This report will provide an analysis of
leadership in a changing organization,
based on an interview with a leader
and corresponding theory. The main
finding is that the changes in the
Company
were
handled
very
professionally,
but
some
improvements have to be made in
order to become a true learning
organization.
Analyzing
Leadership in a
changing
organization
Group assignment TEIO13
Group KRAM_2013
Mats Blok
Roman Flatau
Karine van Hal
Alexander Schmidt
Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................ 2
Methodology .............................................................................................................................. 2
Results ........................................................................................................................................ 4
Analysis and discussion .............................................................................................................. 7
Causes for change ................................................................................................................... 7
Process of change ................................................................................................................... 7
Handling resistance ................................................................................................................ 8
Visionary leadership ............................................................................................................. 10
Learning Organization........................................................................................................... 11
Conclusion and Reflection ........................................................................................................ 12
References ................................................................................................................................ 15
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Introduction
A countless amount of developments and changes influence the company’s life; including
short-term and long-term strategic decisions as well as everyday business. Those changes
range from the economic crisis, e. g. in 2008, to changes in the staffing of a company. Due to
Afsaneh Nahavandi those “[f]orces for change are both external (in the environment) and
internal” (2012, p. 284).
This paper provides an analysis of a changing organization, based on an interview with one
of the leaders from that company. The information gained from this interview will be linked
to corresponding literature to create an analysis on the way of implementing changes within
this company. First, the methodology used is examined in detail; this also includes
advantages and disadvantages of the chosen methodology. Second, the investigated
company will be introduced and the results of the interview are constituted. Third, the
results of the interview are analyzed and compared to the corresponding literature to
provide answers to the research questions stated below. Finally, the conclusions of the
analysis as well as a critical reflection will complete this paper.
The overall goal of this paper is to get an understanding on how the interviewed leader is
involved in all stages of the change and how the different actions and decisions relate to
theory on leadership. To be able to answer this question, it is split up into the following subquestions which will be answered throughout the report to be able to answer the main
question.




Which causes can be pointed out that initiated the need for change?
What is the current situation in the company regarding the entire change process?
What where the main difficulties up to now regarding the implementation of the
change?
What was the goal of the leader with initiating the change and how should it, ideally,
improve the company’s way of working?
These sub-questions will be answered in the analysis and discussion chapter of this paper,
where different models and theories are linked to information gained from the interview of
the leader. For each part of the analysis it will be further explained which sub-question will
be answered in the corresponding paragraphs.
Methodology
The approach used in this paper is an interview with a leading member of a small company
founded about 20 years ago; it is a wish of the company and the interviewee to stay
anonymous so they will be referred to as the Company and Mrs. Doe. This interview was
conducted via Skype, an online telecommunication program which includes a video-chat
which enables both participants of a Skype-conference to see each other. In advance to the
interview, the questions were sent to Mrs. Doe in order to give her the chance to prepare for
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the interview. Since the mother tongue of Mrs. Doe is Dutch, the interview was conducted in
Dutch, to avoid language barriers. The questions of the interview are formalized in an openended way to allow for further follow-up questions. They aim at getting information about
causes for change, types of changes, resistance for change, how to approach change and the
role of the leader and they are thereby closely related to Afsaneh Nahavandi´s idea about
leading change (2012, pp. 283). Nine questions were formulated that serve as the
foundation of the interview. They were extended with follow-up questions during the
interview. The questions were formulated as follows:









Can you describe the most important changes in your organization that have
occurred recently?
What caused these changes?
What strategy was used to implement these changes in the organization and how
was this strategy formed? Who were involved?
How was this strategy communicated to employees?
How did the employees cope with the changes?
Which steps were taken to decrease potential resistance from employees?
Have such changes occurred in your organization before?
Were there any important lessons learned from the changes? Are there any things
that should be handled differently in the future?
How would you describe your personal leadership style?
During the interview, two people took notes of the interview, sometimes repeating
information back to make sure the notes were complete and correct. Based on the notes
taken during the interview, one final summary of the interview was written in English. Using
two independent people to take notes lowers the risk of missing information and thereby
increases the quality of the results of the interview. The results of the interview will be
analyzed and compared with the appurtenant literature.
