Christine Brooks Case

In summary of Kris Cole’s work, “Change in Management” chapter 15, the writer first started the introduction with questions that are also an over view. A good manager should have the knowledge to answer these questions and adapt this information to whichever system they may face. This simple goal here is for the reader find answers to these questions throughout the chapter and to engage the reader in a sub assessment. The 2nd part of the introduction is a small scenario of a lower manager that has received information about a new system being implemented. She realizes the changes will be more exciting and better use of

Levitt (2014) defines culture as the coherent, learned, shared views of a group of people and about life’s concerns that ranks what is important, furnishes attitudes about what things are appropriate, and dictates behavior. Macy’s corporate culture possesses a diverse leadership team to target their diverse customers and locations. Diversity, based on experiences and passion, gives the Macy’s leadership team new perspectives to promote successful business. Levitt (2014) suggests organizational diversity can be considered as a mixture of people with different group identities working in the same social system. A multi-cultural team of Americans, Italians, Germans and Swiss would adapt well in the rich bouquet of culture in Zurich, Switzerland. As a new team leader, the biggest concern would be establishing integrations between the different cultures working together at Macys.

In this case study, a national insurance company’s corporate management ordered the reorganization of the Westchester region following some difficult years due to the economic downturn and industry deregulation, as a cost-cutting initiative (Rosenberg, n.d.). Christine Brooks, the claims manager for the Westchester region, is tasked with the centralization of four offices into one. The White Plains claims office will be home to the Westchester region by the end of the year. These four individual offices, despite being of the same organization, have established their own organizational culture. Unfortunately for Christine, this could be a potential problem as she attempts to consolidate them all into one location.

The organization I work for has constantly evolved in its culture to be successful in the current globalized environment. We define growth as a process and encourage new ideas leading to operational excellence. We were hoping to become decentralized and it did happen, which made it simpler to do business resulting in delegating power to where the action is (Sony & Naik, 2012). Other variables like trust and psychological empowerment have implications in committing to change (Mangundjaya, 2015).

Christine was in charge of implementing a major zone reorganization (Rosenberg, 2003, p. 262). Unfortunately, that was half the battle, Christine priority mission and focus was “Deregulation”. This meaning is the reduction or elimination of government power in a particular industry, usually enacted to create more competition within the industry. (Francis, J. 2003-2016) stated, “Deregulation can cause weaker, smaller organizations to be forced out of the market”. This translates to loss of jobs. Adding on to her plate, Christine had to figure the changing and possible combination of the four offices along with the different cultures. She is very knowledgeable of the industry especially after working for one of the top notch insurance companies. This change has made it difficult for Christine, she has combine four offices into one. Combining these offices would require a few cost-cutting moves. After the short notice of this change, Christine realized the challenge of transitioning and combining her managers to develop the best strategy for the upcoming move.

Management failed to communicate and educated the employees regarding the reasons leading to the changes and why it is necessary. Due to this the employees cannot understand the need for the change and the dynamic behind it.

Changing the culture of an organization may not be easy especially if the new chief executive does not fully understand the previous culture and therefore does not embrace it in the change. This lack of knowledge may result in an inappropriate culture being chosen that could limit the company’s performance as productivity reduces. An example of a badly imposed culture can been seen with the Chrysler and

Implementing these changes has significant challenges, and a strong Change Team who have a clear vison will be required for the change to be successful. Regular and targeted monitoring of the change process should support this, however these feedback mechanism are not the only tool. Every employee must be enabled to participate in the change effort and be exposed to it through multiple leverage points. Those who perform well and embrace the change should be recognised and rewarded. Sufficient resourcing will need to be acquired with the

The organizational climate within an organization or company is very important and complex. When two companies merge with different corporate culture, it is important to find out which cultures to keep and which to lose. In determining the best practices, it is important to keep your employees feelings in mind. After all, without the employees, there may be no organization. Acquiring a company that has a different culture than the culture instilled in my company, will bring up many challenges and unique topics. The way management addresses these challenges, will

The integration of two organizations’ corporate cultures into one is no simple tasks, as corporate values, norms, and expectations will differ between the two organizations. According to the article how to Successfully Manage a Merger, “roughly 70 percent of all corporate mergers fail, according to the Boston-based consulting firm Bain & Company. Although mergers can head south for many reasons, difficulties created by cultural differences at merged companies seem to play a significant role” (Schatz, 2013). When merging cultures, companies must have a strategic plan that makes culture a priority in the change management strategy. This plans needs to include defining the desired culture, assigning a team to manage the cultural change, outlining the organizational culture that you wish to achieve, developing the cultural change plan, and making sure that progress of the plan is measureable.

Managers must be aware that change is a never ending process; but also that people might react differently to it. Many people fear change so it is up to the manager to take them out of their comfort zone and make them have a positive reaction. It is a leader’s job to explain why change is needed, how it will improve the activity of the organization and make sure that everybody is on board. If employees’ opinions are taken into consideration, then cooperation is established and changes are accepted much easier. However, change for the sake of change must not be encouraged. Only when change will improve the business’ activity should it be taken into account.

According to Kotter (1997), the first step for organizational change is creating a sense of urgency. Kotter discusses that in order for change to be successful, 75% of a company’s managers should support the change. This reflects the participant’s feelings as well. One respondent answered “management appears to be

One critical objective is to get employees to mirror organizational culture so that there is no misalignment, gaps and disconnects. Everything must work in sync and in harmony for the organization stability and survivability demographics continually change, therefore organization must be flexible and ready to address that change. To not address the change would put the organization itself at risk of future failure. Today organization must understand that if there is anything that is stead-fast and unchanging, it is change itself. Change is inevitable and change always occurs. How organizations deal with that change can determine success or failure.

Two essential functions of organizational culture are external adaptation and internal integrations. External adaptation involves reaching goals and tasks, methods used to achieve goals, and ways of coping with success and defeat. Through team members shared experiences, they develop common notions to guide though their day-to-day activities (Schermerhorn et al.). At PBG we share sales experiences with other team members in hope to follow are goal and belief to defeat Coke. Internal integration "deals with the creation of a collective identity and with finding ways of matching methods of working and living together"(Schermerhorn et al.). Three important aspects of working together are deciding who is a member and who is not, developing an informal understanding of both acceptable and unacceptable behavior, and separating friends from enemies (Schermerhorn et al.). In today's global economy internal integration will face more difficult obstacles with a more diverse workforce.

There is one thing that is a constant within any organization which is change. Change is undeniable and inevitable. Change is what leads to progress. Structures, procedures, systems and policies and systems or just a few forms of change which an organization will use when utilizing change. When an organization undergoes goes there is a focus on the behaviors as well as the results based production delivered by its employees. When employees engage themselves in the change process while taking ownership of the processes in place, the organization will obtain value. Management at the executive level to the supervisors on the front line will all play a role in the process of change. The following will examine