my team due to the changes
being drastic and a new process as a whole. My initial thought was to start and
learn as much as I could so that I can assist and help others in my area to
incorporate the new changes. For the next couple of months, my team started to
learn the process as I became a leader in the system and helped develop the rest
of the area. this slow progression allowed our organization to start and maintain
the system and incorporate it into all departments. This later became normal and
was later developed into a more functional system.Reviewing the impact that I
had on my department from course examples, I would say that I wouldn’t change
the way that I was able to impact the change. I first learned the system so that I
would be able to help and inform employees of how the system worked. This led
to employees asking questions so that they can learn by example or explanation.
This was a morale booster once they started to understand the system and
progressed to getting easier as time went on. I found that change management is
mainly about having the right people for the job instead of the best system in
place. Having a leader that can improve morale and gain confidence will allow
employees to think outside the box and become more involved in the process. I
will always try to improve employee concerns and make sure they are given
adequate feedback.
One instance of change that I remember quite often was when I was a safety lead
at a chemical plant, and we needed to get employees onboard to change the way
they reported safety incidents and alerting for potential ones. We ended up
having meetings to communicating this change, trainings on how to put these
safety measurements in the system and following up with concerns employees
may have had. Based on the skills covered in this course I would have chosen to
collect more data on how employees were reporting these safety issues and be
able to present the findings better along with getting more people to participate in
the change. I believe using data, following up, and really communicating why
changes need to happen is skills that I will be using in my personal and
professional life. I will be applying these by learning new ways to collect data and
communicate efficiently without wasting words that are not necessary. This class
helped a lot to shape the way I write emails to my co-workers and looking forward
to applying more of what I learned in this class to my life! This class has definitely
taught me a lot about organizational change and how much goes into making it
successful. Over the course of teiterm I was given a promotion at work and it
forced me to use a lot of the concepts that we covered here to make some much
needed changes in my department. Although I am nowhere near done, I've found
that communication and transparancy have been my biggest go to's. I would in a
union shop which in itself is a unique situation because employees are paid and
incentivized based on a negotiated contract I have found ways to motivate my
team and enstill a sense of pride for what they do despite the money tied to their
jobs. was responsible for change that I mentioned in the final project. I was a
company commander for roughly 120 Soldiers and had been dealt with massive
changes within the leadership. Practically everyone that was in a leadership role
had only been in position for a few months, many of the leaders left as it was their
time. Luckily, many of the Soldiers did not like the previous leadership style so we
were able to enact new changes quickly. One of our biggest concerns was our
attrition, many Soldiers wanted to leave the organization due to their experience
at this unit. We quickly took time to talk with the Soldiers, conducting sensing
sessions and surveys. We were lucky that many Soldiers were open and honest
on their feedback.
Though we couldn’t get everyone to stay, we were able to convince many
that their experience at this unit was specific and that other units are not the
same. Many of my subordinate leaders were able to teach and mentor their
Soldiers for promotion and advancement. Looking back, the different approach I
would have used is to include more people (from other organizations) to assist.
This would have helped communicate to the Soldiers their capabilities and
possibly get them interested in other areas.
The most memorable skill I found was implementing and understanding the
Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership (Lewis, et al., 2021). I think these
practices are important for self-development in personal and professional life. At
times, it is a challenge to enable and encourage others to act as opposed to
getting the job done myself, I have realized as I move up, my role is to think
strategically and help impact change on subordinate leaders.
References
Lewis, L., Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2021). Leading Organizational Change
for Southern New Hampshire University. Wiley Global Education US.
