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. c 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,
I hope everyone has been well during this term. I wanted to bring up one
example where I 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.
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.
c c c c c c c c c c c 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.
c c c c c c c 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 situation where I had to experience change but also was responsible for
managing change was when I was a department manager at a Nike retail store
post-pandemic. There were many things we had to do differently and having to
figure out how each employee reacts to change was a challenge. We had to
operate differently as a large retail store. Daily procedures were adjusted to
specific guidelines that had to be followed, and there was more responsibility put
on employees’ daily tasks. Looking back, I would have done a different
approach with the way change was communicated along with the delivery of
what is changing and why. We saw a huge increase in our turnover rate due
to employees feeling overworked, not apricated or rewarded. I personally
mentored 10 employees and a couple of times it was shared that the
communication from management was not clear or transparent enough. Being a
part of the leadership team there were numerous times that our monthly meeting
was pushed back or postponed. During this course, I learned that being in a
leadership role for the organization to be successful the way change is managed
and delivered is huge. c
Over the last 8 years, I have gained a lot of career experience with change
management. Taking this course helped me identify how I can be a better leader
during uncertainty. The change management skills that I found most relevant to
my professional life are communication with team members and change
implementation. I learned that the way change is implemented and how fast can
either have a positive or negative effect. Overall, this course made me think a
little deeper into the effect change can have on leaders and team members.
Going forward I will focus on creating and maintaining the vision for change
for my team members. It is important to keep employees motivated through
change and have them understand how it will benefit them in their roles.
There was a time at the beginning of COVID that our part of the hospital did
not have the acuity that we were use to because pediatrics was not being
affected the way that adults were. We did not have enough patients to keep
everyone working clinically, so our manager decided to change our assignments
to work on community out reach COVID prevention plans. This was a large
change for our department because we all work at the bedside in ICU's and
have not made public health plans. We were all hesitant about the change as it
was something completely new in a situation that the whole world was having
a hard time managing. Our manager though was great when delivering the news
and provided us with clear directions and resources to use. She called a staff
meeting that was mandatory for everyone announced the news, was transparent
on why this was happening, and introduced everything briefly. Then she told all
of us not to worry that things would work out and there were more details and
directions to come. She listened to every ones responses and concerns, making
everyone feel heard. She was patient when showing us how to do the plans and
was always available for questions when we were working on it. She printed
and laminated the instructions so they were easy to reference. Overall she made
this a quick and easy change that was met with a fair amount of resistance
that she sorted through and alleviated.
I think our manager did a great job with her approach to change. I would not
have changed anything. As for change management skills that I found useful was
planning out change. Identifying who the change would affect, what was going
to change for them, and when. This is something I would benefit in using in
my personal life because I agree to help a lot of people but do not always
account for what helping them might entail or change in my life.
Lewis, L., Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2021). Leading Organizational
Change for Southern New Hampshire University. Wiley Global Education US.
