Change and Leadership

1. On page 143 Kotter lists in Exhibit 2 five guiding principles for success in keeping focus and energy applied to the change program. Discuss two or three of these principals as you have seen them be done successfully or not so successfully or not so successfully in a change project in which you were a participant.

Reduction of unnecessary interdependencies as a principle for change in organization has worked previously in ensuring that the change is progressive always (Kotter). The removal of departmental interdependencies where they are unnecessary is important in ensuring that change projects take a shorter time to achieve. By so doing, a department that has previously shared a manager with another may need to be assigned their own manager. For instance, the purchases and supplies department of a pharmaceutical company I worked for had to be split into two departments complete with their own management to prevent overworking the joint manager. This was getting more help to drive the company closer to achieving its goals of being the best pharmaceutical supplier in the region (Kotter).

Project management and leadership from below was also an important section of this company because the various managers were specialized in the departments they managed (Kotter). This ensured that when effecting change, the manager were in a position to monitor progress in full knowledge and at the same time make improvements where need be. Leadership from below also ensures that anything the top management implements is informed and well researched. This type of leadership ensures that the long term goals of the organization are met by each department meeting its goals which contribute to the achievement of the major goal.

2. Beginning on page 169 Cohen lists 10 leadership strategies to reinforce the justification for change. Choose any two of these strategies and discuss reasons why these particular strategies will be most important to the effectiveness of a change program in your organization. Remember that each organization is different and the priorities of these strategies will be different due to perceptions about the need for change in the organization and the organization’s culture. 

Strategies to reinforce justifications for change are many but the most effective program up to this point has been the factor ensuring that those implementing the change remain in touch with the true purpose of change. The employees of the organizations have been seen to perform better when they constantly hold meetings to review the progress that change has enabled them achieve. It has been important for the workers to air their views to the management on how they feel the clients are taking the change. By so doing, the management has been enabled to evaluate whether change is being effective or not (Cohen). In all cases, constant meetings have led to change being supported and eventually being effective. This was seen by reduced numbers of deaths on emergency admissions and readmissions on other patients.

Reinforcing the justifications for change has been effective for by building commitment to critical stakeholders. This is ensuring that the communication process with the stakeholders on the progress of change is continuous. In the hospital setting that I have previously worked for, the admission of patients has reduced as a result of nurses; and doctors’ participation in the scheduling and organizational processes of the hospital operations (Cohen). The communication on the successes has been instrumental to ensuring that change is effective and progressive.

References

Cohen. (n.d.). Leading Change.

Kotter, J. (2012). Leading Change. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press.