Sunday, January 26, 2020

Change Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Change Rosabeth Moss Kanter Change Management Organisations Must Change and Change quickly INTRODUCTION Rosabeth Moss Kanter is the professor in business at Harvard Business School, where she holds the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professorship. She is known for her classic 1977 study of Tokenism. As a business leader and expert on strategy and leadership for change, she was nominated as the top ten on the list of the 50 most influential business thinkers in the world, and she is on the list of the 100 most important women in America and the 50 most powerful women in the world. Her main concepts include changing organisations, bureaucracy and characteristics of resistance to change. (drfd.hbs.edu, 2007) In 1989, she argues that: todays corporate elephants must learn how to dance as nimbly and speedily as mice. (Burnes, 2004) In other words, she points out that big organisations should change and change quickly to meet the changing environment. This report is going to analyse the key drivers for this statement and find out the reason behind change. This report contains three sections. Section 1 will give definitions to change management and the importance of change. Section 2 is discussions, which is divided into two sub-categories, first part is concerned with the models of change management, and part 2 goes on to show examples of how big organisations keep up with change and the possibilities of failure. This section contains examples of big organisations successfully changed to meet their goals and objectives, while some other organisations stay the same and fail to maintain their strong market position. Section 3 is conclusions. CHANGE MANAGEMENT Todays corporate elephants must learn how to dance as nimbly and speedily as mice if they are to survive in our increasingly competitive and rapidly changing world (Burnes, 2004) According to Paton McCalman (2004), managing change is about evaluating, planning, implementing, operational, tactical and strategic changes. As Siegal et al (1996) points out that rapid change is a pervasive part of our lives as human beings; it is no surprise that change is also a fact of life within human systems. Recent developments in the global economy have catapulted this fact to the forefront of management concerns as well. Therefore, even though Professor Kanters statement was mentioned about 18 years ago, it is still valued today. Additionally, Kanter (1989) mentioned that in order for organisations to change, it requires faster action, more flexibility and closer partnerships with employees and customers than typical in the traditional corporate bureaucracy. To quote from her, Corporate giants, in short, must learn how to dance. Therefore, the corporate elephants represents big companies while mice, on the other hand, represents small firms. To summarise her statement above, we could conclude that small firms are more flexible in changing compare with big organisations, because big organisations have more management levels and more bureaucracy; therefore, corporate giants should adapt this ability to change and change quickly. More over, the most important reason for organisations to change, is to keep pace with the ever changing business environment and give a good company image to the public that they are keep up dating themselves and stay competitive. DISCUSSION To cope with a changing world, an entity must develop the capacity of shifting and changing. It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones who are most responsive to change (Beitler, 2006) Corporate elephants with change Marks and Spencer is a well known British retailer, which was founded in 1884. It is one of the most iconic and widely recognised chain stores in the UK and it is the largest clothing retailer in the country. (wikipedia, 2007) Marks Spencer is one of the typical examples for change management, and as Rippin (2005) proposed in her research that when, in Autumn 2003 I needed a case study on organisational change, without too much deliberation I chose Marks and Spencer. This corporate giant has developed through its golden years, the crisis, its change in leadership and its recent change management attempts in its response to its changing environment. (Rippin, 2005) Kurt Lewins model of change In the early 20th Century, psychologist Kurt Lewin identified three stages of change that has come to be known as the unfreezing-change-refreeze model. (Nilakant Ramnarayan, 2006) The graph below shows more detail about this model: Unfreeze This is the first stage of this model that to make system receptive to change. (Nilakant Ramnarayan, 2006) People feel comfortable and safe about the current situation and it is hard for them to change. It takes long time to unfreeze the environment and the first thing to do at this stage is to make people aware of the change and let them know the reason and needs for change. Moreover, organisations should involve employees in the decision making process by asking them how would they feel about a certain matter and