Organizational Change Issues - Essay Example

? Organizational Change As pertains to how and how well TU does help new Trilogy employees to learn technical skills, values and culture of their new organization, the following are observable. According to a model that the founder Liemandt preferred, the process begins by identifying competent programmers during career fairs at various exhibitions. The management recruits new employees through its vice president John Price. When the organization recruits a new team of employees, the CEO, Liemandt, takes it upon himself to oversee how they shall learn technical skills, values and culture of the of Trilogy. Since Liemandt has built the company on the principle that a businessperson must be willing to take risks and be innovative, their new employees technical skills learning usually begin in a model of brainstorming and discussion. By putting their heads together, the TU help new Trilogy employees share ideas and learn all sorts of complexities in programming. They acquire technical expertise and skills in this manner, and in many cases, come up with something new for Trilogy. While learning through sharing of ideas, TUers also undergo technical training dubbed “tech track.” Here. TUers learn core skill, which include software testing methods and java programming. Liemandt provides a challenge and demonstrates how they can come together as a team and achieve a common objective. He makes sure that they are able to work as a team by organizing social activities and teams building activities such as taking them to Las Vegas. Because the culture of the business has been willingness to take risks, he always plays a game with them to drive home his point. He plays L2K with them to encourage them to be risks takers as he considers the organization was born out of risk taking. Another change that new Trilogy members learn in the TU teams is the organization values. There are section “leads” instil in the TU teams how the company operates and how it relates with its customers. In terms of how well a new TU team of employees learn technical skills, values and culture, one can observe that Liemandt has barred manager from involving any new team during their training periods until they are assigned to them. This way, the new team has all the time to learn about Trilogy as much as possible. The TU policy, consequently, ensure that a new team is able to concentrate on learning new technical skills. Such freedom and Liemandt’s protection policy makes sure that the team learns well about the culture and values of the company and change to adapt to its needs. The fact that the team is separated from the other departments also helps in making sure that there is clear communication in the team. It also ensures consistency in all instructions given by the selected As Kurt Lewin observes, the more one feels the necessity for change, the more there is the motivation to do it. Liemandt may be observed to have developed an unfreezing stage where he went on an aggressive search for new skills for to start his idea of the TU team. His Force Field Analysis presented him with factors for change although he knew that doing so was a risk. Therefore, one can say that although TU helps new Trilogy members learn skills, values and culture of their new organization, the current state is that the program may he headed towards a lag phase. The future state of the organization should be one in which emerging issues about the TU team is addressed as a matter of concern (Burnes 983). As assessment of the effectiveness of TU in its first five years for the organization can be examined on the following manner. First, Liemandt formed TU programs on realizing that he had a vision, but which he saw that the old employees might not embrace. This is why he got involved with the first TU team as the first teacher although he had neither plan nor curriculum. From the start of the program to the end, one can say that TU was ultimately effective for the organization in the first five year. To begin with, the fist team successfully brainstormed and came up with a program of study of what they were going to cover in the next two months. This way, one may observe that the TU team complemented Liemandt’s vision for the revolution of the company. The TU team demonstrated responsibility and functionality when they developed a training program and successful trained one another. Their first achievement after the course that they had designed with the help and guidance of Liemandt saw them launch a new product suite. This was the Selling Chain. The Selling Chain was a product whose introduction in the market was a hit. The new product saw the company improve its performance very significantly. An assumption for this success is that Liemandt, with his entrepreneur mind, developed cohesive team (Ford et al. 895). One may assume that the success not only lied on the professional competence of the team but also on team motivation. As Kotter mentions in his eight steps for change model (Kotter 176), Liemandt may have explained the benefit of change to the TU team. He is seen to have built a guiding team where there was clear communications and trust. He may have jumped the gun by creating a change visions before he had a team, but it worked nonetheless. He also invested in the TU team to empower it as an enabling action to meet his objectives (Ford et al. 369). Another reason that confirms that TU is ultimately effective for the organization in the first five years can be seen in the success of the CarOrder.Com. This innovation was later ranked the best car-buying site in 2000. The CarOrder.Com was a product of the third TU group that Liemandt admitted in 1998, dubbed TU98. Prior to coming up with the product, the company had only instructed them to come up with an innovation that could survive the stiff competition in the software market. The next group of the TU team, TU99, came up with an online shopping and gift registry called IveBeenGood.Com. This innovation also earned the company profits of up to $11 million dollars. The observation is that the new teams functioned so well within their own ranks. Liemandt may be seen to have focused on every team’s on emotional intelligence so that members had more resonance amongst themselves (Farh et al. 891). The groups must have set the right emotional tone and team norms that saw them display competence and professionalism. Like in theory, the teams actually proved that their self-awareness and self-management skills were crucial. This is the reason for the success of the projects with which Liemandt tasked them. The future of TU has been met with some concerns. Although employees at Trilogy appreciate the contributions of TU teams, there are concerns that the CEO gives them a lot of attention than the rest of the team in the company. As the company changes strategy, so should the TU. Given that TU was born out of vision to pursue a particular direction in the firm, it should also change now that the game has changed. Otherwise, it would not be profitable for Liemandt to leave TU out in the restructuring. The future of TU should be one in which Trilogy trains the new recruits in line with the new needs of the company while also restructuring the existing teams in line with the changes being effected. After deliberating with the management and reaching an understanding, TU should be merged with other existing teams in Trilogy and new teams be created afresh. The new created teams should be trained on how to approach the business vertical model. This way, TU would remain relevant to the needs of Trilogy. As a challenge to the new groups, the new teams should focus on providing the best for their specific industry assignments by assessing and pre-empting specific industry needs. Should the company continue with recruiting new TUers, the new focus would be on values and culture of the organization. The technical skills part should be redesigned to be conducted at the newly structured team levels so that the new employees bond well with the existing pool of professionals with whom they will work. Liemandt will also have to reassess and reconsider his approach. For a long time, he did manage the team himself and treated it almost above the rest. Other employees thought that he over-focused on them for no good reason. They even that the training and the bonding sessions in Las Vegas were unnecessary trips. Owing to this, Liemandt should start treating all employees with equal concern. He should motivate them with the same passion ha had for TU team, believing that if he communicates his vision clearly, then they will be equally capable for the job. This way, employees will feel appreciated and that their contribution in the company is recognized. Liemandt should also listen to ideas and suggestions by his management staff. It is good that he has realized that he should not force his views on the entire organization as he had done in the past. This way, his management team will be free to share with him their perspective on various issues affecting the company. Some of those perspectives may just offer the best solution for the company. This way, Liemandt will achieve an organization change with very little resistance to the changes. This is particularly so given that the management, who enforce the changes at the lower levels, will be well informed about the changes and can communicate the changes downward. Most importantly, Liemandt should call a general meeting where he meets all employees and conveys to them the plans for the restructuring. He can meet with them either jointly or at departmental levels. During this time, he should give employees a chance to ask questions or seek clarifications. This helps in making sure that there is an understanding when the company finally starts to restructure. Works Cited Burnes, Bernard. "Kurt Lewin and the Planned Approach to Change: A Re-Appraisal." Journal of Management Studies 6 (2004). Farh et al. "Emotional Intelligence, Teamwork Effectiveness, and Job Performance: The Moderating Role of Job Context." Journal of Applied Psychology 97.4 (2012): 890-900. Ford et al. "Resistance to Change: The Rest of the Story." Academy Of Management Review 33.2 (2008): 362-377. Kotter, John P. Leading Change. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2012. Print. Read More