The applied methodology has several advantages, but also includes some limitations. One of
the main advantages of an interview is the possibility to directly intervene during the
interview and thereby steer the interview. Also, an interview offers the chance to get more
information compared to e. g. a written survey, as the oral and direct communication allows
for deeper conversations and follow-up questions (Augsburg University 2013).
On the other hand, the quality of an interview is strongly influenced by the willingness of the
person who answers the questions. Furthermore, the possibility to steer an interview might
lead to a biased result, as the interview influences the person answering the questions (Stier
1999 in: Augsburg University 2013). Also the translation of the spoken words into a written
summary offers the possibility for misunderstandings or misinterpretations (Kromrey 1995
in: Augsburg University 2013). This risk was reduced by repeating information back to Mrs.
Doe for confirmation. The translation process from Dutch to English could mean an
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additional risk of losing or changing the meaning of the information given by Mrs. Doe,
although this risk is very small due to the high level of English amongst the group members.
In the tradeoff of having language barriers when conducting the interview in English against
undertaking the interview in Dutch and translate it into English afterwards, the second
method will allow the interviewee to speak more freely. For this analysis conducting the
interview in Dutch is the appropriate choice, since in order to ensure a high quality of the
interview a high depth is necessary and allowing Mrs. Doe to speak in her mother tongue
increases the possibility for her to feel comfortable during the interview and her willingness
to answer the questions in a more extensive and detailed way.
Results
In this section, the results of the interview that was held will be described. Rather than
answering each question individually, the answers provided by the interviewee will be used
to sketch a coherent picture of the organization, the changes that it has gone through in the
past, and the current changes that are taking place in the organization.
The Company started out as a very small organization, with 4 people on the payroll. Each
person performed different tasks that had to be done, without a specific role in the
organization. The organization works on an assignment-basis in which supply and demand is
the basis for job acquisition, and can be viewed as a consultancy firm in the international
collaboration sector. It mainly tries to get products that are made all over the world onto
European markets. It also provides guidance and support in developing countries, by helping
to improve communication, build capacities of local entrepreneurs, product development
selection and local support. It performs market research, market analysis and helps people in
developing countries create business plans.
In 2005, the employees of the Company were assigned a specific role and were assigned
tasks according to that role. Mrs. Doe explains that the main reason for this specification was
the growth of the Company, which made the organization require structure, clear
communication channels and a clear division of responsibility. Currently, the Company has
10 people on the payroll. However, Mrs. Doe mentions that the aforementioned structure
requires discipline and should be monitored continuously. Since the Company works on a
contract-basis, the priority has always been more on the external deadlines that were
provided by clients than on the internal tasks.
Then the world, and the Company with it, was struck by the economic crisis. This lead to
significant changes in international collaboration and greatly affected the amount of
assignments that the Company could acquire and their financial position. Mrs. Doe explained
that alongside this, an internal question for direction and better communication started to
become apparent. This internal search for direction and the need to expand the Company’s
customer base due to the crisis worked together to create a need for change.
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The need for change at the Company was met by a change program that started this year,
2013. The Company still works on an assignment basis, but Mrs. Doe states that change and
growth have been given a much higher priority. In order to realize change in the
organization, the Company hired an external trainer. Together with this trainer and all
employees, a ‘change week’ was planned. Five days where small groups focused completely
on the changes that were needed, reevaluated the mission and vision of the company,
created SWOT-analyses, analyzed feedback from clients and mainly, found a new direction
for the company.
This week of internal reflection resulted in three main change projects that were to be
undertaken by the Company:



Strategy: This change project will focus on creating targets for each employee to
work towards. Some of these targets will of course be turnover related, but there will
also be targets regarding self-development of the employees. It became apparent
that employees of the Company want to receive training and are eager to learn. In
the past, there was one competence training per year for the group as a whole to
attend. Next year however, the Company wants to use the personal targets to set
individual training goals for each employee and create a more intensive selfdevelopment track.
