The cultural change process in British Airways - Essay Example

Table of Contents Introduction 2 Nature and type of change in British Airways 2 Forces for Change in British Airways 4 Discussion of problems using structural, political and cultural perspectives 5 Bolman and Deal’s reframing approach 5 Change interventions to address the problems 8 Evaluation of Interventions 11 Implementation and Evaluation Feedback 11 Leadership approaches required for bringing the change 12 Conclusion 14 Reference 15 Introduction Along with the entry into the 21st century, change and how it can be implemented successfully has emerged as the most important concern for organizational leaders and entrepreneurs. Change has been occurring at all places with increasing complexity and speed. A substantial extent of the future success of organizations depends on how successfully leaders can lead the change process in organizations. In the present business scenario, change happens to be the basic requirement for attainment of continuous success and competent change leadership accounts for the most coveted skill that a leader must possess (Anderson & Ackerman-Anderson, ‘Introduction’). The project seeks to bring forth the cultural change process that was initiated and executed in British Airways. This was primarily because of the dramatic decline in its performance since the 1980s. This was not only associated with declining profits but also coupled with a falling image in the minds of customers. The project begins with the description of the type of change that was brought about in the organization highlighting on the different forces for change. The various problems in British Airways have been identified using Bolman and Deal’s reframing approach analyzing them from the structural, political and cultural perspectives. Various change intervention strategies have been recommended in order to address the problems and suitable leadership approaches that are required to make the change process successful. Nature and type of change in British Airways The British Airways have recently embarked on a cultural change program with the focus of transforming the organization into one where innovation, customer focus and growth would account for the major defining qualities of the organization. The organization has demonstrated immense inefficiency since 1979 arising out of its culture and history. In 1971, the Civil Aviation Act, which became law called for the British Airways Board to take control of the two airlines run by the state, namely, BOAC, or the British Overseas Airways Corporation and the BEA, the British European Airways. Even though British Airways was to be controlled by the board, the bodies operated autonomously and were least integrated in practice (Emerge Education, “Changes at BA”). This was one of the major reasons why there were inefficiencies in operations which became a predominant backlog in the company’s culture and organizational efficiencies. This called for a reorientation program for uplifting and reinforcing the operational culture through removal of the ever increasing inefficiencies. The cultural change program was based on the following five main themes; Performance- Creation of a performance based culture; Colleagues: Engaging workers and employees in British Airways for transforming BA into a high performing workplace, Customers: Focusing all the people in the organization to deliver consistent service to customers; Partnerships: The development and maintenance of world class partnerships with the key internal and external stakeholders of the organization; and Operational efficiency: Driving for continuous improvement both for the short and the long term (British Airways, “A new change programme”). Forces for Change in British Airways Suppliers: The procurement team of the company has recorded and measured risks across the important suppliers. It has presently identified more than 25 numbers of suppliers who, if they ceased to trade with, would lead to the creation of severe operational difficulties. This called for the need to develop such a culture, in which the suppliers’ interests would be maintained with utmost severity through prompt payment for services, maintaining corporate responsibility in its purchasing decisions from suppliers, and commitment towards preferred suppliers (British Airways-a, “The Marketplace- suppliers”). Customers: BA was faced with initial difficulties in creating a system in which there would be smooth check-ins, check-outs, less awaiting rounds and fewer queues. This was the reason behind several complaints from customers around the world. The company has been compelled towards creating a culture which would be committed towards delivering excellent services towards customers using modern, updated and service style vision, directly driven by the feedback provided by employees. The idea would be to make each one aware of the new service style which would enable them to offer brilliant services to customers, irrespective of whether they work in airports, contact centres onboard, or customer relations centres (British Airways-b, “The Marketplace- customers”). Environment: Climate changes, global warming, environmental regulations related with CO2 emission have caused the organization to try and make progress towards a comprehensive climate change program. This relates to maintaining energy and fuel efficiency, providing service for implementation of effective policy measures for addressing absolute emission growth, scientific research and voluntary offsetting of carbon etc (British Airways-c, “Environment”). Community investment: The Company seeks to build up strong community partnerships. Its commitment is to make investments in youth development and community education, providing support to employees, heritage and environment, sustainable tourism etc. The idea is to create the concern among employees in partnering with the community at large. In fact it seeks to collect donations from present and past employees towards charitable funds and associations (British Airways-d, “Community Investment”). Discussion of problems using structural, political and cultural perspectives Bolman and Deal’s reframing approach The problem occurring in British Airways would be discussed from the perspective of Bolman and Deal’s reframing approach. Bolman and Deal has presented the principle ways of understanding the functioning of organizations and given practical suggestions for the reframing of organizations in order to make them better adaptable to the current realities in business (Christian & Stadtländer, “Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership”). They have shown the qualities of analyzing and responding to the various organizational situations by using multiple frames (Palmer & Dunford, “Abstract”). Both authors have focused on both management and leadership. They