Organisational Change Development Plan

Contents:
1. Introduction to the case
a. Main Problems:
1.2 Causes of the problems.
a. Power and Politics in the Organization
b. Vision and strategy.
c. Managing stakeholders.
d. Understanding change to achieve or continue success.
e. Leading change from the middle.
1.3 Company’s situation.
2. Analysing the Industry and the Competition. Porter’s Five Forces.
2.1 New Entrants.
2.2 Substitutes.
2.3 Buyers.
2.4 Suppliers.
2.5 Competitors.
3. Analysing the factors that affected Aesch. Pestle Analysis.

3.1 An environmental analysis to identify.

3.2 Strategic analysis of Anna’s proposal.
4. How to introduce and present the proposal “Organisational Change Development
Plan” in order to be supported and implemented:
4.1 Creating an engagement system.
4.2 Applying Dynamic Capabilities.
4.3 A different approach to Power and politics in Aesch Organization.
4.4 Understanding change to achieve or continue success.
5.5 Leading change from the middle.
6. Recommendation and Conclusions
6.1 Process to effectively implement an: “Organisational Change Development Plan”.
“Organisational Change Development Plan”

Task 1

1.1 Introduction to the case

By 2007 Aesch was a successful company allocated between the top four suppliers in
medical devices in Germany with markets shares of 40 percent in individual product
categories, with around 33,000 employees, a big number of employees to be managed by
seven independent Marketing units from a matrix structure. The company specialised in
supplying the best medical equipment for the health sector, including IT systems. Hence, it
was not surprise why executives and bosses in their headquarters did not see the urgency of
Anna’s change proposal as Aesch had an increase of 8.0% in sales and 8.2% in profit in the
previous year.
Anna Frisch was 35 years old, recently promoted as Marketing Director and transferred to
Aesch Dusseldorf. Anna managed to identify major changes in German health industry that
would affect Aesch’s future development. Buchanan and Huczynski, (2017: 55) describe
‘environmental scanning as the act of identifying current and future factors out there which
could affect an organization first. The next challenge is to predict their impact’. Hence, Anna
proposed an urgent restructuration in the company to change the ways of approaching
customers, rather than targeting the needs of clinicians and practitioners in hospitals, Aesch
should address the new decision makers: CEOs, CFOs, or CIOs of hospitals, which needed
a different marketing strategy and approach. Anna planned a rapid change in order to adapt
to the global changes in the Health industry and to make progress.
First, exposing the urgency of the changes needed, to colleagues and bosses, trying to
convince the seven heads of marketing of the importance of these changes. Initially they
were positive, which gave hope to Anna, believing that it was possible to influence her
colleagues to work together and even dedicating part of their budget and time to support her
plan. Unfortunately for her when a second meeting took place, she realised that her
colleague’s commitment and support was minimum to none, the company’s board and VPs
were not in favour of her proposal. Anna could not understand how her peers cannot give
the priority that this project needed to go ahead.
1.2 Strategic analysis of Anna’s proposal:
It seems that bias played a negative influencing role against Anna’s proposal. It is certain
that lack of experience and preparation to face a challenge of this magnitude. Thus, a
proposal coming from a female, young colleague was not going to be easily accepted and
supported by a male culture organization She needed HRM support from the beginning. It is
possible that learning how to develop her leading and political skills to influence people,
being able to manage male bias opposition would have made a difference. A contrasting
perspective to analyse action learning as part of a leadership development is related by
Fenwick (2003) who suggests as participatory nature of action learning to facilitate the use of
power with rather than imposing power over. The facilitator is then learning alongside rather
than developing others. It is considered that support from HRD (Human Resource
Development) as facilitator was needed to introduce the proposal to employees and bosses,
before Anna’s formal presentation. This key action would have done half of the job of dealing
with resistance, bias and opposition. It would have facilitated and reinforced the urgency of
the plan to go ahead. Hence, presenting the proposal would have been a formality, followed
by the implementation of the developing plan with a cohesive support from all Marketing
units instead of just asking for approval and support from colleagues and bosses. Further
research found an important consideration that describes the job of a facilitator as the
person who does the selection and application of appropriate models to reflect processes
taking place (Casey, 2011). Hence, if gender is brought into consideration, this assumes in
the facilitator reflexivity in gender awareness (Rigg and Trehan, 1999). This has resonance
with research carried on women’s leadership learning and development (Ibarra and Kolb,
2011) that suggests situating topics and tools in an analysis of second generation bias so
drawing attention to the powerful yet often invisible barriers or embedded power to women’s
advancement that arise from cultural beliefs about gender. Thus, supported by workplace
structures, practices and patterns of interaction designed to inadvertently favour men.
Perriton and Reynolds (2004, 69), credit a ‘blind spot in relation to gender’ in the
development of managers and leaders to a persistent refusal of critical theorists to
acknowledge how ‘public spaces and notions of citizenship are invariably associated with
male dominance’. This encourages the suggestion of an interrogation of underpinning
assumptions of management education and management practice. Including the wider use
of feminist perspectives in their attention to power relations, can help to challenge masculine
organizing logic that underpins HRD theory and practice. (Metcalfe 2008). A more feminist
perspective examines women’s reflections of action learning as part of a leadership
development programme. This examination aims to brighten gendered power relations in the
practice of action developing learning to explore the implications for action learning in
women’s leadership development. This consideration gender concerns women and men.
Although, the focus concentrates on women in response to studies of women’s management
and leadership development to highlight the importance of developing a more critical
learning and development agenda for women, noticing how programmes are often based on
a notion of gender neutrality that believes inherent gendered power relations. (Ely, Ibarra,
and Kolb 2011; Gherardi and Poggio 2007; Stead and Elliott 2013).
Task 2

