Challenges that are Associated with Change at the Brisbane City Council - Case Study Example

Running Head: Building Organizational Resilience Student name: Institution: Course: Date of submission: Contents Contents 2 Introduction 3 Overview of the governance at the Brisbane City Council 4 Change challenges at the Brisbane City Council 5 Benefits of the change towards modern computing and technologies 9 The proposed model: Building change readiness through appropriate organizational culture 11 Organizational models for the Brisbane City Council 11 Organizational models that use MIKE 2.0 12 Illustrative organization model 12 Level 1- aware 13 Level 2- Reactive 13 Level 3 – proactive 13 Level 4 – managed 14 Level 5 – Optimal 14 Organizational frameworks – forms and functions 14 Resource based view organizational culture 15 Key elements of the organizational culture and their justification 17 Conclusion 20 Works cited 21 Introduction Effective organization of both people and resources is a key success factor for any modern business and non business organizations (Champoux 52). Managing people in is a challenge that modern organizations are faced with due to the increasing need for change and to acquire a sustainable organizational stability. This therefore implies that different organization deploy different management methodologies that are tailored to meet the organizational requirements that are necessary for equitable development (Champoux 55). A large number of organizations are of the view that the above antagonistic pressures that are directed towards fostering change and stability in an organization are usually complicated to understand and implement. In order for an organization to remain successful, it must continually revise its management strategy to match with the recent requirements that are deemed as key in ensuring development and ease in the management process of the people and the organizational resources (Champoux 65). This implies that the top management team should always be innovative in their management approaches in order to stay beat the present competitive nature of the market structure. The major challenge is the impact that the management practices will have on the employees because some of the organization’s employees can view the management practices as a source of stress while others may be of the view that they may be exhilarating. A recent trend is the use of technology to aid in the management and organization of people and resources in business enterprises (Champoux 65). This research essay will primarily attempt to review and analyze the challenges that are associated with change at the Brisbane City Council, the development of a management model after which the model will be reviewed in order to evaluate its effectiveness at the Brisbane City Council through the identification of challenges and a clear comparison of the management methodologies in the developed model with the current organizational approaches that the Brisbane City Council use. The essay will then conclude on the effectiveness of the adoption of the proposed people management practices with the view that is directed towards achieving sustainable people management process and a change readiness culture. Overview of the governance at the Brisbane City Council The Brisbane City Council is the local area government that largely controls the metropolitan regions of the Brisbane City, and the Queensland in Australia. The Brisbane City is reported to have the largest population compared to other local Australian governments. The governance structure of the Brisbane City Council is divided into a powerful executive that is represented by the Lord Mayor and a number of councilors that are elected basing on the parliamentary style; the councilors are twenty six in total with each member representing a single ward that approximately hosts 24000 voters. The government structure also consists of a civic cabinet that is headed by the Lord Mayor and the various chair persons who head the seven committees under the Brisbane City Council. The Brisbane City Council also processes a number of business units that are basically commercial oriented and are used to provide basic services such as water and transport to the residents of the City of Brisbane. The diversity of the services that the local government of the Brisbane City offers implies that it requires an enhanced organizational way of managing people and the respective resources. This therefore is a key challenge in the implementation of management approaches at the organization. Change challenges at the Brisbane City Council Adoption of technology with the aim of facilitating the ease in management practices always come with a lot of challenges, the Brisbane City Council is no exception (Champoux 89). One of the significant challenges that are associated with the shift towards the delivery of more efficient and sustainable business management processes through the use of electronic technology at the Brisbane city council is the political influence in the decision making process and structures. The basic governance structure of the Brisbane City Council is primarily based on politics, since the Lordship Mayor and the respective councilors hold their positions due to the parliamentary elections that are carried in Australia. Political influence plays a major role in the decision making and the implementation of the various policies at the Brisbane City Council. Political power always plays a significant role in affecting the organizational structure and the organization theory of any business institution (Griffin and Gregory 120). This therefore implies that the adoption of technology in order to facilitate the management and organization of people at the Brisbane City Council solely depends on the subjective political factors at the Local government of the City of Brisbane. The political behavior in business organizations is primarily affected by the way the political pressure that is majorly directed towards the achievement of business initiatives that are not properly planned (Jex 80). Organizational politics is primarily fuelled by the individuals at the top level management who put more focus on driving their personal agenda rather than putting focus on the significant business organization agenda. The key challenge in the adoption of the management change approach at the Brisbane City Council is greatly affected by two factors; some factions are primarily interested in the desire to advance within the institution and the other factions are keen on having to control the power through the manipulation of the council’s resources and the decision making processes (Champoux 99). The Brisbane