Management Chapter 8 Homework Students Are Likely Express Variety Ideas How

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IV. IMPLEMENTING CHANGE

INSTRUCTOR’S NOTES_________________________________________________________

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A. Need for Change

1. Managers must recognize problems and make others aware of the need for change. A

performance gap is a disparity between existing and desired performance levels.

Spotlight on Skills: Making Change Stick

Employees are not always receptive to change. A combination of factors can lead to rejection of,

or even outright rebellion against, management’s “new and better ideas.” Consider what

happened when managers at Lands’ End Inc. of Dodgeville, Wisconsin, tried to implement a

2. Big problems are easy to spot, but organizations may be in greater danger when the

environment changes slowly, because managers may fail to trigger an organizational

response.

Discussion Question #1: Times of shared crisis, such as the September 11, 2001, terrorist

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B. Resistance to Change

1. Managers and employees not involved in developing an innovation often prefer the

status quo. Employees appear to resist change for the following reasons, and

understanding these reasons helps managers implement change more effectively.

Discussion Question #3: As a manager, how would you deal with resistance to change when

you suspect employees’ fears of job loss are well founded?

Exhibit 8.7: Using Force-Field Analysis to Change from

Traditional to Just-in-Time Inventory System

C. Force-Field Analysis

1. Force-field analysis suggests that change is a result of the competition between

driving and restraining forces.

a. Driving forces can be thought of as problems or opportunities that provide

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skills.

Discussion Question #6: Analyze the driving and restraining forces of a change you would like

to make in your life. Do you believe understanding the force-field analysis can help you more

effectively implement a significant change in your own behavior?

Business Blooper: Flip

Perhaps the greatest tech start-up story of the decade, the Flip video camera crashed as fast as it

initially soared. Started by some scrappy entrepreneurs in a small office above a department

Exhibit 8.8: Tactics for Overcoming Resistance to Change

D. Implementation Tactics

1. Communication and education are used when users and others who may resist

implementation need solid information about the change. Education is important

when the change involves new technical knowledge or the users are unfamiliar with

the idea.

2. Participation involves users and potential resisters in designing the change.

3. Negotiation uses formal bargaining to win acceptance and approval of a desired

4. Coercion means managers use formal power to force employees to change. Resisters

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5. Top management support symbolizes to all employees that the change is important

for the organization. Without top management support the desired change will

probably not happen.

Answers to Discussion Questions

1. Times of shared crisis, such as the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade

Center or the Gulf Coast hurricanes in 2005, can induce many companies that have been

bitter rivals to put their competitive spirit aside and focus on cooperation and courtesy. Do

you believe this type of change will be a lasting one? Discuss.

Many organizations still have a competitive approach within the industry in which they compete.

This competitive challenge will depend on the firm, the industry, and the communication of these

2. A manager of an international chemical company said that few new products in her company

were successful. What would you advise the manager to do to help increase the company’s

success rate?

The manager should understand that all companies have a poor success rate with new products.

New products involve a great deal of risk, and improving the new-product development process

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3. As a manager, how would you deal with resistance to change when you suspect that

employee fears of job loss are well founded?

4. How might businesses use the Internet to identify untapped customer needs through open

innovation? What do you see as the major advantages and disadvantages of the open

innovation approach?

The best way to use the Internet to identify untapped customer needs might be to contact existing

customers, perhaps by creating a blog or other Website, to give them a forum in which to submit

5. To tap into the experience of battle-tested soldiers, the U.S. Army recently began

encouraging personnel from all ranks to go online and collaboratively rewrite some of the

Army’s field manuals in a Wikipedia-like fashion. When the rank and file showed little

interest, one retired colonel suggested top leaders should make soldiers participate. Does

coercion seem like a good way to implement this type of change? Discuss.

Coercion means managers use formal power to force employees to change. Resisters are told to

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6. Analyze the driving and restraining forces of a change you would like to make in your life.

Do you believe understanding force-field analysis can help you more effectively implement a

significant change in your own behavior?