2.1 Analysing multiple causes/triggers for change:

a. Aesch model. Further literature review found that a key element was the type of model
operated in Aesch, identified as a structural Matrix model. However, research found
evidence to suggest that Aesch model was a Bureaucratic structure with senior management
team model, with an executive boss for each of its seven units allocated in a different
country where headquarters were based. Described by Morgan (1989: 66) as ‘the
environment is generating novel problems which cannot be anticipated, and for which
responses cannot be codified. The chief executive creates a management team of
departmental heads who meet regularly to deal with non-routine problems. Department
heads have authority over their area of responsibility’. Supporting this is the fact that seven
independent business units were responsible for the global development of company of
33,000 employees. Absolutely autonomy over profit and loss with independent marketing
teams, sales and services, expecting every sales team to sell products from all the business
units.
b. Company Headquarters were in the city of Aesch, outside of Zurich, Switzerland.
Decisions meetings were held every 3 months, which make communication difficult. It can be
said that Aesch had a strong, mindset culture as Buchanan, D. and Huczynski, A. (2013:
124): Argues that disadvantages of a strong culture ‘creates overconfidence and reduces
critical thinking among top management, slowing response to environmental changes,
creating barriers to innovation’. On the eyes of top executives the company was efficient and
profitable. Hence, their mindset needed a strategic approach to be modify.
c. Cultural organizational: A young and inexperienced lady in a new position with a big
task ahead, facing resistance from colleagues. ‘A company’s current top management acts
as its culture carriers. This means that cultural organizational values are the company values
this is similar to the way that organisational goals represent the preferred aims of chief
executives and their management teams (Robbins and Judge, 2013.)
d. The company selling process was focused to satisfy users and clinicians as the main
decision makers. New reforms in the Health industry were made to attend a global market.
e. Power and Politics in the Organization: In a company, power is used to control
behaviours inside the organization. Employees have to follow a system of rules. Translated
to Anna’s proposal, it seems that the embedded power (powers that is less visible) was a
powerful controller of following behaviour at Aesch, with Anna’s lack of skills to influence
decision-making people inside the organization. Therefore just to accept the rejection of
her proposal. Narayan, S. and Corcoran, P. (1997: 353) ‘consider decision making as the
interaction between a problem that needs to be solved and a person who wishes to solve it
within a specific environment’.
b. Vision and strategy. It appears that: Benefit has a directly inverse relation with risk. As
much profit and benefit is seen by the bosses as less risk is recognised by its executives
(Harris, 2009). Company’s profitability of previous years, did not allow VPs and Executives to
see threats coming.