City Council is a silo- structured organization whereby the top level management always develops business goals and objectives that are directed towards improving their departments/ committees without putting the overall mission of the council in mind during the establishment of such goals and objectives (Champoux 180). This challenge faces many business organizations and governmental institutions and the Brisbane City Council is no exception. The theory is usually referred to as the agency theory, whereby the various departmental heads prioritize and implement goals and objectives of their departments first and always putting the organization strategic goals at bay. This phenomena is experienced at the Brisbane City Council due to lack of a cohesive communication protocol, and a well laid corporate level goals and objectives that are supposed to be fostered down by the top-level management to the lower staff of the organization (Champoux 185). Another significant change challenge is the top level management commitment and acceptance by the low level staff at the Brisbane City Council. For any management process to be successful, it requires the commitment of the top level commitment and involvement, and a further acceptance by the lower level staff (Miner 231). The top level government officials might not prioritize the new management change approach, and this a potential risk factor that can cause the management approach not to realize the laid down organization’s goals and objectives. How the lower level staff will perceive the new management strategy is also a challenge during its implementation. Organizational change coupled with the implementation of new technology are potential causes of what is commonly referred to as the dysfunctional consequences; which are the outcomes of behavior with negative effects to the business organization, although they are not intended (Tosi 56). The challenge therefore is for the top level management to design effective organizational change approach that is basically tailored to meet the current competitive and the dynamic business environment. This implies that the organizational change approach should be customized so as to favor the top management commitment and involvement, at the same time facilitating the acceptance by the end user or the lower level staff members at the Brisbane City Council. The present staffs are used to the traditional paper based organization, and therefore introducing the electronic environment is no doubt going to be faced by some opposition from some of the staff of the Brisbane City Council (Tosi 60). Another challenge in the organizational change that is directed towards the achieving sustainable business management practices through the use of electronic technology at the Brisbane City Council is the costs that accompany the electronic technology equipments such as computers, printers, fax machines and other relevant electronic media equipments. The high acquisition cost can force the top management to shift its priorities from the implementation of the organization change (Sims 125). Another challenge is the high cost of maintaining the equipments to keep them running; this is basically through the replacement costs and the high costs of hiring the relevant technical expertise to carry out the maintenance practices on the already acquired electronic equipments. The change from the paper based environment to the electronic environment requires intensive staff training; this implies additional overhead expenses that the Brisbane City Council will incur during the organizational change to the electronic environment. Another significant challenge associated with the shift from to the electronic environment at the Brisbane City Council is operational readiness of the organization to adopt the electronic environment. Operational readiness can be viewed from a number of perspectives such as the commitment of the organization to fully fund the change process, the readiness of the Brisbane City Council staff to embrace the use of information technology when carrying out their daily duties, the readiness of the top level management to prioritize the organizational change process in order to see that it turns out successful in the realization of the business goals and the alignment of the business processes with the electronic environment (Quick 256). The operational readiness is basically determined by the level of change resistance by the various staff members and the management of the Brisbane City Council (Tosi 89). Change management in itself is a challenge and should therefore be given enough attention during the organizational change process. The work force diversity also determines the operational readiness of the organization to implement the use of the electronic environment and modern technologies at the Brisbane City Council during the execution and management of the business processes and allocation of resources (Quick 258). The work force diversity causes the different employees to have different views on the environment that they are working under. The management therefore has the challenge of ensuring that the organizational change structures and theories maximize on the various differences in order to facilitate the realization of the organizations goals and objectives. The major challenge of work force diversity in an organization is the rise of conflict potential, adding to the task of the managers to establish relevant methods of managing the conflicts in a somewhat functional approach. Another challenge that is associated with the modern computing and electronic computing technologies is the ever dynamic changing nature of the information and electronic technology. This implies that if the Brisbane City adopts the use of modern computing to facilitate its operations, it will have to revise its methodologies on a regular basis in order to meet the ever changing technological requirements (Sims 125). Benefits of the change towards modern computing and technologies The use of Information technology to foster better and efficient business practices is a modern trend that is being accepted by nearly organizations irrespective of the kind and execution of the business operations and the management structure (Champoux 256). Organizations are presently using technology to facilitate the business processes and the organizational interactions, for instance the continued use of the company intranets is vital in ensuring that internal processes are managed effectively. The use of such technologies can also facilitate external interactions with the prospective clientele, investors and other interested parties. This in turn helps the Brisbane City Council to shift