Time management: This strategy project resulted in the time management change
project which focusses on creating a better flow in the organization, especially with
time-related issues. As mentioned earlier, the Company has to adhere to externally
set deadlines, which leaves little time for self-reflection and internal change. This
project will try to smoothen out deadline stress and create time so that the Company
can reprioritize. Next to the external focus the time management project tries to put
more emphasis on these three internal change project to make sure they don’t get
neglected by the main external focus.
Sharing and learning: In the Company, work is done in small teams of 2-3 members,
who focus on different sectors. There is an expert for each sector, but there is an
overlap in knowledge and processes among some experts. This change project will try
to ensure that knowledge and processes are shared among all employees, and tires
to find ways to make a profit from this knowledge. One of the ways that this change
will happen is through a weekly team meeting where gained knowledge is shared
among employees.
These projects have been started this year, but they will continue on well into next year. In
February 2014 the projects will be evaluated, there are currently meetings being held about
the progress every couple of weeks. None of the projects have official milestones. Mrs. Doe
is personally supervising the Strategy project and the Time management project. All of the
projects are discussed frequently in the management team, so that the progress on them
can be monitored. Mrs. Doe however, expresses that monitoring remains a difficult task in
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the Company. She explains that the intention is there to measure the effectiveness and the
direction of the projects in a more formal way next year.
In the future, the Company plans to keep on maintaining their change programs. Once
targets are met, the organization will be evaluated carefully together with the trainer that
was hired for the first change effort described above. This evaluation will then identify
further needs for change or improvement. The Company plans on taking more steps towards
becoming a so-called ‘learning organization’, and is not planning to just repeat the same
steps over and over again. Mrs. Doe states that it is about evolving as an organization, and
that learning is a vital necessity for growth. She explains that all decision-making on specific
future change is done by the management team, but that team members and team leaders
are involved in the process of identifying needs and problems.
Of course some resistance to the change was there from some of the employees of the
Company. Mrs. Doe describes her personal leadership style in handling this as the style of a
‘people manager’. She listens to people’s opinions and wishes regarding the direction and
vision of the organization, and tries to incorporate them into her decisions. Mrs. Doe
explains that her main tools to decrease resistance towards change are:


Involving people in the process: Due to the degree of involvement of the employees
of the Company when change was discussed, the resistance towards change among
employees was limited. Even though decision-making was done by the MT (as
mentioned above), the ‘change week’ discussed earlier made sure that all employees
of the Company were able to participate in creating a new vision and direction for
the Company. In other words, the general outline of the change was created by the
group; everyone supported this outline since it was chosen by the group.
Communication: Mrs. Doe explains that there is always resistance to change, even in
the management team. She handles this by communicating with the affected parties,
and sharing ideas and the vision of the change with them. She stresses the
importance and the desired result of a change in order to get people on board.
Furthermore, Mrs. Doe states that although she wishes to take resistance into account, she
is not afraid to push when she feels a change is important and/or necessary. She does
however recognize that it is important not to push people too hard or to force them to
accept change, since this will only be counter-productive. Finally, she states that she would
prefer to put the responsibility for change at the parties that are carrying it out, but she
mentions there are some risks attached to this. Doing so will require more time and it is
unsure if the employees of the Company will give the change the same priority that the
management team had in mind.
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Analysis and discussion
In this section, several aspects of ‘leading change’ will be discussed according to the subquestions stated in the introduction: 1) causes for change; 2) the process of change; 3)
handling resistance; 4) visionary leadership; and 5) learning organization. Some theory about
each aspect will be discussed first, and then this theory will be linked to the Company using
the results of the interview with Mrs. Doe.
Causes for change
This paragraph will focus on the sub-question regarding the needs that initiated the change
projects. Due to a fast changing environment, a company has to react flexible to new
circumstances as well as creating an ability to adapt to these changes (Nahavandi, 2012).
Kotter and Schlesinger (2008) also mention that a company has to change in order to stay
competitive. A change can be forced by two directions. One need for change can be arise
internally and by the company itself. One example is a gap of performance describing “the
difference between expected and actual performance” (Nahavandi, 2012, p. 285). Other
examples for internal forces are a new leadership or a new mission. Next to this, a company
can be forced to change by external forces as well, by environmental changes. These
changes include economic and political issues, cultural and social aspects, demographic
changes and even technological advances (Nahavandi, 2012).