c. Managing stakeholders. Persuading and conceiving leadership as a dynamic, emergent,

collective concern has a number of possible implications for women leadership particularly
as masculine leadership performances were considered heroics (Sinclair, 2005). For a
woman alone, to try to manage to persuade stakeholders and mail colleagues for support it
was an extremely difficult task.
d. Understanding change to achieve or continue success.
Companies have to be prepared and ready to change if want to succeed. However,
companies and organizations were not designed to be flexible and change frequently, this is
the reason organizations get deeply affected by external environmental changes. Buchanan
and Huczynski (2013: 634) states that ‘change is a constant and it is a constant challenge
for organizations and for us as individuals motivated by different triggers of change’.
Triggers of change that affected Aesch directly were:
 Economic and trading conditions, domestic and global.
 Changes in consumers, demands and expectations.
 Legislations, regulations, government reform policies, corporate social responsibility
demands.
 Changes in social and cultural values.
 Adopting new ideas about how to deliver services to customers.
e. Leading change from the middle.
The participative approach to lead the change from Anna was a good starting point and
made a positive impact. Nevertheless, Aesch was profitable at the time and to accept a
change in its global organization, without HRM it was a difficult task.

Task 3
3.1 Analysing the Industry. Porter’s Five Forces. Porter (1980) in his Competitive
Strategy book claims that any industry has five basic forces that shape the internal
competition. A groundbreaking concept of the value chain disaggregates a company into
activities, or the discrete functions or processes that represent the elemental building blocks
of competitive advantage.
3.1.2 New Entrants. By 1990’s the German Health care sector had experienced the lowest
expected growth rates, due to the already high level of spending for medical devices, low
GDP and no population growth. Even though, Germany was a battlefield market with strong
presence of all global players, the medical devices business was expected to become even
more competitive, making this a blue ocean for new entrants with low barriers, an enter to
the market was granted.
3.1.3 Substitutes: The German medical devices business was expected to become even
more competitive. Combined factors like: Health care reforms that were affecting already
the market, plus economic reductions policies were welcomed by alternative companies
offering similar products that satisfied the same needs for a cheaper price.
3.1.4 Buyers: The same factors above were influential in decision-making and purchasing
behaviour, where clinicians were the main decision makers. Under the new reforms,
hospitals administrators and purchasing departments were influential in the purchasing
process. Thus, strong buyers have a strong power to influence the prices in the market. On
the other hand if a buyer is tie to a supplier it will be costly switching to other company.
3.1.5 Suppliers: In 2006 the German medical devices market was estimated to include more
than 400,000 different products, across 8000 categories. Powerful suppliers can demand
premium prices and limit your profit.
3.1.6 Competitors: Germany share 6 percent of the total world market after United States
and Japan. Aggressive competition leads to reduced potential profit for companies in the
same market.

Profit: 8% increase in the

previous year

Planet Sales 9,876.
40% in individual
product categories.
People: Strengths of
the company;
empower the ability
to sense and shape
opportunities to
reconfigure the
business if needed
Chart 1. Elkington (1997). Triple Bottom Line - People, Planet and Profit.

