ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE

Background of the company, industry and culture

The foundation of the company that later became AT&T was done after the invention of the telephone which was invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. The company delivers next generation TV, high speed internet, mobile services and smart solutions for people and business organizations. The company is thus working so as to be the best in telecommunication, media and technology industry.

The company is also very focused on the development and the growth of the country they are located in. It works as a source of employment to many people in the country. The organization also provides relief support to those people in the country who are in need of the help. The company has also invested a lot of funds on the future of the country more than any other public company.

The company has a culture of working with people from different cultures, backgrounds and races so as to improve the living standards. Living condition has been improved by supporting higher education in the local community where a large amount of money has been set aside for education purposes (Horak, 2007).

Change vision and its importance

Our greatest change vision is to mobilize learning, power career skills and support education. The company is planning on engaging students who are the risk of dropping out of school in mentorship programs with its employees. The company is also helping to ensure that 9 in every 10 US students graduate from high school. The company has also come up with an online training program to help job seekers in the technology industry. These programs are very important as they help in eradicating barriers in academic success and also support career growth. They also help all students regardless of their age, social background, financial status and gender to make their dreams come true (A road map to 2025, 2017)

Kotter’s eight stage framework.

Creating a sense of urgency

Many businesses makes mistakes by not making a sense of urgency when dealing with a change in an organization. Creating a sense of urgency is important in creating cooperation between different employees of an organization as normally few employees are usually interested in working towards the change. A sense of urgency can be created by motivating the employees to invest their time, skills and effort in dealing with all the inconveniences of change. Each and every employee will be expected to work towards ensuring the intended change plan is successful (Pollack & Pollack, 2015)

How to create a guiding coalition

The guiding coalition is created by ensuring that the personnel involved in leading the change  have the power and skills required. The leaders should provide strategic direction of the project and also provide project governance. It has been further noted that it is normally problematic to identify factors responsible for successful implementation of changes in an organization. The success of the change program highly depends on the effort of the whole group and their drive for change (Pollack & Pollack, 2015)

How to develop a vision and strategy

A vision and strategy can be developed by ensuring that the older generation pass the skills they have to the younger generation before they exit the industry so as to maintain the performance of an organization. This will ensure the performance of the organization does not go down when the older employees retire. The strategy to deal with such issues can include projects such as mentoring projects, developing communities of practice , role redefinition and the introduction of graduate programs (Pollack & Pollack, 2015)

Communicating the change vision

The change team should focus on two groups of activities when communicating the vision which are; visible senior support and harnessing existing activities. The senior leaders are supposed to keep talking about the need for change thus encouraging other employees to keep working towards the change project. The senior employees should also prepare presentations about the importance of the change project and present to other employees. It should also be ensured that the news about the project is kept circulating in the organization at all time (Pollack & Pollack, 2015)

Empowering employee action

This stage involves removing all obstacles that might be hindering change by changing systems that undermine change and encourage innovative ideas. The employees should also be trained to ensure the younger generation possess the skills that the older employees possess. The older employees should also be encouraged to coach the younger employees and also be provided with resources to use in the coaching process. The coaches are also assured of senior management support (Pollack & Pollack, 2015)

Generating short term wins

Short term wins are very important as they show how possible change is and also to ensure continuity. The short term wins should be visible and also possible to meet within a short set period of time. The change team should also sought out the positive outcome and use the results to encourage the employees to work more on the change. Communicating the short term wins is very important as it encourages the employees to keep working as sometimes it can be hard to identify the wins which might make the team feel like they have been doing nothing. Communicating the wins will help show the coaches the fruits of their hard work (Pollack & Pollack, 2015) 

Consolidating gains and producing new change.

In this stage the change team has to deal with the outcome of their success. Effort is required in this stage so as to ensure the program stays true to the organization vision and avoid effects from other activities from changing the program approach. In this stage the program has already gained momentum through the short term wins and the involvement of the senior personnel (Pollack & Pollack,2015)   

Anchoring new approaches in the company culture

In this stage several guiding coalitions should be established which although will not be used at the same time but will be used at some point in the change strategy. Different groups of people should also be given different tasks top undertake at different stages of the change strategy depending with their knowledge and skills (Pollack & Pollack,2015)

References

A road map to 2025. (2017) (1st ed.). Retrieved from http://file:///C:/Users/Acer/Downloads/2025-ATT-Goals-PDF-Overview.pdf

Horak, R. (2007). Webster’s New World Telecom Dictionary (1st ed.). John Wiley & Sons, 2007.

Pollack, J., & Pollack, R. (2015). Using Kotter’s eight stage process to manage an organisational change program: Presentation and practice. Systemic Practice and Action Research, 28(1), 51-66.