their level of interactions from the local to a global focus, which is a key success factor. One of the benefits of this is through the employees telecommuting, which aids the employees to work from home or any other convenient location which (Champoux 250). The use of modern computing and electronic technologies will foster the change if many organizational structures and the functional units. The Brisbane City Council will greatly benefit from the emerging organizational structure that is known as the virtual organization; which is basically a group /networks of related organizations that match up their operations electronically, usually, on an online and real time platform (Champoux 259). This organization form can be used to span the staff diversity at Brisbane City Council without impairing the goals and objectives of the institution. The modern organizational environment therefore helps the organization to overcome the work diversities through integration of the diverse cultures at the organization contrary to the traditional environment (Champoux 260). Another added advantage associated with the shifting towards modern computing and electronic computing at the Brisbane City Council is a massively reduced overhead expense that were previously incurred in form of storage and paper based method of transactions. This would of course result in increased efficiency in the delivery of services to the residents of the city of Brisbane and the surrounding environs (Miner 96). Modern computing and electronic environment will facilitate the management of its business units such as water and transport services; this implies additional income to the Brisbane City Council. The electronic environment will further streamline the operations of the organization through efficiency gains and simplified processes which will be as a result of increased employee performance (Jex 56). On a broader context, the organization will use technology to facilitate in the internal and external interactions and the execution of organizational processes. This will in turn enhance the Brisbane City Council organizational functional units and form; which ultimately will result in a reduction of management issues that are related to the organization of people and the respective allocation of resources for the various organization processes. (Quick 45) The proposed model: Building change readiness through appropriate organizational culture In order to develop an effective management model, one need have an in depth analysis of the organizational behavior and the organizational theory. The organizational behavior lays emphasis on the mind-set and the performance of the relevant individuals in an organization, while the organizational theory puts emphasis on the governance structure and the staff levels at the organization. An integration of the two should incorporate the organizational culture; which is a key element in the implementation of change readiness at the Brisbane City Council (Sims 59). It is a common theory that in business that the organizations have to depict the attributes of the business environment through the organizational structure; this is significant in measuring the competitiveness of the organization in the present times. Likewise, for the Brisbane City Council to be successful and efficient in the delivery of its services, its organizational structure should be able to adapt to a variety of the present clientele requirements and incorporate the modern computing environment in its own organizational structure (Miner 158). Presently, the business environments are changing rapid than before, therefore, the organizational structure of the Brisbane City Council should be able to accommodate all the market dynamics during the delivery of its services to the residents of the City of Brisbane. Organizational models for the Brisbane City Council For a long period of time, the concept behind the management of development assessment organizations such as Brisbane City Council has been the same. The various organizational styles that will be developed should be able to effectively put into consideration the organizational styles (Jex 250). The current organizational style that the Brisbane City Council uses is a top down approach which focuses more on the formal network. The building of the change readiness model is appropriate for the Brisbane city council since it will able to carter for all the organizational styles that will be applied at the organization. Organizational models that use MIKE 2.0 One of the significant elements of this methodology that focuses on the organizational model is information development. Through this, it is the commitment of the organization to facilitate how the information flows in the organization, through facilitating easy access to information, information sharing and efficient storage of information that is suitable for the intended electronic environment (Griffin and Gregory 259). The MIKE 2.0 organizational model is centralized, although it does require having a single physical organizational team, rather a virtual teams can be used for effective delivery of the services at the organization. The primary role of the virtual team is to assign responsibilities to the various individuals in the organization during the execution of the organizational processes. On the other hand, the physical team is allocated the organization’s resources in order to carry out the organization’s processes. The Brisbane city council will employ both the physical and virtual teams in order to ensure effective service delivery to the residents that the council governs. Illustrative organization model Change management is a significant challenge in development of organizational models. This therefore implies that organizational models should be adaptive in the 5 maturity levels for organizations with a keen emphasis on the information development efficiencies that are outlined below (Champoux 260). Organizational models that employ such methodologies are presently known as data governance organization models whereby the emphasis is laid on structured organizational data, information management and Investment Returns Management (Champoux 265). Level 1- aware Data governance organizations have the sole responsibility of being informed about the issues that are around the data governance. An organization is said to be at this level if it is doing little to respond to such issues. An aware state is realized if the organization is in the process of migrating into a situation whereby they can effectively identify and establish corresponding measures against such issues, but occurs only in the early phases of the process (Miner 89). Level 2- Reactive