When the theory is linked to the causes for change within the company we can acknowledge
several facts. First of all the implementation of the three different change projects were
initiated internally as a need for a higher focus on internal development emerged. The main
focus was on external deadlines; therefore internal deadlines were sometimes neglected
with regard to the external ones. This can be linked to what is according to Nahavandi “the
difference between expected and actual performance” (2012, p. 285) regarding internal
deadlines. But this is not the only internal force that drove the need to start implementing
these three change projects. According to Mrs. Doe, the company currently is in a state
where they want to structure and enhance their internal processes even further by
implementing new development plans and procedures. This also attests to a certain amount
of leadership and new vision from a part of the base for starting these change projects.
Next to the internal forces for change, there were also some external forces that made the
organization go through changes. The forces in this case were economic and political issues.
Mrs. Doe explained that the economic crisis (economical external force) lead to fewer
assignments, which led to a loss-position of the organization. Something that greatly
contributed to this position was the fact that the political views on international cooperation
changed (partly as a result of the economic crisis), which can be identified as an political
external force.
Process of change
This paragraph will focus on the second sub-question which will explain where the company
currently stands regarding the implementation of the change projects. According to
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Nahavandi (2012), there are several models that describe the process of change. The one
that describes the process of planned change in most detail is the 6-step model (Nahavandi,
2012). This model includes six process steps. The first step is the recognition for the need of
a change that can be influenced by internal as well as external forces mentioned above. The
second step is the development of ideas for a change. This can be executed by the leader
alone, through small groups or with the input of an outside source. Step two can increase
the participation of team members as well as give an opportunity of creating involvement.
Step three and step four describe the actual change by the adoption of one or more ideas
and by the implementation of the change. The allocation of resources is the fifth process
step. Depending on the change, the leader has to provide new resources or has to shift
current resources according to the needs of the change. The last step is the evaluation of the
implemented change including a review of the fulfillment of the goals of the change project.
If these objectives are not achieved, the change process has to start with step one again.
From the previous analysis on the causes for change, it can be concluded that the company
already acknowledged the need for change and therefore has already passed step one of the
6-step model. As mentioned by Mrs. Doe, the company hired an external trainer to help
them to figure out what changes needed to be made and how to proceed regarding these
needs. This was done during a 5 day ‘change week’ that was held with all employees under
supervision of the external trainer. During this week the changes that needed to be made
according to all employees and management were identified and prioritized. Because there
is a limited amount of resources available for dealing with all the changes that came up
during the ‘change week’, the company decided to focus on the three most important ones;
strategy, time management and sharing and learning. Because this was already done by the
company, it can be concluded that step two was also extensively executed.
The resources regarding these three change projects were divided, as mentioned above, and
the changes were implemented throughout the entire organization, implying that step three
and four are both also already passed. The resources needed for the change projects were
transferred from external deadlines to having scheduled time in which the focus would be
completely on internal deadlines regarding the three change projects. Having said that, it
can be derived that step five of the 6-step model also has been executed. The final step of
the model involves the feedback and evaluation of the scheduled changes. An evaluation
meeting regarding the change projects is scheduled in February 2014. This means that the
company still needs to execute the last step of the 6-step model before having successfully
passed through all phases identified in the 6-step model.
Handling resistance
This paragraph will point out some of the main difficulties encountered during the
implementation of the change projects. An organizational change can often lead to human
resistance. “Resistance is a normal part of the change process and not necessarily a reason
for concern” (Horwitz & Klontz 2013, pp. 28). Zig Ziglar (1991) suggests that if there is no
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resistance to a change there might not be a significant connection to the affected humans.