7. Which role or roles—the inventor, champion, sponsor, or critic—would you most like to play

in the innovation process? Why do you think idea champions are so essential in the initiation

of change? Could they be equally important for implementation?

8. You are a manager, and you believe the expense reimbursement system for salespeople is far

too slow, taking weeks instead of days. How would you go about convincing other managers

that this problem needs to be addressed?

9. Do the underlying values of organizational development differ from assumptions associated

with other types of change? Discuss.

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The underlying values and assumptions of OD were made explicit in the chapter. They include:

“people desire personal growth and development,” “work groups can satisfy important needs for

individuals,” and “organizations can be designed to meet the needs of individuals and groups and

10. How do large-group interventions differ from OD techniques such as team building and

survey feedback?

The large-group intervention approach brings together participants from all parts of the

organization to discuss problems or opportunities and plan for change. A large-group

intervention might involve 50-500 people and last several days. The idea is to include everyone

TEACHING NOTES FOR LEARNING EXERCISES

Self Learning: Is Your Company Creative?

An organization’s culture has a tremendous influence on how receptive employees are to change.

This in turn influences the effectiveness of an attempted organizational change. This exercise

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Group Learning: Are You Ready to Implement Personal Change?

This exercise asks students to think of specific behavioral changes they have considered making

Action Learning

Students are to think of times in their lives when they’ve had to go through changes and choose

TEACHING NOTE FOR ETHICAL DILEMMA

Crowdsourcing

1. Go to the meeting and argue for abandoning crowdsourcing for now in favor of maintaining

the artistic integrity and values that Off the Hook has always stood for.

This is an option that could put you at odds with the CEO. You have to decide whether it’s

2. Accept the reality that because Off the Hook’s CEO Rob Taylor strongly favors

crowdsourcing, it’s a fait accompli. Be a team player and help work out the details of the

new design approach. Prepare to lay off graphic designers as needed.

3. Accept the fact that converting Off the Hook to a crowdsourcing business model is inevitable,

but because it violates your own personal values, start looking for a new job elsewhere.

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CASE FOR CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Southern Discomfort

1. What forces for change are evident at the Oconomo plant?

Forces for change exist both in the external environment and within the organization. External

forces in favor of the change include lower cost of wages, less strict pollution controls that would

2. What is the primary type of change needed—changing “things” or changing the “people and

culture?” Can the Wisconsin plant be saved by changing things alone, by changing people

and culture, or must both be changed? Explain your answer.

The primary change needed is changing the people and culture. Changing the people and culture

would involve changing employee values, norms, attitudes, beliefs, and behavior. Changes in

3. What do you think is the major underlying cause of the union leaders’ resistance to change?

If you were Jim Malesckowski, what implementation tactics would you use to try to convince

union members to change to save the Wisconsin plant?

The major underlying cause of the union leaders’ resistance to change is a fear of losing jobs and

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ON THE JOB VIDEO CASE

Holden Outerwear: Managing Change and Innovation

1. Identify the type of change that Holden’s leaders are managing on a daily basis.

2. Is Holden’s creative approach to outerwear an example of disruptive innovation? Why or why

not?

3. What resistance has Holden encountered while introducing innovative garment designs?

Holden is a small company that does not own its own factories or fabric mills. To produce any

garment, the company needs cooperation from outside vendors, which is not always guaranteed.

BIZFLIX VIDEO CASE

Field of Dreams

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Video Case Synopsis

Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) hears a voice while working in his Iowa cornfield that says, “If

you build it, he will come.” Ray concludes that “he” is legendary “Shoeless Joe” Jackson (Ray

Liotta), a 1919 Chicago White Sox player suspended for rigging the 1919 World Series. With the

Video Case Discussion Questions and Suggested Answers

1. Who is the target of change in this scene?

2. What are the forces for change? Are the forces for change internal or external to the change

target?

3. Does the scene show the role of leadership in organizational change? If it does, who is the

leader? What does this person do to get desired change?