At this stage, the organization is able to take necessary steps to the impending issues, but only after they have occurred. The significant challenge at this state is that the organization is unable to address the primary causes of the issues that are affecting the data governance and information development procedures (Griffin and Gregory 258). Level 3 – proactive A proactive organization has the ability to address or take preventive measures to issues before they can occur. They are empowered to develop solutions to root causes of the problems and prevent further problems that are associated with the potential issues. The organization should monitor the ongoing processes so as to evaluate the potential risks that may arise in order to design preventive long term strategies (Griffin and Gregory 96). Level 4 – managed An organization attains this state if its management practices are maturely tailored to arrive at solutions to problems that may affect the information development of the organization. The organization can not only be able to identify issues prior to their happenings and address them, but also have an automated set of management practices that deploy the use of the relevant technologies that are focused on information development (Champoux 256). Level 5 – Optimal At this state, the organization offers a perfect model for service delivery through laying emphasis on constant improvements, analysis of the Root cause of problems and continual monitoring of the organization’s processes. The organization uses the underlying technology to facilitate service delivery, real time transaction processing and decision support systems in ill and semi structured decision contexts (Champoux 263). The recommended model for the Brisbane City Council is the Level 5 which is a managed model. Organizational frameworks – forms and functions Different types of institutions employ different types of organizational frameworks according to the forms and functions that are tailored according to the organization service delivery requirements. Some of them can be water supply management services, local and regional government originations, and international organization (Griffin and Gregory 289). The composition of any organization is significantly determined by the institutional change needs and organizational structure, which in turn influences the performance of the organization. Despite the dynamic nature of organizational structures, the specific organizational framework is vital to incorporate required mechanisms for coordination of the activities of the organization in order to facilitate integration (Griffin and Gregory 290). The major roles and responsibilities of the Brisbane City Council will include: a) Formulation of relevant policies b) Regulation and enforcement of the various activities at the city of Brisbane. c) Ensuring environment conservation at the Brisbane City. d) Networking and exchange of relevant information. All those responsibilities need an effective organizational framework which is deemed to ensure effective delivery of results. The Brisbane City council therefore requires relevant structures that can support it in the process of delivering well defined results so that it can be deemed successful. It is a policy making organization, and it can only be said to be effective if does not only discuss issues but also focuses on the delivery of the already debated policies (Griffin and Gregory 295). The Brisbane City Council is a multi functional organization; therefore its policies and service delivery functional units should be clearly detached for the purpose of ensuring good management practices (Griffin and Gregory 301). Resource based view organizational culture Organizational culture defines the beliefs, attitudes and behaviors, which may be personal or cultural of an organization. On a narrower context, it can be used to refer to specific values that the individuals in an organization share and are used to determine how they interact with external entities such as the stakeholders. Organizational culture assessment is based on competing Values framework which helps to differentiate the four different culture types; clan culture, adhocracy culture, market culture, and the hierarchy culture (Miner 95). Each culture has its own different dynamics and can be tailored to suite different organizational needs. The best organizational culture that will be suited for Brisbane City Council is the Adhocracy culture, which is characterized by external focus, and a dynamic workplace environment that fosters innovation. There are wide varieties of approaches that are directed towards the achievement of change readiness, some of which include the psychological approaches which have been developed over time into specific outcomes that favor the development of organizational change readiness (Miner 102). The guidelines that will facilitate a more sustainable people management process at the Brisbane City Council will be based on the following: a) Formulation of well laid strategic and long term vision; in order to facilitate the cultural change effectively, shared values is a key requirement and the vision must reflect the direction of the change in culture (Champoux 289). b) Demonstration of the top level management commitment and involvement; it is imperative that culture change should begin from the top management all the way down to the lower level staff of an organization. The senior management should be in charge of the change processes and should serve as an important example in the initiative. The top management should favor the change implementation process in order to incorporate the organizational change to the rest of the staffs in the organization (Champoux 290). c) Modification and alignment of the organization operations to be in line with the organizational change (Champoux 290). d) Development of the necessary legal and ethical issues associated with change. e) Prioritizing the change in culture at the most high level by the organization; the culture change has to be prioritized in order to be of ultimate importance to the organization. The management should reveal to the organization the benefits that are associated with the adoption of the organizational change. The strengths of the present environment should also be put in mind, with a consideration that the present environment does not require complete overhaul but just a number of adjustments (Champoux 292). f) Integration of the newcomers into the environment and termination of the deviant individuals; an effective way of ensuring that organizational change is successful is through integrating the organizational membership with the organizational