Recent Change that Took Place at Sprinters - Case Study Example

An Outline and Discussion of a Recent Change that Took Place at Sprinters Introduction This essay is based on the process of organisational change at Sprinters, a small management consulting firm in Australia, and how the organisation has been affected by the change. The essay is divided into several sections. In the first section, a brief description of the organisation is presented. The description is based on the concept of the learning organisation. Important characteristics of Sprinters that correspond to the main aspects that define an organisation as a learning one are presented. In the second section, a brief review of the change that occurred in the organisation is presented. In this case, the change that is described is the sudden departure of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Sprinters who was forced to step down from the helm of the company he founded for health reasons. Information about how this sudden departure of the CEO of the company constituted an unplanned change within the organisation is presented. In the fourth section, a detailed discussion of the change process within the organisation is presented. The focus is on applying the concepts of theoretical knowledge about organisational change on the change situation that happened at this particular organisation. The organisation Sprinters Plc is a small management consulting firm that is based in Sydney, Australia. Started back in 2008, the company has experienced tremendous growth over the years, having managed to overcome the challenges that the global financial crisis presented to management consulting businesses across the world. Currently, the company has opened an office in New Zealand, in addition to the main one in Sydney. Future plans of expanding into new and emerging markets in Africa and taking advantage of the huge growth prospects in those markets are underway. Under the leadership of Mr. Levy, the founding CEO, the company has grown from a small consulting business handling small assignments to its current status as a mid-sized company that employs about 35 regular staff members. One important feature that defines Sprinters is its intensive use of learning as an organisation. Theoretically, the concept of organisational learning has received considerable academic attention. The focus has been not only in terms of what a learning organisation is in terms of its salient characteristics but also on the advantages that an organisation gets when it effectively utilises learning in its operations. Basically, in learning organisations, all the employees are fully involved in a process of positive change which is conducted, accounted for and managed collectively. What this implies is that a learning organisation lays much emphasis on the need to learn from every event that occurs and continuously seeks to improve its performance in the course of time. The need for continuous improvement, or positive change, is what Stewart (2001, p. 141) identify as a critical part of learning organisations in the current times that is used to give them a competitive advantage in the global business environment. There are several ways in which Sprinters has been operating as a learning organisation since its inception. To begin with, the company has been fully aware of its external environment and has constantly sought to respond to the changes that are occasioned from it as much as from the internal one. The ability of an organisation to understand and respond to its external environment is one of the hallmarks of a learning organisation (Smith, 2007, n.pag). This is because it is only when an organisation is able to respond to changes in the external environment that it can manage to learn from them and gain overall improvements. Further, learning organisations are characterised by their ability to thrive in an external environment that is characterised by chaotic and unpredictable changes (Torlak, 2004, p. 103). The irregular changes that occur in the environment always cause never-ending challenges and tensions within an organisation. Throughout its short history, Sprinters has been able to respond to the disorder that characterises the business environment in the form of unpredictable changes. The organisation has been able to use all such challenges as learning opportunities as a means of improving its position. Also, the organisation has sought to link its performance as a whole to that of its individuals employees. This has been done by encouraging a culture of dialogue, open communication and collaboration in sharing tasks. The ability to collaborate has been made possible by the small number of employees in the organisation who are able to share experiences and ideas in the course of managing different assignments. Therefore, Sprinters has been a learning organisation since its inception. The change Mr. Levy founded Sprinters back in January 2008. Since then, he has been the CEO of the company, playing a key role in overseeing the overall management of the company and by being the key force within the organisation in terms of key operations. Although the company has a team of senior managers who handle key functions such as strategy and operations, it is Mr. Levy who has remained largely visible as the face of the company. He has been the major inspiration for and force behind the success that the organisation has achieved so far. Early this year, Mr. Levy developed a major heart complication. On the advice of his doctors, he decided to take an early retirement and stepped down as the CEO of Sprinters, a company he founded and has built for six years. The sudden departure of Mr. Levy as the CEO of Sprinters was a major and unplanned for change within the organisation. Its suddenness and magnitude was the reason for the chaotic nature in which the employees and the other stakeholders of the company reacted to it. Although there are several other issues that arose in relation to the change, what is important is how the succession process was handled. Further, in addition to the fact that the change was completely unplanned for, Mr. Levy did not have a succession plan in place. This therefore added to the chaos that the change situation resulted to in the organisation. It is this recent