what do they thing is necessary to change. In 1998, Marks and Spencer became the first British retailer to make a pre-tax profit of over  £1 billion and this is the peak time in the companys history. (marksandspencer, 2007) Few years later, it plunged into a crisis which lasted for around several years. The problems Marks and Spencer faced were: The rising cost of using British suppliers Losing customer loyalty Increasing rival companies with cheap production to lower down their cost, therefore to lower down the price Refuse to accept the credit card As a large company with a long term history, Marks and Spencer has its weak side that the bureaucracy management system (Rippin, 2005) made it lose its touch with the real buyer and lost potential younger customers. In 1984, the companys priority is to provide high quality clothing to working class women. As time goes on, peoples taste changed that we no longer chase quality products but disposable clothes with a cheaper price. At that time, Marks and Spencer didnt realize this shortage until they found themselves struggling to compete in the changing environment as the fashion trend changes. As a result, the companys share price went down by more than two thirds and profit fell from  £1 billion in 1998 to  £145 million in 2001, which was only 10 per cent compare with its golden age. (wikipedia, 2007) As Rippin (2005) described in her research that Marks and Spencer is a sleeping beauty as the organisation is in suspension waiting for the right prince to come and reanimate the bo dy. Change The second stage of the model is change to achieve the desired results. At this stage the actual change happens which can be either to acquire desired behaviour or technological change. (Burnes, 2004) It is a hard journey that the organisation might go through several stages before it successes. This is the stage that the real changes take place and the organisation applies the plans to action in practise. At this stage, Marks Spencer conducted another model-Planned model of change (step change) that issues are dealt with stage-by-stage and built to transformation over time. (Cummings Worley, 2004) Marks and Spencers change management was implemented step by step over time. To quote form the Stuart Rose Chief Executive: We continue to improve our core business†¦We are ahead of our space growth target†¦We are stepping up our investment in the business†¦ In addition, the Board is announcing a step change in the investment this year. These decisions reflect our confidence in the strength and future prospects of the business. (finfacts, 2007) In order to successfully apply this Step change model, Marks and Spencer is constantly working on the progress. In 1999, the company launched online shopping and issued credit cards payments in store or online to make transactions simple and faster for customers. In order to lower down the costs and have more sales, the company decided to switch to overseas suppliers, open store on Sunday and added self-check outs to tills. (wikipedia, 2007) Secondly, it changed its business focus from quality fabric for working classing to the new sales of fashion clothes, and the company launched the Per Una clothing range, which recovered some market share to the younger consumer group. Additionally, it changed the womens bras to machine washable while there are many designer brands that still need to be hand washed. (Rippin, 2005) More over, the company realized its strength and weakness, therefore, it sold the financial service to HSBC Bank Plc and stopped the expanding of its simply food line of stores. As a result of those changes, by 2005, its share price went up and doubled from 319p to 766p as the highest in 2007. (Bloomberg, 2007) Refreeze The last step is to refreeze and make changes permanent that cement change into the organisational culture. To quote from Cameron Green (2004), for change to be effective, it needs to be implemented at all levels and embedded in the culture of the organisation. Change management should be merged with the organisational culture that all the changes should be developed according to its culture with shared objectives and common goals. At this stage, organisations meet their goals and objectives and waiting for new changes. (Paton McCalman, 2000) Marks and Spencer today, has 760 stores in more than 30 countries around the world. In 2007, it is growing again and rapidly increasing profitability with revenue of  £7.8 billion. In Nov, the company reported that the profit before tax rose 11.5 per cent, which is slightly ahead of analysts expectation. (finfacts, 2007) Corporate elephants dance speedily Flexible Elearn (2005) explains the four key processes for success when implementing change within an organisation, they are: Pressure for change A clear and shared vision Capacity for change Action To summary from Flexible Elearn (2005), organisations need the driving forces for change and a clear/shared vision. In order to successfully implementing change, organisations need to identify the resources that will be required and make sure they are provided. The last stage is action