Strategic Change Heriot-Watt University Analysis - Essay Example

 Strategic Change – Focus on the Future: Heriot Watt University Analysis 1. Overview of change efforts Heriot Watt University is attempting to become a world class leader, surpassing other university competition, in areas of business and technology. To accomplish this, the university is conducting change practices that are designed to secure more consistent and ongoing education for students and instructors whilst also creating a partnership with local and foreign business leaders in areas of technology, energy, climate change, and even transport management. This represents a change from the previous course of education at Heriot Watt, thus requiring internal and external changes to accomplish this new goal of excellence for tomorrow’s business and technology leaders. 2. Change approaches and tools The model being used to ensure that internal and external changes occur at the university is most closely associated with the McKinsey 7-S model. This model encompasses seven different factors that include “shared values, strategy, structure, systems, style, staff and skills” which all are necessary to be included to ensure that a model of positive change occurs (Cellars, 2007, p.1). It is defined as a holistic model of change that is collectivist in its many segments, thus requiring the university staff and its external partners to work together to ensure that the change efforts occur smoothly and all vision and mission goals are met successfully. The first part of the model looks toward establishing a vision so that shared values can be expressed and developed within the organisational staff and the students. The vision for the change is “to become a world-leading university that will produce the next generation of global leaders in business and technology – committed to growth and investment in staff and infrastructure” (Heriot Watt, 2008, p.1). To accomplish this, the tool is to develop a new urgency in high quality education and learning materials, by providing supporting technological know-how and the tools needed to make sure that the technologies needed are used appropriately and meet goals. Centralized services are also being strengthened so that courses offered to students are consistent toward the world-class business and technology goals in areas of environment, climate, business and technology (Heriot Watt, 2008, p.1). Essentially, it is ongoing professional development for educators to ensure they have the skills and knowledge available to provide excellence in training and education provision for academic students. These efforts also take into consideration and provide a foundational structure for systems, skills and staff development that are part of the McKinsey 7-S model of change. Externally, the university students and the educators will be consulting with knowledge leaders in all key areas of the Focus on the Future campaign in order to assist in developing a world-class curriculum for tomorrow’s business and technology leaders. One example is a partnership with business leaders at the Institute of Petroleum Engineering to assist in areas of clean energy provision so that students have real-world knowledge about processes and future strategies related to energy. 3. Driving and restraining forces “For change to be possible, driving forces must (ultimately) overcome the restraining forces that have been identified” (SkyMark, 2011, p.2). The university must brainstorm ideas and concepts that will be directly related to whether or not it can meet its long-term strategic goals of ensuring better education and better educator knowledge about real-time events in the business world as it relates to tomorrow’s industries. The following is a force field analysis showing the likely driving and restraining forces associated with the Focus on the Future campaign: Driving forces are those forces that make up the foundation of the entire change effort, such as external business needs related to more qualified and knowledgeable students. This also applies to the educators and their training needs, thus the development of a new centralized and consistent system of knowledge exchange and training for the advisors. Students also require careers that provide long-term security and higher income levels in order to be fully motivated to want to engage in jobs of the future related to technology, business, climate and the other objectives already identified in the Focus on the Future change effort. The restraining forces are those that work against the change efforts leading to the goal and mission of Heriot Watt. These include how to secure adequate funding for the new technology education curricula, the volume of time needed to ensure a world-class educational and knowledge exchange system, and the inevitable resistance to change that will occur over time. In order to ensure that student needs are met, a change agent will likely have to champion the entire project to ensure that there are open lines of communication and who can reinforce the importance of each step of the change model. The change agent has been described as “an undeserving victim of the irrational and dysfunctional responses of change recipients” (Ford, Ford & D’Amelio, 2008, p.362). Change is usually met with resistance (restraining forces) based on personalized dissatisfaction with a change demand from the university and might require some agent that is able to use psychological motivational strategies to gain support and overcome the restraining force. Since these responses are often irrational and, as described, dysfunctional, it will require an individual who understands concepts of inherent emotional needs that can speak an appropriate language and communicate effectively with those who are not necessarily sharing the long-term vision of the change effort. 