arlene Austin Management 6681 13 November 2011 Case Study- Problems at Perrier (Chapter 6, pg 183) 1. Identify the key elements of the resistance to change described in this situation. The key elements of the resistance to change described in the Perrier case are: Lack of communication and the companies inability to inform the employees of what changes affected production at Perrier, the company made excessive changes, the company introduces a series of changes and the people felt the changes were unnecessary, and they were unsure if they would still have the required skills to continue to work for the company. Perrier has made quite a fair amount of changes in a short period of time and they will need to be aware that some people …show more content…
The four of which that could be considered in this case are: education and communication, participation and involvement, negotiation and agreement, and explicit and implicit coercion. A) Education and Communication. There seems to be a lack of information or inaccurate information. Instead of discussing directly with the employees that the sales were down, the managers used a form of manipulation by placing the competition's bottled water in the factory cafeteria. Instead of motivating the employees to increase their production they made the situation worse. This could have been avoided if they would have communicated with their employees. One of the best ways to overcome resistance to change is to educate people about the change effort beforehand. Communication and education prior to change helps employees see the logic in the change effort. This reduces unfounded and erroneous rumors concerning the effects of change in the organization. B) Participation and Involvement. This strategy is used when resistance is a reaction to a sense of exclusion from the process. It is most effective when the people who initiates change do not have all the information they need to create a change and when others have considerable power to resist. Perrier should have used their employees to identify the problems
43-45). Top-down change process provides prescription that has only been developed by top managers and given to lower cadre employees down the ranks to consume without their input. According to Bovey & Hede (2001, p. 540) resistance occurs at the individual level, where employees are motivated by psychological factors to change that include resentment, frustration, low motivation and morale, fear, and feelings of failure. At the same time, earlier publication by Yilmaz & Kilicoglu (2013, pp. 17-18) identified four factors that motivate employees to resist changes in the organisation: employees focusing on self- interests as opposed to those of the organisation, having inadequate understanding of
In this case, there are few symptoms clearly stated that something has gone wrong for this company. These symptoms can be classified into two main areas; one is the negative feedback from the customers and another one if from its own employee’s job dissatisfaction.
As a result of the approach, there was high turnover of staff and there was very little initiative amongst the remaining staff. Individuals were initially reported as being highly competent but later were blamed for things going wrong, shortly before they left. The team was very tightly knit and generally appeared supportive of the team leader.
Resistance to change is an expected reaction of human nature. We are not accustomed to change, as it is possible to lead to failure; however, there are also ways to manage the resistance within the company.
At the Unfreezing stage the most likely source of resistance is Inertia. This is because the company was comfortable with their present ways of doing things. At the next stage the source of resistance would be Mistrust. The lack of trust between the people communicating that there needed to be a change. At the final stage Refreezing, the main source of resistance would be falling back into the same pattern. This means that instead of going ahead with the new way of doing things and making progress they go back to doing what they have always done.
The old crew began to hate the new supervisors. The supervisor’s attitude towards the employees were close monitoring, giving orders, and yelling. This caused stress and frustrations among employees, reducing their job performance. The supervisors made changes from the previous year that resulted in job satisfaction. The supervisors decided when to eat, how they wanted to do the job, and always drove the truck. They didn’t allow employees to talk to each other or to the customers on the job. This negatively affected customer service and customer relations.
In these instances, change is seen as evil and not "healthy". Change is not looked on as a positive opportunity and thus is rejected by the individuals in a company, which may result in incohesiveness within the organization and eventual collapse. Personal instances of resistance like those stated above often hold companies back because of their conservative views as they often result from lack of individual confidence in oneself to be creative. Stemming from personal instances of resistances is the occurrence of group resistance to change. Sources of group resistance to change include: Conformity to Norms (Inertia), Vested Interests, Sacrosanct, Rejection of Outsiders, Overdetermination, and threatened power. Vested Interests is probably the most interesting source of resistance because how can interest in being the best be a resistance? Vested Interests can be a resistance because it often promotes conformity to norms, as workers are less likely to contribute their ideas to the advancement of innovation and as a result the company suffers as past new ideas become old, and new ideas are needed to survive in the ubercompetitive business world today. Rejection of Outsiders can be looked on as positive or negative, but more negatively, thus placing it as a resistance to change. Rejection of Outsiders might cause more cohesion within a group to rely on each
According to Palmer, Dunford, and Akin (2009) there are six different approaches to managing resistance to change which are, situational, let nature take its course, thought self-leadership, creative counters, tinkering, kludging, and pacing approach, and finally the power of resistance approach. While all of these different methods or approaches for dealing with change have positives and negatives, some are better than others. For example, Kotter and Schlesinger’s situational method is great in that it recognizes some situations need to be treated differently than others. However, they suggest that manipulation could be used and while they explain the dangers of this approach, its application is very limited and the rewards don’t outweigh the risks.
Low morale among employees in any company eventually leads to decreased profits with other factors of the business decreasing along the way. “And US Airways employees, who have seen their pay cut by more than 20 percent and their health insurance and pension plans shrink, are certainly an unhappy lot” (Claudia H. Deutsch). In order to increase profits, the airline has decreased pay and took away some of the earned vacation. “Company executives say they are taking steps that will improve working conditions and profitability” (Claudia H. Deutsch). Many employees were calling in sick which the company believed would eventually lead to poor customer service.
2. Construct a change management strategy for dealing with this situation. In so doing, identify what approach (es) to managing resistance you recommend and provide a clear justification for your choice.
I believe there are more factors to consider than what was included in this case, but with the information given, the internal factors were mainly poor management, such as the chairman Didier Lombard. According to BBC news, “Mr. Lombard announced plans to cut 22,000 jobs and move another 14,000 workers, as France Telecom pushed for greater efficiency in the wake of privatization, two years earlier.” (N/A, 2016) This was the main contributor to the extremely high levels of stress the employees were under. When deciding to make changes in the organization, the company was using psychological pressure and pathogenic restructuring that caused the employees immense stress and the feeling of insecurity in the face of globalization. They felt insignificant to the company and the way they were pressured and treated created huge role conflict and overload. I believe that it is the manager’s job to make sure that the work environment is
What are the root causes – individual and contextual -- for the employee misbehaviour at Sunshine?
The causes of the problems were mainly lack of a common objective between the managers and also lack of a proper system in place to face problems such as corruption and bribery. The recommendations suggested might be the answer
Many other approaches could be used by the organization in order to bring changes. But in
What are the root causes – individual and contextual -- for the employee misbehaviour at Sunshine?