Even though leaders are aware of this fact, only a few actually put effort in assessing the
reasons for resistance (Kotter & Schlesinger, 2008). Nahavandi (2012) describes three
general groups of factors that cause resistance: organizational factors; group factors and
individual factors. One main cause for resistance in the group of organizational factors is
inertia of the organization; the organization resist to changes with the aim of maintaining
the status quo. Furthermore, the culture and the structure of an organization have a high
influence on the ability to change, since a rigid structure, a strong hierarchy and short term
change of leaders lead to a decrease of cooperation and willingness to change. Other causes
for resistance are group issues. Judson (1991) asserts that high group cohesion leads to good
communication, cooperation and a learning environment within the group, however it can
also organize the group as a strong force that might be an obstacle for change (as cited in
Nahavandi, 2012). The third group of factors that causes resistance consists of individual
reasons. Examples are the fear of the employee of the unknown and of failure, job security,
previous experiences and individual characteristics.
Nahavandi (2012) mentions different solutions in order to deal with resistance during a
change: 1) education and communication; 2) participation and involvement; 3) facilitation
and support; 4) negotiation and agreements; 5) manipulation and cooptation; 6) explicit or
implicit coercion. Depending on the circumstances, one or several of these solutions become
more appropriate to use
We will now turn to the resistance that was apparent in the Company. Mrs. Doe explained
that some individual employees have doubts about change in general, they might project
that they are supportive and willing of change without this actually being the case. This is a
good example of the ‘individual factors’ that lead to resistance against change. No
organizational factors were mentioned, but from the interview it becomes clear that this is
not strange: the loss-position and other external forces had already led to internal questions
about directions and an identification of a need to change in the organization as a whole.
The fact that the Company is a small organization with an informal culture and a flat
hierarchy also contributes to decreasing resistance to change from an organizational
perspective. Group factors to resist change were also not very apparent in the Company,
there is strong group cohesion, but there are no resisting leaders and once again, the
internal need for change created an environment for change that the whole group could
adhere to.
Another reason why there was little resistance to change in the Company is the way that the
change process was designed: employees were involved in the creation of the change
project and were updated throughout in order to make everyone aware of the
developments. From this, it can be concluded that the following two methods of dealing
with resistance to change were used in the Company, even from the very start of the change
project:
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1) education and communication: provide information
2) participation and involvement: engage employees.
According to Nahavandi (2012, p.293), the first method should be used when there is not a
lot of information, which leads to fear. It should be used in all stages of the change process,
which has been the case at the Company. They have therefore experienced the main
advantage of this method: employees are less likely to resist to the changes. The
disadvantage of this method, that it is time-consuming when a lot of people are involved,
could be avoided because of the size of the Company.
The second method (participation and involvement) should be used when employees lack
information or when they can influence the change project in a negative way (Nahavandi,
2012, p. 293). Because of the limited number of employees in the Company, the
unwillingness of one employee to change could have a big impact. This justifies the use of
the method of participation and involvement, which was executed by allowing all employees
to participate in the ‘change week’, generate their own ideas and help create a new
direction for the organization. The method has several advantages: it leads to a deeper
commitment of employees, and leads to a broader base for ideas. Both of these advantages
have been apparent at the Company. The disadvantages are twofold: first, there is the time
it takes to engage all employees; this has been accepted by the organization as a necessary
evil. Second, there is the threat of the implementation of an inappropriate change. The fact
that all changes had to be approved by the management team of the Company greatly
reduces this risk.
Visionary leadership
The last two paragraphs focus on the final sub-question of the vision of the leader and how
this should, in her eyes, improve the company as a whole. While leading a change in terms of
crisis, it is important how a leader is interacting with his followers. A leader has to create a
shared vision and has to inspire as well as motivate his followers. This visionary type of
leadership includes enabling followers, celebrating success, encouraging the heart and
creating role-models. Furthermore, a visionary way of leading focuses on flexibility,
teamwork and cooperation. The outcome of visionary leadership is a reduction of resistance
to change and inspiration of the followers (Nahavandi, 2012). Kouzes and Posner (1993) also
point out that credibility and honesty are very important characteristics of visionary
leadership (as cited in Nahavandi (2012)).
In the Company, the importance of a shared vision was definitely recognized. Mrs. Doe
explains that the employees were involved in creating a new direction for the company, as
well as management taking all input and molding it into one clear vision that followers can
relate to. The empowerment of followers was somewhat less emphasized though, as can be
demonstrated by the statement of Mrs. Doe that she would like to give her employees more
responsibility but that this would create a lot of risks. Empowerment would however engage
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the employees of the Company more in the change and the change projects, and it would
also decrease their resistance to change (Nahavandi, 2012, p. 294).
