Assignment 1
Joanna Lewis
Dr. Kelly Nicholson
HRM 560 – Managing Organizational change
July 15, 2014
This assignment is to first, read the “Stories of Change” section in Chapter 1 of the textbook; Managing organizational change: A multiple perspectives approach (2nd ed.) by Ian Palmer, Richard Dunford, and Gib Akin (2009). The stories describe how companies such as Hewlett Packard, IBM, Kodak, and McDonald’s have addressed significant changes within their organizations. What follows will be a review that identifies three (3) significant errors, and the ramifications of those mistakes, made out of all of the change stories using the John P. Kotter model as described in Kotter, J. (2012) Leading change. In addition to identifying the errors, I will propose at least one recommendation for each change story that would have improved the effectiveness of the change process and explain why that recommendation would have altered the outcome of the change process.
Lastly, I will attribute a change image to the leading managers of directors in each change story and provide an explanation as to why that change image is appropriate. I will also recommend a different strategy for managing change in each one of the change stories presented and provide a justification for my strategic recommendation.
In the first story of change, the significant error made by the managers at Hewlett-Packard (HP) is failure to create a sufficiently powerful guiding coalition. The announcement of the merger with Compaq was done in September 2001 yet; in March 2002 the CEO Carly Fiorina and CFO Bob Wayman were struggling with having to convince Deutsche Bank that the merger is in the best interest of both organizations. Fiorina and Wayman had not taken the opportunity to convince the son of the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, Walter Hewlett that the merger was in the best interest of the organization, and he had publicly opposed the merger, which required shareholders’ approval. Kotter
Dr. Kelly Nicholson
HRM 560 – Managing Organizational change
July 15, 2014
This assignment is to first, read the “Stories of Change” section in Chapter 1 of the textbook; Managing organizational change: A multiple perspectives approach (2nd ed.) by Ian Palmer, Richard Dunford, and Gib Akin (2009). The stories describe how companies such as Hewlett Packard, IBM, Kodak, and McDonald’s have addressed significant changes within their organizations. What follows will be a review that identifies three (3) significant errors, and the ramifications of those mistakes, made out of all of the change stories using the John P. Kotter model as described in Kotter, J. (2012) Leading change. In addition to identifying the errors, I will propose at least one recommendation for each change story that would have improved the effectiveness of the change process and explain why that recommendation would have altered the outcome of the change process.
Lastly, I will attribute a change image to the leading managers of directors in each change story and provide an explanation as to why that change image is appropriate. I will also recommend a different strategy for managing change in each one of the change stories presented and provide a justification for my strategic recommendation.
In the first story of change, the significant error made by the managers at Hewlett-Packard (HP) is failure to create a sufficiently powerful guiding coalition. The announcement of the merger with Compaq was done in September 2001 yet; in March 2002 the CEO Carly Fiorina and CFO Bob Wayman were struggling with having to convince Deutsche Bank that the merger is in the best interest of both organizations. Fiorina and Wayman had not taken the opportunity to convince the son of the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, Walter Hewlett that the merger was in the best interest of the organization, and he had publicly opposed the merger, which required shareholders’ approval. Kotter
References: Kotter, J. (2012). Leading change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Palmer, I., Dunford, R., & Akin, G. (2009). Managing organizational change: A multiple perspectives approach (2nd ed.). New York: McGaw-Hill. Stewart, G., L. & Browne, K. G. (2012). Human resource management (2nd ed.). Danvers, MA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Winstein, K. J. (2007) Kodak swings to a profit as more sales shift to digital areas. The Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition), August 3:A6.