Planning Managment

INTRODUCTION

Over period of time every company goes through some or the other changes. In the fast paced world “business as usual” is change. We are fortunate enough to witness the changes in business world. Every organization understands the importance of new technologies, project based working, and improvement in any field to stay ahead of the competition. It’s very common to feel little uncomfortable for managers whenever any company is going through any change. Similarly, my organization has also gone through many changes and has brought itself to number one in heavy duty lifting equipments.

John Kotter, a professor at Harvard Business School has introduced his eight-step change process. These changes help managers to approach any change they want to see in an organization. Kotter’s changes are as follows:

1. Establish a sense of urgency

If a manager realizes the need of change that an organization should go through then he/she will have to create a scenario such that the whole company is convinced and wants the change. If a manager can create a circumstances and employee start to think about the change, the urgency can build and nourish on itself. To create the required scenario, managers have to identify the potential threats and examine opportunities showing what could happen in the future. Moreover, managers have to give practical convincing reasons to make people think about the change.

This step is usually the hardest and most time consuming of all the steps. I agree with this step because if the sense of urgency is not created or communicated then an organization may not be able to compete in today’s competitive world.

2. Form a powerful guiding coalition

To form a powerful guiding coalition takes strong leadership to convince people that change is unavoidable. Manger has to get enough people to support him whose power comes from variety of sources like job title, expertise, and can influence others. Manager can show off the support and incline other people to support as well. A leader is required to lead the change, managing the change is not enough in itself. Manger has to encourage the formed coalition to work as a team and also has to identify the true leader to achieve the goal. Furthermore, manager has to overcome the weak areas by ensuring a good mix of people from different departments and different job titles within an organization.

I totally agree with this step because a team of people with same motto can achieve the targeted goal faster than individual.

3. Create a change vision

People responsible for creating change vision may come up with a lot of ideas. Manager should simplify and communicate these ideas to people to grasp easily to achieve the goal. A clear vision is