3.2 Analysing the company. Pestle Analysis.

3.2.1 An environmental analysis to identify:

a. Political: German government reforms from 2004 and 2007 that would had affected Aesch
decision making purchasing behaviour and distribution sales system. Also, inside the
company an executive power decision-making was part of their culture and needed a
strategic approach to accept changes.

b. Economic: Health care system in German had been undergoing a substantial

economization. Two-thirds of hospitals were running deficit, with 15 percent of them facing
bankruptcy.

c. Social: Described by Hofstede (2014) as a masculine society Germany with a score of 66

over 100 percent and Switzerland with 70 percent in this dimension, with both rankings for
German speaking Switzerland and the French speaking of the country indicating a
Masculine society that describe their societies as highly success oriented and driven, albeit
that in the German speaking part the impact is much more noticeable. In Masculine
countries, people ‘live in order to work’, managers are expected to be decisive. A Feminine
society is one where quality of life is the sign of success and standing out from the crowd is
not admirable. This created barriers and made more difficult for a female director to convince
their colleagues.
d. Technological: Under the new emerging scenario purchases would be made by hospital
administrators and purchasing departments.
e. Legal: The government reforms brought specific laws for purchasing process.
f. Ecological: A large health care reform wanted to limit further increases in health care
spending.
3.3. Process to introduce a proposal to influence people in the order to be supported
and implemented.
3.3.1 Creating an engagement system.
Further research found that a key difference for an efficient Development Plan
implementation will be made by having a HR Business Partnering alongside with internal
HRM (Human Resources Management) acting as business partner for Aesch working with
marketing director’s Anna, following the steps that are described as the core practices that
enhance employment engagement. (Guest, 2014).
a. Select staff that have a propensity for engagement, train them through induction and
coaching. (Guest, 2014).
b. Redesign jobs to increase autonomy, provide organizational support through to supportive
systems, culture and leadership. (Guest, 2014).
c. Reward and promote managers for their ability to engage employees, ensure fair
treatment and trust in engagement. (Guest, 2014).
d. Ensure effective two-way communication. Create a context that reinforces job security and
flexible working, adopting a HR strategy that values engagement and these other practices.
(Guest, 2014). Core practices are vital in order to effectively introduce employees and
company executives to a new reform plan in the organization. Anna’s, needed a HRM acting
as facilitator and backup in order to help her to introduce the plan proposal to her colleagues
and bosses.

3.3.2 Applying Dynamic Capabilities and empowering colleagues to be part of the

change process. Empowering employees and colleague’s ability to sense and shape
opportunities to reconfigure the business with a flexible approach to reshape its model and
to create a model that would adapt to changes in the industry. Following the next steps:
a. Sensing the need for a change inside its model and identified that a quick an innovative
change was required.
b. Seizing, after analysed the market, customer requirements and needs, proceeds to apply
a flexible approach, working together, employing dynamic capabilities within the different
departments to accomplish the model propose to create an added value for the company.
(Teece et al., 1993) defines Dynamic capability as the company’s organizational
competences to incorporate, integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external
capabilities to address rapidly changing environments.

3.3.3 A different approach to Power and politics in Aesch Organization.

Power is considered by Buchanan and Huczynski (2014) as overwhelmed opposition to
apply their will and to produce consistent results that supports their own interest and
objectives. On this context, Anna needed to influence decision-makers to have the power on
her side to make her proposal to be accepted. Further advising will focus on developing
Political skills that would had helped Anna to influence people with power like stakeholders,
related by Ferris (1951) having political skills can increase individual performance,
leadership effectiveness, career success and the ability to influence colleagues and to cope
with work stress. Translated to Anna’s case, her proposal plan needed to be implemented
in order to benefit the company’s development and future. Nonetheless, as mentioned
before embedded power was a powerful controller of employee’s behaviour. In other
words, power-controlled behaviour inside the organizational structure, where employees
had to follow a system of rules. Thus, Anna simply had to accept the rejection of her
proposal. At the same time Anna’s skills were not polished enough to influence decision-
makers that could have help her to use their power inside the organization. Narayan and
Corcoran (1997) consider decision-makers as people with power to grant interaction
between a problem that needs to be solved and a person who wishes to solve it within a
specific environment. The process of decision making is one of the most complex
mechanisms of human thinking, as it is influenced by various factors and courses of action
that affects it. Orasanu and Connolly (1993) define decision making as series of cognitive
operations performed consciously, which include the fundamental features from the
company’s environment in a particular time and place.

