Reflective Activity Week 8.2 - Essay Example

This organization is a medium size company comprising 100 workers. The following is a of an organizational change initiative which occurred at the ending of 2009. It was initiated by the chief administrator of the plant committing physical abuse against one of his subordinates. Consequently, the manager was placed on suspension and therefore there was need for a new manager. The change therefore required the subordinates to adhere to the commands of the manager. The individuals who were in favor of the previous administrator refused to follow her directions.

As a result the entire organization began to deteriorate. The workers stopped producing quality work; there was an increase in absenteeism, an increase in unpunctuality, customers began to make more official complaints, the financial aspect of business began to decline and the output began to decrease. In short there was a total decline in the overall performance of the organization. The change initiative was therefore unsuccessful on all counts. The first stage of Lewin’s change process unfreezing involves preparing the organization for a necessary change.

In our case there was no preparation – one morning we had a male manager and by the afternoon the organization was headless. There was no time to prepare. The new head came within a week. This individual had no idea of the organization’s culture but began to change everything that was formally in place within the first week of duty. Again there was little preparation – there was little communicated to the members. Instead we were assigned additional duties without thorough explanation. In hindsight one can see that the manager attacked the organization from its core, that is, from the beliefs, values and behaviors of the employees.

As such, the subordinates and the managers were in constant opposition to each other. The second stage of Lewin’s stages of change was now in place and perhaps Lewin was right when he suggested that after the chaos of the unfreeze stage that people begin to look for new ways of doing things because stakeholders (customers, other managers and members of staff) began to take sides – some for the new and some wanting the old. Nonetheless people after about four months began to comply with some of the requested changes.

Not everyone complied even though the manager tried to show the benefits of the changes with the individuals as well as the organization. Lewin’s third and final stage, refreeze, began after one year and a half. The members of staff began to show some respect for each other yet there is still a fairly large number of requests for transfers. Although the manager tries to maintain stability by communicating more regularly with members of staff there is still insecurity amongst the workers. Employees, though are beginning to appreciate some of the new policies implemented and thus, perhaps they are beginning to feel empowered in this change process.

Works Cited Bronwyn, Ritchie. Lewin’s Change Management Model: Understanding the Three Stages of Change. Mindtools Newsletter, 2006. Web. 23 June 2011.