change at Sprinters that will be used to explain the principles of change management within organisations. The focus will be on analysing the way the change situation unfolded at the organisation in relation to specific aspects of organisational change as developed in the theory of organisational change. The leadership The person who is responsible for the change process is referred to as a change agent. Usually, change agents not only design change plans within organisations, but also see to it that the developed plans are successfully implemented. In the case of Sprinters, Mrs. Bolt, by stepping in as the new CEO, assumed the role of the change agent. Therefore, the responsibility of managing the transition and implementing the right kind of changes for all change participants (the other employees) was solely hers. Discussion of the change The type of change that occurred at Sprinters was unplanned, disruptive and chaotic. After the departure of the CEO, Mrs. Bolt, who was in charge of strategy, was appointed as the new CEO. Her duty was to successfully manage the change process and ensure that organisation does not suffer any further damage as a result of the sudden departure of the CEO. There are several important aspects to the change situation that occurred as a result of the manner in which the change in leadership was managed at the organisation. These are discussed in the sections that follow. To begin with, the change process that took place at Sprinters was one of sudden exit of a senior figure and the ensuing succession. According to Gronn (1999, p. 126), succession in organisations is a highly complicated type of change because it requires an organization to get new talent to fill the vacancy, seek ways to reduce the impact of the departure of the individual and find ways of maintaining continuity during the transition process. All these activities are meant to enable the organisation avoid the possible occurrence of major disruptions in its operations. These are exactly the issues that arose at the company during the process of change. First, after the departure of Mr. Levy, Mrs. Bolt, who had been serving as a senior manager, took over. Secondly, her taking over was met with the need to seek ways to reduce the impact of the sudden departure of the CEO. Matters were not made any better by the fact that the departure of the CEO was sudden and completely unforeseen, therefore leading to confusion within the entire organisation. Thirdly, Mrs. Bolt sought to minimise the disruptions to the operations of the organisation by ensuring that there was a smooth continuity to the established practices, norms and approach to work that had been established within the organisation by the former CEO. Further, the process of succession of a leader within an organisation can be seen in terms of four differ perspectives: the organisation itself, the predecessor, the successor and the other members of the organisation who get to work under the successor (Gronn, 1999, p. 131). For the case of Sprinters, all these parties had distinctive characteristics that shaped the role that they played during the change process. For instance, the role of the organisation was largely shaped by the fact that it is a mid-sized and relatively young organisation. Also, the fact that the employees are few and tend to know each other very well because they collaborate in many assignments meant that there was a strong culture within the organisation, which had to be maintained at all costs. More so, the role of the former CEO in establishing this type of culture within the organisation that he founded meant that there was an urgent need to prevent disruptions in the operations of the organisation after his abrupt departure. The other aspect is the role that leadership played in managing the change. Basically, leadership plays a critical role in ensuring that a process of change within an organization is successfully implemented. According to Crilley and Sharp (2006, p. 7), there is a direct cause and effect relationship between the managerial function of leaders and the way an organization performs in its functions. Specific qualities such the extent to which they provide professional leadership within an organisation, solving problems and influencing employees to focus on the future are identified as important predictors of how well the management of an organisation can determine its performance (Crilley & Sharp, 2006, p. 12). Further, Abbas and Asghar (2010, p. 21) identify several cognitive, functional and social competencies as the key factors that determine how well the leadership of an organisation that is undergoing change can successfully manage the process. It can be seen that managers need a range of social skills such as creativity, the ability to solve problems, good consultation and an ability to approach issues critically as a way of enhancing their capacity to solve the problems associated with change and navigate the organisation through the process successfully (Abbas & Asghar, 2010, p. 21). Besides, functional competencies such as an understanding of technological advances as well as social competencies such as stress management and flexibility are necessary for the leadership of an organisation to successfully manage the process of change and achieve related results. There are several ways in which the leadership at Sprinters reflected these aspects prior to and during the time of change. For example, the approach used by Mrs. Bolt to guide the organisation during the change process could be described as one that successfully blended leadership and management functions. This is consistent with theoretical knowledge that has sought to differentiate leadership from management. Researchers have sought to elucidate the difference between leadership and management within an organisational context. Studies have identified that the two differ in terms of their approach towards several aspects which include outcomes, execution, development of the human resources and creating an original agenda (Boaden, 2006, p. 7).Whereas management is concerned with planning, controlling, organising and optimising; leadership seeks to accomplish different purposes such as establishing direction for the organisation, aligning people with the established direction