3.3.4 Understanding change to achieve or continue success.

Organizations that are not prepare to face environmental changes nor flexible enough to
adapt to change circumstances, would have a poor performance even may go out of
business. Buchanan and Huczynski (2013). Change means developing and learning,
upgrading new skills to be ready to identify and deal with triggered internal and external
factors in the organisation. Buchanan and Huczynski (2013: 659) explains ‘change varies in
depth, from shallow fine-tuning, to deep transformational change. The broad direction of
change in most organizations is becoming less mechanic and bureaucratic, and more
adaptive, responsive an organic’.

3.3.5 Leading change from the middle.

Participative methods are a good way of generating participation and colleague’s
commitment, but it needs plenty of time to be effective. Some professionals argue that quick
and effective major transformations are more successful implemented using a dictatorial or
coercive style. (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2013).

Task 4
4.1. Recommendations. This research found that in order to establish an effective relation
with colleagues and bosses in organizations, there are two key elements on top of the list:
Political skills and Power. Thus, those elements can be considered game changers in an
organization’s future. Although, there is evidence that women do not use these two elements
or tactics in the same manner as men. Fiorina, (2006: 70) claims that ‘women suffer from
sex role stereotyping that associate’s management with masculinity and women abilities are
consequently underestimated’.
4.2 Knowing how to use of Political skills. In the writer’s humble opinion, developing
political skills are the best asset that a person can achieve in order to purse success. It is
considered as the art of knowing how to use your tools in order to achieve your goals. It can
be contemplated as the main skill to influence powerful people. Ferris (1951) refers as
interpersonal trait that integrates social astuteness with a well-spoken ability, to manifest
suitable, persuasive and charming behaviour in different situations in a captivating manner
that inspires confidence, trust, genuineness and goodwill.

5.2 Power. It is considered a debated concept, but the description that seems more
assertive is given by Lukes (2005) Power is applied to secure a decision where there is
resistance or conflict. Power is applied where there is a possible unseen disagreement and
to keep issues off the decision-making agenda. Institutionalized power is applied in an
embedded form that norms are followed by members of an organization even if these are
against their own interests.

4.3 Methods for managing resistance.

The first three: A, B, and C, can be very effective but takes time to implement. The last three:
D, E and F, are faster than the others and very effective too, especially dealing with powerful
and difficult stakeholders. However, they can bring future problems to organizations as they
are riskier and sometimes costly implementation. (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2013).

A. Education and effective communication.

B. Participation and involvement.
C. Facilitation and support.
D. Negotiation and agreement.
E. Manipulation and co-optation.
F. Explicit and implicit coercion.

4.4 Working together with OB and HRM. Best practice and next practice.
‘Human resource management is the function responsible for establishing integrated
personnel policies to support organizational strategy’ (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2013: 27)
OB (Organizational behaviour) contributes to evidence best practice in this area. Working
together with HRM will facilitate the process of organisations. ‘Organizational behaviour
studies the structure and management of organizations, their environments and the actions
and interactions of their individual members and groups’. (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2013:
6). Both policies working together makes processes effective. HRM encourage commitment,
engagement, flexibility and high performance from employees in the context of corporate
strategy. ‘Evidence-based best practice means doing what worked in the past. To respond
effectively to new challenges, we need to focus also on next practice’ (Mohrman and Lawler,
2012: 42)

Task 5

Conclusions

Overall, it is certain that having HR partnering will almost secure the whole process from
presentation to implementation of a development plan in an organization. On top of this
without considering gender, a person has to develop political skills and constant learning and
developing abilities in order to pursue personal goals or to influence powerful people inside
an organization structure.
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