4. Push and pull factors Push factors in the Focus on the Future campaign are those that are driving these changes to begin with. For example, the global growth in finding clean energy sources to meet regulatory demands or simply to satisfy the social demand for more responsible industry practices are pushing these changes. More improved technology is another example with new GPS software, environmental modeling, and petroleum redevelopment force the university to become more future-oriented and therefore change the internal dynamics and political structure related to how education is provided to students. The demands of the external environment push forward growth and redevelopment of technology and environmental policy related to the curriculum itself. Pull factors are those that pull the individual toward the campaign. For example, new advancements in technology training at the university might offer the promise of higher-paying careers for students, therefore they are pulled toward signing up for future-minded class curriculum in order to receive personal reward. This might also affect the future hiring pool related to recruitment of quality educators when they realize that the university provides the most modern tools for education provision and they have a forum to learn and use their existing knowledge more effectively than with other competing universities. It is any factor in the Focus on the Future campaign that makes the goal of participating more attractive to both students and faculty. Pull factors might even be the changes occurring related to knowledge exchange that catches the attention of global business leaders to make them more willing to become active participants and partners in knowledge management principles. 5. Risks in overseas operations Student and educator safety are primary risks of moving the Focus on the Future campaign overseas. They will be working within higher-risk industries such as natural gas and petroleum, which poses liabilities to Heriot Watt University and could, in a worst case scenario, cause health and human safety risks to the university population. Risks also include spending high cash resources on creating educational partnerships with overseas business leaders, only to discover that they are not as well-educated about future technology and thus the risk is financial. There could also be risks of inferior partnership training modules that do not fully address all factors that students need to understand to gain real-time business knowledge. This would be a risk factor that is associated with partner competency in multiple industry environments. Therefore, the university should screen applicants and potential partners fully to create a unified training programme and curriculum. Other risks of this overseas effort include the time factor, where current knowledge being exchanged is quickly superseded by rapid changes in business practices and technology usage. Another risk is the development of a proper international human resources division that can address factors such as additional compensation for educators who work above and beyond their salary structures or other related HR components. 6. HWU strengths and weaknesses One weakness is that the university must rely on the educational know-how of overseas or domestic business leaders to ensure that the quality of the partnership knowledge exchange fits the goals and vision of the Focus on the Future campaign. There is too much, it seems, reliance on their know-how to ensure that students receive accurate and well-orchestrated educational training. Says the university, “we remain committed to collaboration and knowledge exchange with industry and business and across multi-disciplinary themes” (Heriot Watt, 2008, p.45). A further weakness is lack of a multisource feedback system that helps identify where weaknesses lie and where more effort is needed in key areas. This type of feedback system usually involves survey data that includes students, peers, subordinates, HR staff members, or other external consultants (Garman, Tyler, Darnall & Lerner, 2004). There needs to be a monitoring and assessment system in place that is fairly routine so that it minimizes future resistance to the change effort and also highlights successes and failures in key areas of knowledge exchange with industry leader partners. A strength of the campaign seems to be the educator willingness to show their commitment and time investment into making this campaign a success. This is directly related to the most primary elements of the McKinsey 7-S model of change as it relates to shared values and strategy development. The university is already recognised for its dynamic and flexible educator network and this will be a valuable resource for the Focus on the Future effort. There is a great culture of shared values and teamwork at the university that will also serve the campaign well as compared to other universities that have a more segregated and less team-focused staff system. 7. HWU core competencies Culture is the most valuable core competency at HWU, especially considering that all other factors related to the Focus on the Future campaign are under constant change due to technology improvements in the external business world and changing curriculum to deliver quality education. Culture is related to cohesion in work teams, behaviors, openness, trust, and the ability to use knowledge exchange to innovate (Want, 2009). There is an air of inspiration and trust at the university that has been built over many years of operations that is necessary to achieve this goal, considering it is such a team-oriented effort that involves the efforts of every staff member in multiple areas of learning. There is already a quality communication system at Heriot Watt where people are familiar with one another at the administrative level and this will only serve an advantage in ensuring quality ongoing and open communication channels. The infrastructure of technology communications such as email will also serve as the core competency internally so that nobody involved misunderstands what each step of the change system involves. 