When Woolworths’ CEO Michael Luscombe took over from previous CEO, Roger Corbett in 2006 the management style changed. Corbett had an autocratic, uncompromising and conservative leadership style whilst Luscombe placed great emphasis on team-work. When such a drastic change occurs there may be many barriers that could affect the success of this change. Many believe that this specific change has been better by moving forwards a 21st century management style but with this drastic change comes the responsibility of Woolworths in making sure this change is managed effectively and the barriers can be avoided (Davidson, Simon, Woods and Griffin, 2009). This report will discuss the barriers of change any company, and specifically Woolworths will be affected by and how an open and honest communication system will best manage these barriers.
In all organisations the managerial decisions ultimately impact stakeholders and managing change is one of the most difficult tasks facing managers today. There are many reasons for the need to implement change. These include the desire to improve productivity, maximise shareholder value, globalisation, broken communication system and technological advances (Soltani, Lai and Mahmoudi, 2007, Ahn, Adamson and Dornbusch, 2004, Macadam, 1996). When several barriers are evident when a change is implemented, the possibility of failure is significantly increased and this can be caused by not managing change effectively. Failures include lack of commitment, poor management skills, lack of training, and confusion about rationale for change (LaCLair and Rao 2002).
“Change Management is the process of continually renewing the organisations direction, structure, and capabilities to serve the ever-changing needs of the marketplace, the organisation and employees”. (Moran and Avergun, 1997). In order for an organisation to manage change effectively managers need to have an open and honest communication system in all facets of the