Change Management Case Study

Question 1:

On its most fundamental level, change can simply be described as the act of becoming different. In the context of our class we can describe it as monitoring and modifying infrastructures and processes within an entity. Change comes about through necessity or strategy in order for an entity to avoid being “destroyed” or as a means to grow and evolve. These changes are reactions to environmental changes, responding to crisis’s, increased competition, hedging risk, introduction of new technology, or initiated by leadership with a common goal. Many times these entities need to change their way operation through increased efficiency, output, and done with less resources.

I believe that change cannot be controlled in the sense of its inevitability. Outside factors beyond the control of decision makers lead to change. Competition, technology, litigation, politics, environment, policy, and the society can all initiate change and cannot be controlled. The starting and stopping of outside change is unplanned and cannot be managed. On the other hand, within the scope of change management, there is opportunity to control, manage, start and stop the change using certain sets of models and tools in order to systemically change an entity from within. Some ubiquitously discussed ways to actually control change as discussed during the course of out learnings are as follows: Before even initiating change, one must establish requirements in order to create a detailed mission statement with tangible goals that stakeholders can follow, understand, and believe in. A plan must be created that includes processes that are specific to the change and to the function of the stakeholders. Communicating, allowing feedback, and constr...

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...ormalcy. Unfortunately, those individuals will not be flexible to change once they are forced to change in order to survive.

A successful change agent doesn’t need to possess all these traits, skills or education, but as I mentioned each one and expound on it, it became obvious as to why each is important and depicted the deficiency in effectiveness of the change agent if it is absent . Ultimately, following a guideline for successful change management, creating strategy, and having all the necessary education toward change can be fruitless if the individual doesn’t have the intrinsic traits of a change agent. Being part of a change team, one has to acknowledge their limitations with regard to personal characteristics. You can learn a lot about these traits in school, but in the end, the real skills to becoming a great change agent comes down to the individual.