believe that organizations can be confronted with several different dangers. For example, if an organization is over managed and under led, it would eventually lose the sense of spirit and purpose. On the other hand, an organization which is over led and under managed is likely to experience significant downfall in future (Christian & Stadtländer, “Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership”). The four frames suggested by the Bolman and Deal are discussed from the perspective of British Airways as under. The Structural Frame- this frame emphasizes on goals, specialized roles, and on formal relationships. It is used for organizing and structuring teams and groups which fits into the organizational environment and technology and yields the best results (Bolman & Deal, “Structural Assumptions”). British Airways has been trying to put greater effort into reinventing the way function. The aim is to create a leaner organization which has a distinctive and high performing culture through its flagship change program. In the year 2008, one third of the managers of the company had left the organization which called for the need to create a more lean organization to promote greater leadership and governance and generate a more customer centric approach. The key problem that was encountered was the difficulty in attracting talent from the market, inability to move people between functions and lack of outlets for skills of employees. There was lack of mobility and clarity of roles and responsibilities and poor accountability of employees (British Airways-e, “The workplace”). The Human Resource Frame- This frame seeks to look at organizations from the perspectives of human needs, skills, relationships and emotions. The idea is to align organizational and human needs in order to strengthen interpersonal and group dynamics (Bolman & Deal, “Human Resource Issues and Options”). In British Airways, the human resource strength had seen a dramatic fall since 2009 across all its operations. This demonstrated a fall of 3800 since March 2009 which is alarming for a large organization. The challenging operational and environmental conditions had deteriorated employee relations within the organization and this required some fundamental changes in the way the company operated. Its industrial relations deteriorated had worsened and there were considerable organization conflicts. The training programs were not sufficient to uplift the skill level of employees to desired performances. There was also lack of employee involvement towards organizational goals and values and they also remained resistant to change for improving services. The overall performance of the employee strength of the organization went far below standard (British Airways-f, “Employee relations”). The Political Frame- This frame is associated with power, conflicts, organizational politics, competition etc. This frame seeks to handle conflict and power, enhance political connections and create suitable coalitions to deal with both internal and external conflicts (Bolman & Deal, “Political Issues and Options”). Recently the company has been depicting declining partnership with key stakeholders of the organization. The organization must seek to make better alliances with other airlines in order to be able to provide customers with better choice and better deals on flights (British Airways-g, “Corporate partnerships”). The Symbolic Frame- This frame perceives organizations more as cultures led by ceremonies, rituals, stories, heroes etc rather than by rules, regulations policies and managerial authorities. The frame tries to give shape to a culture in which has got meaning and purpose for workers and provides with organizational drama for both the internal and external audience (Christian & Stadtländer, “Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership”). The British Airways depicts a symbol of flexible working environment and continues to provide flexible work solutions for meeting its business needs and requirements. However, there has been instance of racial inequality and diversity which goes against the company norms and policies. People coming with different religious beliefs and culture are entertained in the organization. However, it has been facing with difficulties in managing the diverse culture of people recruited from different parts of the world with different needs. The company has been losing out on holding its corporate high (British Airways-h, “Religion and belief”). Change interventions to address the problems Strategic Interventions: Having a clear view of the purpose and direction of the proposed changes accounts for the fundamental basis of change interventions in organizations. It is apparent from the structural frame as apparent from the Bolman and Deal’s reframing approach that the organization required redesigning the company structure such as to align with its strategic objectives. The restricting effort is to create a distinctive and high performance culture through the creation of a leaner organization. The company structure recommended is given below. Figure 1: Organizational Structure Techno-Structural Interventions Techno and structural interventions would include change in work designs, re-engineering, downsizing, employee involvement, etc. It is crucial to realize that the supply chain activities of the company have got immense impact on the global environment and society. The works must be designed in such a way as to reduce the level of impact by mitigating risks and improving performance. The idea must be to produce sustainable products and services. This requires reviewing the purchasing processes and embedding sustainable procurement in the company’s supply chain (British Airways-I, “Sustainable products and services”). The work redesigning would necessarily require workforce downsizing. Also falling revenues and increasing labor costs would require job cuts from certain areas of businesses. It was important to drive the behaviors in the organization through expectations and routines which were derived from previous experiences rather than by future potentialities (Ford, “Introduction”). The idea is also to employ advanced technologies in different areas of businesses so as to reduce labor costs. In order to make the change process effective, involvement of employees is required. This means that employees’ views and suggestions must be respected and entertained regarding the change processes. They must be allowed to give their decisions as to how the change process must take place and what would yield them better results. They must be also allowed to voice against the management’s decisions with reason whenever necessary. HR Management Interventions HR management interventions must be aimed at introduction of such work practices which motivates and encourages people to adopt the new cultures in