Visionary leadership also includes flexibility, as mentioned earlier. This is however not clearly
demonstrated in the Company. Even though there are several projects, to our knowledge
neither employees nor leaders can freely change the projects or their targets after they were
decided upon by the management team as a whole. This shows that there could be a threat
of ‘getting stuck’ in the agreed-upon projects. Mrs. Doe did mention however, that if she
feels that in the future needs and wishes will be evaluated again and new projects will be set
up. This decreases the aforementioned risk. It should however be noted that the change
projects do not have official milestones, which gives some flexibility in achieving the goals in
the first year.
Finally, the last aspect of visionary leadership, teamwork and cooperation, is very well
represented in the Company. The importance of teamwork is emphasized throughout the
organization and there is a sense of shared responsibility for the change projects, partly
established by the involvement of the employees during the creation of the projects.
Learning Organization
A learning organization has the ability to learn and to create new ideas and innovations
including cooperation and an efficient transfer of knowledge within the group. For a learning
organization, a change is not a task, it is an “integral part of the culture and everyday
processes” (Nahavandi, 2012, p. 299). Senge (2006) mentions several elements that are
included in a learning organization. First, it is important to have a shared vision in the
organization in order to receive commitment by setting a common identity and common
goals. Furthermore, the team has to think as a system to understand interrelations and
bonds that connect people internally as well as externally. Mental models that guide
behaviours and decisions should be understood, and they should be moved into ones that
are based on openness and cooperation. Another element is personal mastery that includes
to clarify and to develop personal visions and goals as well as to expand personal skills and
proficiency. Moreover, through team learning, a synergy and an ability to think as a group in
order to be able to question assumptions and improve processes should be developed (as
cited in Nahavandi (2012)). Nahavandi (2012) suggests actions to become a learning
organization by being open to new ideas. Rather than trying to standardize everything, it can
be better to develop local solutions. It is also important to provide time for a team to have
the ability to learn and experiment. Considering leadership skills, a learning organization has
to develop leaders to become participative and to engage followers.
Mrs. Doe mentioned that the Company is planning on maintaining their change programs
and turning the organization into a learning organization, where learning is emphasized both
for individuals and for the group as a whole. This is a good example of the two aspects of a
learning organization mentioned above: the personal mastery and the team learning.
Personal mastery can be seen in the result that the employees want to receive training and
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are eager to learn. By setting personal targets for every employee in the year, individual
skills and development of proficiency will be improved. By a weekly meeting of the experts
of different sectors, knowledge of the team will be shared and new solutions will be
generated by the experts. The outcomes are enhanced processes by improving the effect of
team learning.
With regard to the other aspects, a shared vision is in place, as mentioned in the previous
section, but it is unclear if management is aware of the interrelations in the organization
(system thinking) and the mental models that guide behaviours and decisions. It can be
assumed that the limited size of the organization gives leaders an intuitive understanding of
both of these aspects, but in order to create a true learning organization these two aspects
should be investigated further. After all, “without understanding how the organization truly
functions, it is hard to implement change.” (Nahavandi, 2012, p. 299, emphasis added).
Moreover, it is vital to provide time for the team to have the ability to learn and experiment.
In the results you can see that the implemented change has no official milestones in the
beginning which might help the employees to adjust to the changes.
Conclusion and Reflection
After discussing how the theory fits the practice in the Company, an answer is provided to
the following main question; “How is the leader involved in all stages of the change process
and what relations can be found between the leader’s actions and decisions and related
leadership theory”. This main question was answered by breaking it up into the following
four sub-question:




Which causes can be pointed out that initiated the need for change?
What is the current situation in the company regarding the entire change process?
What where the main difficulties up to now regarding the implementation of the
change?
What was the goal of the leader with initiating the change and how should it, ideally,
improve the company’s way of working?
