BUS 637 Week 1 – Discussion Forum 2
Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your fellow students’ or instructor posts in a substantive manner and provide information or concepts that they may not have considered. Each response should have a minimum of 100 words and be respectful of others’ opinions and beliefs that differ from your own. Support your position by using information from the week’s readings. You are encouraged to post your required replies earlier in the week to promote more meaningful and interactive discourse in this discussion forum. Continue to monitor the discussion forum until Day 7 and respond with robust dialogue to anyone who replies to your initial post

Andrew Magistri
YesterdaySep 24 at 12:26pm

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Hi everyone!

Kotter’s proposed method used to guide actions creates a strong general framework for implementing change management, however, it may not fit in all cultures. To enable a stronger sense of applicability, it is important to realize that change management implementation may be more applicable in different ways for different organizations. The basic 8 step process as claimed by Kotter, may not be a one-way road. Consideration should be made for the potential to backtrack to any former point in the process, or potentially skipping ahead a step dependent on the overall idea generating momentum.

Rules based environments are substantially more conducive to a niche group of associates, similar in context to principals based environments. Rules based environments set the overall guardrails on a per-position role within an organization. Associates will follow much more structure in their daily routine.

Principals based environments set the guiding foundation for associates to work. The jobs may be similar in the proposed end-goal objective, however, the path to get there is left near freely in the hands of the associates.

Transitioning from one environment to another requires an overall corporate culture shift. The simplest time to consider a large swing would be on company creation. However, assuming the company has existed for any length of time prior to the switch in ideology, the company will inevitably face those that are both anti-change as well as their change-advocates.

Associates that thrive in one environment over the other will likely be against the idea of change, posing challenges in retention, as well as associate satisfaction.

-Andrew

Anand, C. (2019). The greenhouse approach: Cultivating intrapreneurship in companies and organizations. Dundurn.

Kotter. (n.d.). 8 step process (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.). https://www.kotterinc.com/8-steps-process-for-leading-change/

Joseph Choice
YesterdaySep 24 at 3:22pm

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Kotter’s eight-step method is flexible enough to develop effective change management procedures across several cultures. The caveat to this statement is that it requires an organization and intrapreneurial leaders to be able to interpret and guide individuals to accept the change management process.

For this discussion, I am going to use intrapreneur Lebron James as an example of how he has helped navigate effective change management procedures across several cultures by his leadership within the LA Lakers organization. We often tend to forget that professional sports are part of an intrapreneurial environment where high-level athletes often help navigate results for the entrepreneur (owner) of the team.

Creating a sense of urgency is an area that has to be sold to an individual with WIFM (What’s In It For Me) in mind. As a player on the Lakers, some players are interested in a championship, some in being a starter, some in being an all-star; in order to get there, a sense of urgency needs to be created. Not all players are budding new rookies awaiting instructions, so building that environment with finding the WIFM for each player is something that Lebron has been able to successfully obtain from his current team. He has helped players who might have necessarily never had enough playing time on other teams by pushing them to be passionate about the team, their mission, and their contribution to the team. Lebron has been able to effectively create his guiding coalition which ties into the next change management method of forming a strategic vision and initiatives. When new players come to the team, his intrapreneurial qualities come out to speak towards the vision and how each person will make future goals a reality. Bosccher (as quoted by Kotter, n.d.) mentions that “It’s not a project, It’s a movement. It’s a Journey. Join us and leave your mark.” (para 4) Beliefs such as these in a team environment can help gain the buy-in to all move in the same direction, like an army.

Enabling action by removing barriers is the next change management procedure. Before his arrival to the LA Laker, Lebron James did not serve as a point guard. This was one position for the team that proved to be inefficient in the past and hard to fill, which caused barriers towards the team’s success. Lebron removed said walls by shifting his position from power forward to becoming a point forward. This changed allowed him to add further value to the team and removed a significant barrier that impacted the team’s success. This translated into short term wins for some, which ties into change management procedure six. Bench players and role players on the team earned extra minutes, highlight-reel dunks, and player of the week accolades as they filled in other positions. Lebron sustained this acceleration and moment (rule 7) by resurrecting the careers of former all-star players such as Dwight Howard by involving him back into the Lakers team after his first stint with the team was a failure. Lebron’s push to continue to be better helped improve their team’s defense with a player that still had more to give. Last, instituting change – this season Lebron and the Lakers have undergone changes to their lineup, their practice habits, and their playing environment into the Orlando bubble. Despite these changes, Lebron and the team continue to work together and are on pace to reach the NBA Finals.

The level of effort it will take to transition from a rules-based environment to a principle-informing rules environment will depend on the change plan and the timeframe that the intrapreneur sets for this change to be completed within the organization. Change management should be part of organizations’ long-term goals similar to business planning goals that are set. (e.g. 3-year plan, 5-year plan) Changing people must go hand in hand with the ongoing changes made to existing processes, technology, and procedures. People often respond better to culture change when they can also see tangible differences occur as well. Two significant obstacles that might be encountered is difficulty abandoning the old way of thinking and developing trust towards the newfound empowerment. (Anand, 2019) Getting rid of old ways of thinking is very difficult as we are creatures of habit. To change how one sees things takes time, and intrapreneurs need to understand that not everyone will quickly adapt to this new shift in thinking. The next obstacle is developing trust in the new freedom found in personal empowerment. In rules-based environments, rules are rigid and fixed and often come with penalties for breaching the rules. Once it is moved to principle-based, individuals have to decide how to act based on principle guidelines and trust that if they do the right thing, no harm will come their way. Intrapreneurs can help facilitate this trust by routine check-ins and feedback sessions to ensure that communication and transparency are available.

References:

Anand, C. (2019). The greenhouse approach: Cultivating intrapreneurship in companies and organizations. Dundurn.

Kotter. (n.d.). 8 step process (Links to an external site.). https://www.kotterinc.com/8-steps-process-for-leading-change/