culture. Individuals can be selected basing on how they fit well with the new organizational culture (Champoux 292). Organizational changes are an important management aspect is inevitable for any organization. Culture innovations are primarily due to the need for the organizations to remain competitive in the present turbulent nature of the market and service delivery platforms (Griffin and Gregory 321). The challenge is not in cultural innovation but rather in cultural maintenance. Individuals in an organization always tend to be resistant towards culture changes; therefore, it is the duty of the management to convince the organization that the benefits associated with culture change far outweigh the risks (Miner 106). Key elements of the organizational culture and their justification The culture of an organization is divided into three basic perspectives (Champoux 295): a) Traditionalism b) Interpretivism: This views organizational culture as a set of shared values. c) Critical Interpretivism: this is an integration of both the traditionalism and the Interpretivism. The significant elements of the model will include the following: a) Responsible leadership: this entails providing the organization with the correct vision and direction. Responsible leadership focuses more on the management of people rather than the organization’s resources. Responsible leadership provides a rational framework for effective management practices at the organization; this facilitates the commitment of the top level management and their involvement (Champoux 298). b) Employee motivation and involvement in the organizational change: since the employees form an important aspect of the organization, their involvement in the change process is paramount in order to ensure that the culture change process turns out successful. Employee motivation will ensure the acceptance of the organization change process to the modern computing and electronic environment at the Brisbane City Council. Employee motivation basically involves the outlining of the projected benefits that accompany the change in the organizational culture at the Brisbane City Council (Champoux 298). c) Appreciation of the role of the human resource department at the Brisbane City Organization: the Human Resource of an organization impacts directly the operations of an organization, this implies that they organizational change should able to incorporate the human resource requirements of an organization so that the culture change can be deemed successful. The human resource greatly determines the change readiness at the Brisbane City Council. This will therefore help to facilitate the organization readiness towards the shift to a sustainable people management practices that will help to address the change implementation challenges at the Brisbane City Council (Sims 89). d) Accountability: is a vital management and governance ethics practice which involves the acknowledgement of responsibility of a given course of action by an organization. The management of the Brisbane City Council should be accountable for the organizational change in terms of culture. Accountability will involve consideration of the potential risk factors associated with the change in environment at the Brisbane City Council. The various types of accountability that the organization is expected to display include political accountability, ethical accountability, and administrative accountability and constituency relations (Griffin and Gregory 365). e) Team building, decision making and the building of social capital: collective responsibility is vital for any organizational change process. The change culture should also incorporate the use of collective decision making processes. Team building and collective decision making will help overcome the challenge of deviance by some individuals at the organization. Where appropriate, decision support systems should be employed especially in ill and semi structured decision contexts (Griffin and Gregory 370). f) Resourcing for sustainable people management practice: the resourcing strategy that should be employed by the Brisbane City Councils should be proactive. The three approaches in resourcing strategies that the organization can employ include: i) The relocation of jobs between the available employees, the organization should therefore emphasis on flexibility among the work force. This can be deployed through the use multi-skilled employees. ii) Relocation of individuals within the organization, which involves the filling the management posts with the existing staff. iii) Outsourcing of new organization staff from the outside job avenues, which involves hiring of individuals from outside the organization. g) Stakeholder viewpoint and the use of ethical approaches: ethical decision making forms the framework for ethical organizational structures, and corporate social responsibility. Sticking to stakeholders perspectives ensures that the sustainability of the organization. Ethical principles using serve as the guidelines that govern the modern organizational structures especially the public sector institutions such as the Brisbane City Council. Organizational ethical perspectives include a wide range of issues such as: corporate social responsibility, ethical leadership, ethical management and sustainability (Griffin and Gregory 375). Conclusion The intended organizational change at the Brisbane City University will posed more benefits that far outweigh the risks associated with it. It is therefore the challenge of the management to convince the staff at Brisbane City Council. It can therefore be deemed that the overall assessment of the effectiveness of the organizational change to the modern and electronic computing is an effective approach towards the development of more people management practices, and a change readiness for the organizational culture. Works cited Champoux, Joseph. Organizational Behavior: Integrating Individuals, Groups, and Organizations. New York: Taylor & Francis, 2010. Griffin, Ricky and Moorhead Gregory. Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations. Australia ; Mason, OH: Cengage Learning, 2009. Jex, Steve. Organizational psychology: a scientist-practitioner approach. New York: Wiley and Sons, 2002. Miner, John. Organizational behavior: foundations, theories, and analyses. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Quick, Nelson. Understanding Organizational Behavior. Mason, OH, USA: Thomson/South Western, 2007. Sims, Ronald. Managing organizational behavior. Westport CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002. Tosi, Henry. Managing organizational behavior. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2000. Read More