and implementing the planned changes. At this stage, organisations should keep checking and monitoring the process, and ensure the progress is operated well. Organisations like the benefit of change but they are afraid of failure. In order to successfully launch the change within organisations, Flexible Elearn (2005) suggest organisation to follow this stages, but on the other hand, changing could be difficult according to the change stages model as it is time consuming and costly. To quote from Saka (2003), one of the main boundaries for big organizations to change is the one which separates the model-builders from recipe-givers, the theoreticians from the practitioners. Organisations understood the need for change, but they dont seem to be able to respond quickly, especially for those big firms as they have many layers of management level that all the decisions need to run through the top to the bottom. It takes time to inform everyone in the organisation about the change and keep them up-dated with the progress. As Saka pointed out that there is a lack of interaction between decision and action. Organisational members, who are not onl y potential change-makers, are likely to be more questioning about the value of change. CONCLUSION Change management plays an important role in any organisations regardless its size. It means to make change in a planned and systemic way. (Cummings Worley, 2004) Moreover, it helps to lower risks associated with change, eliminate resources conflicts and redundancies. For Marks and Spencer, its problems include: business too complicated, competition, downsizing, and management system. The Marks and Spencer story shows that changes are essential for all the organisations regardless its size and reputation. Staying in the same place without considering the changing environment will leads to losing profit or failure. Moreover, Marks and Spencer went through three stages of change, which are: Unfreeze: feel the needs to change as the market share and profit was going down Change: going through changes with the planned model of change that allows the company to change step by step with continuously changing progress. Refreezing: met the goals and objectives that Marks and Spencer successfully changed itself from an old, transitional British retailer to a new look, fashionable icon. To sum up, small organisations are more flexible when they facing changes, while big organisations have bureaucracy management system and more layers of management level, hence, it is harder for them to response to the changing environment. Therefore, big organisations should adapt the ability to change and change quickly. REFERENCE Beitler. M, 2006., Strategic Organisational Change: A Practitioners Guide for Managers and Consultants, Practitioner Pr Intl. Burnes. B, 2004., Managing Change: A Strategic Approach to Organizational Dynamics (4th Ed), Pearson Education. Cameron. E Green. M, 2004., Making Sense of Change Management: A Complete Guide to the Models, Tools Techniques of Organizational Change, Kogan Page. Cummings. T Worley. C, 2004., Organizational Development and Change, Thomson South-Western. Flexible. P Elearn. L, 2005., Change Management: Management Extra, Elsevier. Kanter. R, 1989., When Giants learn to Dance, Simon and Schuster. Nilakant. V Ramnarayan. V, 2006., Change Management: Altering Mindsets in a Global Content, Sage Publications. Paton. R McCalman. J, 2000., Change Management: An Guide to Effective Implementation,, Sage Publications Inc. Rippin. A, 2005., Marks and Spencer-Waiting for the Warrior: A Case Examination of the Genddered Nature of Change Management, Journal of Organizational Change Management,, Volume 18, p578-593 http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/ViewContentServlet?Filename=Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Articles/0230090605.html [Accessed 17/11/07] Saka. A, 2003., Internal Change Agents View of the Management of Change Problem, Journal of Organizational Change Management,, Volume 16, p480-496 http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/ViewContentServlet?Filename=Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Articles/0230160501.html [Accessed 22/11/07] Siegal. W et al, 1996., Understanding The Management of Change: An Overview of Managers Perspectives and Assumptions in the 1990s, Journal of Organizational Change Management,, Volume 9, p54-80 http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/ViewContentServlet?Filename=Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Articles/0230090605.html [Accessed 20/11/07] http://drfd.hbs.edu/fit/public/facultyInfo.do?facInfo=biofacEmId=rkanter [Accessed 17/11/07] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marks__Spencer [Accessed 20/11/07] http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/6/62/figure/F1?highres=y [Accessed 20/11/07] http://www.marksandspencer.com/gp/node/n/46010031?ie=UTF8mnSBrand=core [Accessed 21/11/07] http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_1011718.shtml [Accessed 21/11/07] http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=MKS:LN [Accessed 19/11/07]

