preview

Essay on Managing Organizational Change

Good Essays

In this dynamic business environment, change is inevitable. Changes can be planned, or unintentional: depending on the driving forces behind. The major forces for change can be derived from the nature of the workforce, technology, economic shocks, competition, social trends, and world politics (Robbins & Judge, 2011). In this post the author will explain the Kotter’s eight –step approaches to managing organizational change and discuss how his company handles the planned changes in term of organization reconstruction.

When changes are inevitable, the leaders usually design some adequate steps to make the change go smooth, effective and permanently. Kurt Lewin argued that successful change in organizations should follow three steps: …show more content…

Recent economic recession and federal budget cut has significantly impacted SAIC’s core business and affected its revenue and growth. Its stock price fell 25% since last September because the shareholders were disappointed with the operation and worried about the future revenue growth and earning. The SAIC management realized that the market has changed; the company’s strategy and focus have to change accordingly. The leadership established a sense of urgency by creating a compelling reason for why changes are needed (stage 1). In July 2009, the board of directors hired a new CEO, Walt Havenstein, to carry out the change process. In the summer of 2010, Hevenstein (the change agent), made a strategy-based change in the corporate leadership structure and personnel (Stage 2). The new strategies had been formulated: to provide mission-oriented solutions for national security, energy, health and other major enterprises serving critical infrastructure needs. The company planned to shift its customer based structure to market reoriented structure, and shift resources to focus on high-growth areas (Havenstein, July 22, 2010). The current organization structures is under regrouping (four groups to three); some units is being dismantled; duplicated departments is being eliminated (Stage 3). In October, 2010, Hevenstein wrote a letter to all SAIC employees stating that “SAIC's

Get Access