Assessment Activity Week 7 - Essay Example

Assessment Activity Week 7 Change is something which is inevitable. Change whether good or bad brings a level of discomfort to any individual or organization. An effective method of introducing change in an organization is through the “piloting” of ideas throughout the change process which is a better option than making a change via a full-scale launch. We can test this “piloting” of ideas in a bank which has been swamped by numerous complaints from its customers about the slow service they experience.

We can introduce total quality management (TQM) which could make flexible work teams more efficient. TQM will be introduced through continuous improvement which will eventually reduce costs, enhance customer service and reduce waste. The first step is to empower the employees by allowing them to design efficient procedures and control quality service. A feedback mechanism should be in place to determine whether this initial idea is effective and if it resulted in positive reactions from customers.

After that, another pilot idea will be introduced to them such as regular meetings with quality circles to discuss how to improve performance. To test the success of the TQM through the introduction of pilot ideas, management should make a survey among its clients and ask them if indeed service has improved. The employees will also be asked their opinions on the changes introduced. Another method for dealing with change is to respond constructively to failure. Responding to failure is very critical for a leader.

The leader must learn from the experience of failure. He should gain knowledge, wisdom and understanding from it. A leader must be able to share this experience with his subordinates because they too can learn from it. For example, I am the head of the franchising division of a fast food chain and I assigned employee A to look for a possible site for expansion. After a thorough research, employee A came up with a site and we built on the site. Unfortunately, after a year of operation we found out that sales in the area is bad and we are not meeting our targets.

This is a clear failure on my part and employee A. We both took a risk but sadly, we failed. I will take this failure as a learning experience by trying to find out what signs we have missed along the way. Both employee A and I will try to trace our steps and analyze the process which we took in the decision process which led to our failure. I can support employee A by not blaming him and instead encouraging him to strive to do better next time. I will teach him how to minimize the uncertainty of long-term projects by breaking it down into smaller parts to minimize the risk in each part.

Together, we can review the company’s guidelines on franchising and see if there are changes that need to be done to update it and have a lesser margin of error. The five most important concepts or knowledge that I gained from the cases above are: 1. We must always be open-minded to change. We must realize that if we are presently in a situation where we are comfortable and happy, we might still be missing out on other opportunities which may probably make us more comfortable or happier. 2.

Introducing change through pilot ideas is better than a full-scale launch. It does not “shock” the employees because it gives them time to adapt to the change and slowly integrate it to their system. 3. Change is endless and constant. This being the case, we must learn to deal with it and be resilient. 4. “No mistake or failure is as bad as to stop and not try again.” A leadership quote from John Wanamaker 5. Effective leaders embrace failure. Great leaders turn their failures into learning opportunities.