Saturday, January 18, 2020

Setting a Grade Goal

Most of us could use some improvement on our test grades. The way that we are studying right now might not be the best way if our grades are not what they should be. Set a grade goal and if it is not met, cut down on non-school activities and learn how to study. Taking notes, organizing, and managing time are the keys to succeeding toward making the grades. Follow these simple tips on how to study to lead toward rewarding grades. The first tip is learning how to take proper class notes. There are several reasons to take notes that are as complete as possible. It forces us to pay attention to what is going on in class, it will keep us awake, and there will be less to remember. The key idea of taking good notes in class is to write down as much as possible. Taking complete notes will require quick writing and the use of abbreviations. Most everyone sends text messages on our cell phones. The same abbreviations can be used when taking notes in class. The next tip is organizing and using the notes. The notes taken in class must then be neatly re-written so they can be legible. Outlines are most helpful to organize almost any material. For any subject, a set of flash cards is helpful. Highlight important or interesting passages, but be careful not to highlight everything. Reading the text and reciting it aloud is a way to retain the information. Finally, managing time is an important step toward the study process. Study the hard subjects first since that is when we are the most alert and energetic. Leave the easier or more fun subjects for later. Study in a quiet place with as few distractions as possible. If it is too quiet, music or TV should be used at a low volume. A small study group can be helpful and fun. Making rhymes or songs is another way to remember. It is important to spend adequate time to study the material. The more time spent on the material, the more it will be remembered for the time of testing. Remember to organize and take proper class notes. Always carry around flashcards in case there are an extra couple of minutes to go through them. Do all other activities before studying and turn off the distractions. Do not wait until the last minute; start studying early and as often as possible. Never cram the night before or the morning of a test. Paying attention and practicing good note taking, organizing the material, and time managing will ensure a positive outcome. The study habits we put to practice will generate to the grades we earn.

Friday, January 10, 2020

What Samples of Essay Introduction Paragraph Is - and What it Is Not

What Samples of Essay Introduction Paragraph Is - and What it Is Not Men and women tend to decide on a range of themes of who they are and attempt to describe all of them. Friends aren't born overnight, but they are sometimes lost almost as fast. What You Should Do to Find Out About Samples of Essay Introduction Paragraph Before You're Left Behind Though it is then argued that however sophisticated propaganda is it cannot be that popular. Beginning with interesting truth about your subject is certain to grab the interest it needs. If you haven't been assigned a topic, you have a bit more work to do. You could have your topic assigned, or you could be given free reign to write on the topic of your selection. Employing different examples of introductory paragraph allows you to understand how introductions of distinct essays are written. Inside this section you will locate samples of essays belonging to different essay types and manners of formatting. Therefore, the content of the introduction is largely based on the intention of the essay and the information which will be availed to the readers. When you've determined the goal of your essay, you are going to know what information has to be included and the way that it has to be presented. Essay writing is normally practiced is schools. It can be quite complicated if you don't have a good plan. Writing an essay is a critical role in academe life. Writing the college application essay can be among the most daunting pieces of applying to college. Samples of Essay Introduction Paragraph Track changes in your children's condition and contact your health care provider if symptoms of depression appears to be getting worse. Cardiac disease is the major cause of death in hypertensive individuals. Depression is a critical problem affecting every facet of life at the time of adolescence. Adolescent depression isn't only an awful mood and at times depression. Samples of Essay Introduction Paragraph Fundamentals Explained EssayEdge is the top application essay editing service on earth. The web, however, also provides some invaluable solutions to the issues. You have to first assess the access to information in the region. There's non-uniform distribution of the resou rces and thus, folks cannot adequately add to the growth of the country. There's, naturally, a limit on the range of pages even our finest writers can produce with a pressing deadline, but generally, we can satisfy all the clients seeking urgent assistance. The keen researcher should know just how to look for the relevant information regarding the web and ought to also learn how to filter the suitable information from the wrong one by utilizing critical thinking. Among the places where I feel I have been required to use my critical thinking skills is in the region of gauging information on the Internet. With PressBuy, you no longer will have to be concerned about the unexpected troubles that used to haunt the internet buyers of the past. The Samples of Essay Introduction Paragraph Cover Up After you have answered that question, you're ready to go. After you have determined the purpose, you'll need to do a little research on topics which you find intriguing. Reread your paper and check to see whether it is reasonable. Students who find they lack th e skills required to research and formulate decent essay topic ideas should look at getting assistance from our experts. In truth, it may be the sole way to begin on your assignment and submit a superior paper punctually. Assuming you have some idea on the overall area you want to deal with in your essay, the upcoming significant step is choosing listing down anything you know on the matter. Regardless of what's the aim of your essay, there's a preset number of points which you will be expected to deal with. As previously noted, there's in addition the choice to get help with the remaining part of the assignment. For example, you get to figure own the positioning of the statement together with how to help it become arguable. If you're given the subject, you ought to think about the form of paper that you wish to produce. In some instances, a topic might already be offered. Continue reading to discover more, including where to locate decent thesis statement definition and examples. As stated by the spirituality, absolute destruction together with the absolute creation of the planet is impossible. Simply interacting with a person doesn't make them destined to be your very best friend, but they also have to support you as an individual. Do not become stuck with material possessions and what you've achieved in life. A good deal of people may tell you that you have to compose a story in the introduction. The Chronicles of Samples of Essay Introduction Paragraph Don't hesitate to peruse through a number of the samples to obtain an idea about what your paper will look like if you opt to o rder from us. Should you need samples fast, then you are going to probably enjoy our simple three-step practice. Our samples include explanations of the way to do it right and what things to avoid. When you work with us, you're guaranteed that all of the samples and topics will be customized to fit your purposes. Whether you are in need of a sample, an outline, elongated essay topics, or a whole customized paper, our experts are qualified to provide competent assistance. If your essay is describing a process, like how to make a huge chocolate cake, make sure your paragraphs fall in the right purchase. If you choose to make an outline, write your topic at the peak of the webpage. Look over your outline or diagram.