the organization. It is apparent that interventions would need change in skills and knowledge for addressing future changes. However, employees would be resistant towards unlearning original skills and adopting the new ones. This would necessarily require extensive training initiatives to attain their full participation. Also goals must be set clearly before them and all strategies must be directed towards attaining those goals. A consistent performance appraisal system must be introduced to addressing the new work structures, job responsibilities and roles arising out of employee downsizing. Interpersonal Interventions This should focus on enhancing interpersonal relationships between employees as well as people belonging to the management. Any change process is likely to bring about resistance from employees. There would also be some who would be in favor of the change process. This could create conflicts between them and the management. This could be handled by increasing communication and interaction among employees. They must also be made aware of the changing socio-cultural and current norms. One way of addressing the problem would be to increase group activities and team work. Moreover the management must try and examine the differences carefully and then act accordingly. The management must also increase accountability by clarifying the responsibilities and regularly monitoring performance. Evaluation of Interventions Implementation and Evaluation Feedback The intervention process must be constantly monitored in order to evaluate its effectiveness. This requires selection of the right variables for measurement. Some of the measurable variables would be performance, costs, revenues, etc. Firstly the structural intervention was introduced for the aim of creating a leaner organization where there would be three main verticals reporting to the CEO. This is complemented with the reduction of the workforce through employee downsizing. The restructuring program can be accessed through the change in organizational performance. The increase or fall in performance would reflect the effectiveness of the restructuring efforts towards the creation of a high performance organization. The interpersonal interventions can be evaluated through the performance of group activities or team works. The extent of occurrence of conflicts would also reflect the success of interpersonal interventions. Team members could be asked for their feedback on the interpersonal interventions, with regards to communication within the teams, conflict management, cohesiveness etc. Their feedback could be used for assessing the success of intervention process in directing groups and team activities towards organizational objectives. The HR intervention process could be assessed through the new performance management system. It is important to measure the performance of employees on the newly acquired skills and knowledge. Employee performance must also be evaluated in terms of their problem solving abilities, abilities of generating ideas or even capabilities of setting and attaining targets or goals. The idea to create a high performing organization by lowering costs and improving performance is coupled with the introduction of new and advanced technologies which would reduce the use of labor and the associated labor costs. The success of using advanced technologies can be assessed by the change in productivity of the organization from before and after using the required technology. Moreover the reduction in labour costs would also be a reflection of the effectiveness of the system. Leadership approaches required for bringing the change Leadership plays a crucial role in leading through the changes in organizations. High performance organizations necessarily require effective leadership in producing positive results after through the change interventions. Leaders would play the important role of implementing the decisions taken by the management in British Airways. When the management and leadership are both strong, the organization would be successful in going through the changes. In British Airways, the transformational leadership is recommended. This is because transformational leadership would be able to inspire and motivate followers through their new roles and responsibilities arising out of the change process. Also transformational leadership would be most effective in bringing change in the organizational environment by improving the present situation. In this case the charismatic leadership would require establishing direction in the organization or establishing the idea of a high performing organization in the minds of employees. This means that they would have to set the vision for members of the organization to see how their performance would fit into the picture (Straussman, et al., “Leadership and Change management”). This would be followed by implementing and leading through the change process. Leaders would have to align people’s activities with the strategic direction of the organization. Since team work and group activities would play a predominant role within the new organizational culture, leaders would facilitate teamwork by creating the right atmosphere (Straussman, et al., “Leadership and Change management”). Lastly, since the change process would be likely to bring about resistance from employees leaders would have to play the crucial role of handling conflicts and resistance. This would require motivating employees by highlighting on the positive benefits that the process would bring and how it would benefit them. Also they must possess convincing power coupled with rationality to influence employees. This would include showing them facts and figures, and data about prior changes and positive results that they had yielded (Straussman, et al., “Leadership and Change management”). Conclusion Analysis of British Airways using the Bolman and Deal's reframing approach reveals that the structural framework of the organization had been very scattered which caused wastage of resources and consequently increased costs. Thus the motive was to create a leaner organization with fewer verticals which would be reporting to re CEP directly. Another important analysis was the deterioration of employee relations and industrial relation due to external and internal changes. Thus the aspect of building cohesiveness and cooperation was an important task before leaders. Thus the focus has been primarily given to group work and team spirit as per the demands of the new culture. The transformational leadership has been recommended for introducing and implementing the changes in British Airways. Reference Anderson, D. & Ackerman-Anderson, L. S. Beyond change management: advanced strategies for today's transformational leaders. John Wiley & Sons. 2001. Bolman, L. G. & Deal, T. E. 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