and inspiring them to stick to it. Prior to the change, Mr. Levy, by virtue of his charismatic personality, concentrated on the leadership functions while her immediate subordinates, including Mrs. Bolt, concentrated on the management function of the organisation. Therefore, during the change, Mrs. Bolt was faced with the problem of whether to re-establish such an arrangement with the other personnel or not. As well, the leadership style that was used by Mr. Levy was instrumental in creating the corporate culture that prevailed at Sprinters since its inception. In general, the culture of an organisation can be seen as the different values and beliefs that are shared by the members of the organisation and which are expressed in policies, practices, traditions and by other means within the organisation (Duignan, 1994, p. 8). The entry of Mrs. Bolt as the new CEO of Sprinters presented a dilemma of whether or not the culture that was created and nurtured during the leadership of Mr. Levy should be maintained. The third aspect is the role that teamwork played in managing the change at the organisation. Theoretically, teams can play a definitive role in determining the success of a change process within an organisation. Landrum, Howell and Paris (2000, p. 154) summarise the importance of teams in the process by stating that they can initiate strategic change in organisations, work to neutralise the impact of a highly charismatic leader and enhance the overall way in which change is effected within an organisation. By retaining the culture that emphasised on teamwork and collaboration among the employees, the new CEO sought to harness the power of teams as a way of successfully going through the transition. Therefore, it can be seen that the change process at Sprinters has been successfully managed. Although it is difficult to determine the exact time at which such an unplanned change like the sudden departure of a senior executive in an organisation ends, the success of the process can be determined by careful observation of the events that follow the exit. Under the new leadership of Mrs. Bolt, the organisation has successfully managed to achieve its primary objectives that any organisation should be concerned with during such a process. So far, the organisation has avoided major disruptions that usually occur in organizations undergoing such kind of change. Also, the Mrs. Bolt has managed to ensure a smooth continuity in the structure and operations of the company. There has been no case of mass exodus of employees, a phenomenon that would signify a major disruption in the operations of the company and lack of continuity. One of the reasons for the success of Mrs. Bolt in managing the succession within the organisation was her use of new approaches to leadership. Generally, such an approach entails heavy emphasis on developing the values that support employees to work towards achieving the mission and vision of an organisation (Bryman, 1996, p. 29). To do this, leaders often need charisma, a high level of inspiration, intellectual stimulation and the ability to give attention to individuals (Bryman, 1996, p. 31). By reflecting these values, which are identical to what her predecessor embodied, Mrs. Bolt has successfully maintained continuity at Sprinters. Another one was her ability to manage any form of resistance to change. Ford and McNamara (2002, p. 106), view resistance to change within organisations as a phenomenon that is based on the reality that the individuals create themselves and operate in. What this implies is that resistance to change is a result of the realities that individuals create by themselves. These give rise to the fear that change may disrupt the existing status and conflict with the established cultural values and assumptions. By seeking to actively create an appropriate reality within the organisation that is based on the values developed before the disruption, the new CEO managed to successfully counter any possible resistance to change. Conclusion Several things can be concluded from the discussion on how the change process at Sprinters occasioned by the sudden departure of the CEO of the company unfolded. First, from the manner in which Sprinters has sought to effectively respond to unending changes in its external environment, it can be described as a learning organization. Secondly, since the change was completely unplanned for as compared to planned change, the exact time in which it could be said to be completed could not be determined. Thirdly, in the course of the change, the new CEO sought to play the role of the change agent while other members of staff were the change participants. Fourth, the change process sought to achieve three important things: replace the CEO of the organisation, effect a smooth transition and avoid disruptions in the operations of the organisation. In all these objectives, it can be seen that the organization, under the leadership of Mrs. Bolt as the new CEO, managed to successfully initiate the required changes. Lastly, it can be concluded that several factors contributed to the effective change process that the organisation underwent. Key among them was the ability of the new CEO to use management approaches that focused on leadership, similar to what had been used by her predecessor. This reduced the possibility of disruptions and ensured that the culture of the organisation was retained. References Abbas, W., & Asghar, I. (2010). 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(2002).Resistance and the background conversations of change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 15(2), 105-121. Gronn, L. (1999). The making of educational leaders. London: Cassell. Landrum, N.E., Howell, J.P., & Paris, L. (2000). Leadership for strategic change. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 21(3), 150-156. Stewart, D. (2001). Reinterpreting the learning organization. The Learning Organization, 8(4),141-152. Smith, M.K. (2007). The learning organization: Principles, theory and practice. Retrieved 29 September 2014, from http://infed.org/mobi/the-learning-organization/. Torlak, G. (2004). Learning organizations. Journal of Economic and Social Research, 6(2), 87-116. Retrieved 29 September 2014, from http://www.fatih.edu.tr/~jesr/jesr.torlak.pdf Read More