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Leadership and Organizational Behavior in Action Essay

Running head: FORCES AND TRENDS RESEARCH Forces and Trends Research Carol Becker Crystal Dunn Grace P. Jones Christine Lisnock Deo Melgaco Denise Thompson University of Phoenix MBA580/Strategies for Competitive Advantage Instructor: Christina Behling March 30, 2009 Strategic Adaptability In the current times of deep environmental change caused by deteriorating economical conditions, a firm’s ability to embrace change and adapt is vital to survival. According to a study by Stoica (1995), adaptability was defined as below: â€Å"The capability of the organization to adjust to changes. It permits us to develop a theoretical framework for adaptability in the context of information search, filtering, and†¦show more content†¦They may include but not be limited to social, technological, ecological, buyer power and competitive rivalry. Understanding and working with these trends will help any corporation control its place within the industry. Social factors are a force of the remote environment of an industry. â€Å"Social factors that affect a firm involve the beliefs, values, attitudes, opinions, and lifestyles of persons in the firm’s external environment, as developed from cultural, ecological, demographic, religious, edu cational, and ethnic conditioning,† (Pearce Robinson, 2005, p. 79). One example of how social forces or trends affect an industry is evident within the cellular industry. The consumer’s attitudes and opinions about cellular service continue to change and shift. The consumer has jumped from having cellular service as an emergency â€Å"just in case† service to having cellular service as a necessity. As lifestyles change, more consumers are demanding not only a reliable service but services that allow for social networking, navigation, business tools and items such as media that will allow connection with cultural icons. The driving force for most organizations today is the economy. The global economy has seen better days and no one knows when it will turn around. Starbucks chooses to be proactive instead of reactive. The company uses a blend of providing a place ofShow MoreRelatedA Research Study On Toxic Leadership1519 Words   |  7 Pagesdissertation st udy is an opportunity to explore toxic leadership in nonprofits in Orange County. Also, to examine the impact of toxic leader’s practices on OCB and turnover intention as two variables that can harm nonprofit organizations significantly. Moreover, to determine the influence of employee engagement on their organizational citizenship and turnover intention because of the toxic leadership behaviors. 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