8. Change agents The change agents in this effort were not specifically identified by the university information available online or in other print publications. However, evidence suggests that the change agents are the higher-ranking administrative team members who develop communication and also the educators themselves in certain key industry areas. For example, the educator is responsible for teaching the students in the classroom, but also receives his or her own education from external consulting partners and therefore must be the champion of knowledge exchange for those who are not able to attend overseas or domestic knowledge meetings with industry players. They need to be the psychological motivators of the campaign and also offer insight against the McKinsey change model related to staff, skills, and structure of the new educational curriculum. There are none others that would be equipped to be change agents since they would not have the first-hand data at their disposal, through experience, necessary to offer solutions on how to proceed or to remove the dysfunctional elements that will likely occur from those who resist. They are the only individuals that can adequately frame the scope and quality of communications to make sure the Focus on the Future effort is a total quality success. 9. Focus on the Future and OD The Focus on the Future campaign is absolutely organisational development in action. In order to make the campaign a total success, it needs to have a restructured system of educational provision as well as a restructuring of staff roles and obligations. There are new elements associated with human resources that will require more of this department’s input and more involvement from the administrative level. If there are any top-down remnants left, it needs to become a more decentralized hierarchy to ensure that information flows horizontally rather than simply stem from higher-ranking administration. Thus, there are actual and ongoing redevelopment efforts occurring that are necessary to ensure a more hands-on and more streamlined delivery of modern business and industry training. Roles need to be reexamined to determine job analysis and relevance and maybe even consolidating certain roles so that there is not an overage of labour occurring to reach the goals associated with the vision milestones. This could not be accomplished without ongoing OD and ongoing reassessment of job responsibilities all throughout the university in each department and division. It even needs more discussion and collaboration with external sources who are not acting as educators for students and staff, thus a restructure of how external work is conducted is necessary that will impact job roles and functions. 10. Assessment of strategy success Except for a few missing elements, such as the aforementioned apparent lack of a measurement and feedback system, it seems the programme is meeting with success. There have been apparent changes to how instructors receive and deliver their knowledge and training, thus improving the internal culture and dynamics of job role function at Heriot Watt University. These efforts toward the change in all areas from skills development to staff knowledge sharing have brought a new framing for communications that delivers more quality knowledge to staff and students. At the process and operations level, it is providing students with more valuable real-time knowledge that is not easily replaced with changes to the external environment such as new technologies. By staying collaborative with external partners, there is no opportunity to miss any important industry training that would limit the student’s long-term career potential. There is a renewed sense of courage and leadership in the face of what seems to be actually radical change to how education is delivered, therefore showing that the culture of the university remains focused on achieving their long-term goals for success. Training continues to be first-class for students and educators because of external partnership and collaboration that is vital if students are to receive excellence. It is a genuine success all around. 11. References Cellars, T. (2007). [internet] Change management models: a look at McKinsey’s 7-S model, Lewin’s change management model and Kotter’s eight step change model. [accessed September 28, 2011 at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/237685/change_management_models_a_look_at.html?cat=3] Ford, J., Ford, L. & D’Amelio, A. (2008). Resistance to change: the rest of the story, Academy of Management Review, 33(2), p.362. Garman, A., Tyler, J., Darnall, J. & Lerner, W. (2004). Development and validation of a 360 degree feedback instrument for healthcare administrators, Journal of Healthcare Management, 49(5), pp.307-321. Heriot Watt. (2008). [internet] Continuing professional development, Heriot Watt University. [accessed September 27, 2011 at http://www.hw.ac.uk/focusonthefutre/cpd.htm Heriot Watt. (2008). [internet] Focus on the future – university strategy, Heriot Watt University. [accessed September 26, 2011 at http://www.hw.ac.uk/focusonthe future/ Heriot Watt. (2008). [internet] Focus on the future – Heriot Watt University Strategy. [accessed September 28, 2011 at http://www.hw.ac.uk/reference/focus-on-the-future.pdf] SkyMark. (2011). [internet] Force Field Analysis – SkyMark Corporation. [accessed October 1, 2011 at http://skymark.com/resources/tools/force_field/diagram.asp] Want, J. (2009). Saving the company, Leadership Excellence, 26(6), pp.10-11. Read More