The first second and third sub-questions are answered by respectively the first, second and
third point discussed below, namely the causes for change, the change process and handling
resistant. Finally the last sub-question is answered in both point four and point five below,
namely visionary leadership and learning organization.
1. Causes for change: The theory mentions several internal and external causes for
change, such as a changing environment, remaining competitive, new leadership or a
gap of performance. At the Company, the causes for change were both internal and
external. Internally, there was a need from the employees for a new direction, and a
demand for structure and priority for internal deadlines. Externally, these causes
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2.
3.
4.
5.
were a change in the political environment and fewer assignments, which lead to a
loss-position of the company.
The process of change: This aspect describes the state of implementation of change
in the organization. The Company has acknowledged the need for change (step 1 the
6-step model of implementing change (Nahavandi, 2012)), developed ideas for the
change (step 2), adopted and implemented the changes (step 3 and 4) and allocated
resources (step 5). In February, the evaluation of the changes will conclude the 6step model. It can be concluded that the company has gone through the 6-step
model in a step-by-step way, making sure that every step receives enough attention.
Handling resistance: Every change will invoke some resistance from the employees
and the organization. Resistance in the Company was minimized using two methods:
1) education and communication: provide information; 2) participation and
involvement: engage employees. These two methods resulted in a minimal amount
of resistance and the continuous usage of these methods helped employees
overcome reasons for resistance and embrace the change projects. The use of these
two methods was justified by literature, since there was a situation where there was
few information and employees could influence the projects in a negative way.
Visionary leadership: A leader should create a shared vision, inspire and also
motivate followers. This visionary leadership consists of several aspects. The shared
vision aspect was definitely present in the Company, as well as teamwork and
cooperation. Flexibility was however not clearly demonstrated in the Company. After
the initial influence, it was unclear how much the employees could change the
projects. The lack of milestones gives some flexibility in the beginning of the project
though, by allowing employees to get used to the changes that have been made.
Learning organization: In order to characterize an organization as a learning
organization, it should possess several qualities. While we believe that the Company
has a shared vision amongst the employees and personal mastery and team learning
is important in the organization, it is unclear if management is aware of the
interrelations in the organization (system thinking) and of the mental models that
guide behaviours and decisions in the organization. We believe that it could be
worthwhile for the organization to investigate these two aspects of a learning
organization in further detail.
Finally, we think that the change in the Company was well organized and implemented, and
handled very professionally. First of all, it was very important that an external trainer was
hired so the Company could benefit from the knowledge of the trainer and his experience
with change. Since there was also an internal need for direction, an external trainer could
give an outsider perspective which greatly benefits the Company. Furthermore, we think
that it was very important for the organization and the whole process of change that the
employees were so involved in the process. By involving them from the start, they feel
valued and part of the change. Their commitment to it will decrease resistance to the change
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drastically and will also allow the Company to take full advantage of the expertise and ideas
of the employees.
When the Company moves forward toward becoming a learning organization, it will be
necessary to offer more development opportunities for the individual employees, since it is
mentioned that they are eager to learn and it is part of the strategy to fulfill individual goals.
It is also very important that management has a good sense of the interrelations in the
company and the way that employees make their decisions. This knowledge, combined with
the Company’s desire for growth and the fact that new change projects will be identified to
further improve the organization will allow the Company to evolve and become a true
learning organization.
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References
Augsburg University (2013) Vor-& Nachteile von Interviews [online], Available: http://qsf.elearning.imb-uni-augsburg.de/node/560 [02.12.2013]
Horwitz, E. J. and Klontz, B. T. (2013) Understanding and Dealing with Client Resistance to
Change, Journal of Financial Planning, Nov. 2013, pp. 27-31
Kromrey, H. (2000) Empirische Sozialforschung, Stuttgart, UTB
Nahavandi, A. (2012) The Art and Science of Leadership, England, Person New International
Edition, Sixth Edition, Person
Stier, W. (1999) Empirische Forschungsmethoden, Schweiz, 2. Auflage, Springer Verlag
Ziglar, Zig (1991) Ziglaron Selling: The Ultimate Handbook for the Complete Sales
Professional, Nashville, Tennessee, Oliver-Nelson
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