organizational change by magdalena neumann, alina sachapow, lucia soskova

Managing Organizations

SS 2011

Magdalena Neumann

Alina Sachapow

Lucia Sošková

April 11, 2023April 11, 2023April 11, 2023 Neumann Sachapow Sošková

Organizational Change: Understanding;From Lewin’s Model to Kotter’s 8 Steps


Outline

• Change

• Lewin‘s Change Model

• Force-Field Analysis

• Puma Case Study

• Kotter‘s 8 steps

• Conclusion

• Discussion


What Is Change?

“Change is the only constant.“Heraclitus, Greek philosopher

“Change is pervasive in our society and a fact of life in

organizations.” Goodfellow 1985

• Change can be a condition and a process

• Condition takes place externally

• What happens in environment cannot be controlled

• Process is what companies foster internally in response to

changes in environment


Why Is Change Needed? I

• Growing and changing marketplace

• Change is essential for a company’s success

CHANGE CAN BE AN OPPORTUNITY BUT ALSO A THREAT

• To benefit:

• Companies have to continuously adopt corporate strategy structure to

changing external conditions

• Stay ahead of the competition

• Not adapt:

• In the long-run not to be able to survive in the global market


Why Is Change Needed? II

How to go about?

• Different change management theories have been developed

• The most common approaches

• 3-steps of freezing and unfreezing by Kurt Lewin

• Eight-step change process by John Kotter

• Change management has gained big importance over the last

decades


What Is Change Management?

“The coordination of a structured period of transition from situation A to situation B in order to achieve lasting change within an organization”(BNET Business Dictionary)


Adaptive and Unadaptive Cultures

• Adaptive Cultures

• Adoption of strategies and practices that continuously respond to

changing markets

• Support an organization's strategy and business context

• Forward looking to positive change

• Unadaptive Cultures

• Arrogant, inward focused and bureaucratic

• Undermine change

Effective leadership needed to move from an Unadaptive Culture to an

Adaptive Culture


Ability and Willingness to Change

Necessity Necessity

Ability Willingness


Employees and Change

Comfort ZoneComfort

Zone

Learning Zone

Learning Zone

Fear Zone

Fear Zone


Organizational Culture Index

• Robert Cooke and Clayton Lafferty

• 96-item survey

• 12 distinct behavioral norms or "styles“

• Categorizes the organization as being one of three types:

• Constructive

• Passive/Defensive

• Aggressive/Defensive


Kurt Lewin

• German-American psychologist

• The creator of the Change model

• Unfreeze-Change-Refreeze


Unfreeze

• The first phase

• The willingness to change needs to be created

• The resistance to the change needs to be minimized

• By interference

• Externally

• Internally


Change

• The second phase

• New organizational structures or ways of behaviour are

introduced

• Necessity of new goals and norms

• The period of confusion and low productivity

• Good leadership is essential in this phase


Refreeze

• The last phase

• The need for the stability of the newly implemented

structures

• Formulation of new rules and policies

• Stability needs to be re-established

• Familiar environment needs to be created


Unfreeze-Change-Refreeze

• Communication is essential

• Employees should be informed about the changes

• They will trust the need for a change

• They will be more open to a change

• Otherwise they may refuse to participate


Force Field Analysis I

• A tool for analysis of the factors that influence change

• A chart depicting the forces influencing the outcome of

implementation attempts of change management

• The forces

• Beneficial in the change process

• Restricting in the change process


Force Field Analysis II

http://wc1.smartdraw.com/examples/content/Examples/05_Strategy_&_Planning/Force_Field_Analysis/Force_Field_ Analysis_-_Model_1_L.jpg


Puma Case I

• The company heading towards bankruptcy

• The change was needed

• The external force unfreezing the static state was the

fear

• Identification of the main issues essential

• After a four phase action plan was developed


Puma Case II

http://wc1.smartdraw.com/examples/content/Examples/05_Strategy_&_Planning/Force_Field_Analysis/Force_Field_Analysis_-_Model_1_L.jpg


John P. Kotter

• An American expert on leadership

and change

• Professor in Harvard Business School

• Author of Eight steps of successful

change


8 Steps of a Successful Change

Form a Strong Guiding Coalition

Create a Change Vision and Strategy

Communicate This Change Vision

Empower Others to Act on the Vision

Generate Short-Term Wins

Consolidate Improvements and Produce More Changes

Secure the New Approaches

Establish a Sense of Urgency


Step 1: Establish a Sense of Urgency

• An important starting point for achieving the desired

change

• Tendency of overlooking this step

• If this step is ignored the company might fail in the

changing process


Step 2: Form a Strong Guiding Coalition

• An essential role in the change process

• The guiding coalition is chosen to lead the change

• It has to be powerful, respectful and knowledgeable

• The leading coalition is necessary to maintain the sense

of urgency


Step 3: Create a Change Vision and Strategy

• Clear vision needs to be clarified

• The effective vision should be

• Imaginative

• Desirable

• Feasible

• Focused

• Flexible

• Communicative


Step 4: Communicate This Change Vision

• After the vision is properly stated, the leaders need to

communicate this vision to the employees

• It should be done in a manner that the advantages of this

change are clearly visible


Step 5: Empower Others to Act on the Vision

• Remove obstacles to change

• Change systems that are in a way of the change

• Encourage the risk-taking


Step 6: Generate Short-Term Wins

• Essential

• Plan the visible improvements

• The wins need to be visible, unambiguous and change

connected

• Reward employees involved


Step 7: Consolidate Improvements and Produce More Changes

• The change needs to be settled deeply in the

organization

• Don’t let up

• Further change the systems

• Hire, promote and develop employees able to

implement the vision

• Introduce new projects


Step 8: Secure the New Approaches

• The last step

• Getting to this step requires effort, energy, and time

• After accomplishment of the objectives the attainment is

necessary


Conclusion

• Change is essential for the organization due to ever

changing environment

• People and their behaviour are important for the change

• The change can be undertaken by the application of

various approaches

• It will be successful only when it is implemented properly


Case study

• Norfolk Southern’s Atlanta terminal

• Katie Frazier she felt operations and safety standards have

to be improved

• Discovered in bookstore’s the Change Management book by

John Kotter “Our Iceberg Is Melting“


Our Iceberg Is Melting

• Simple fable

• About doing well in an ever-changing world

• About a penguin colony in Antartica living for many years on their

iceberg

• One bird discovers a potentially devasting problem threatening

their home



2. Pull Together the Guiding Team1. Create a Sense of Urgency



3. Develop the Change Vision and Strategy

4. Communicate for Understanding and Buy-in



6. Produce Short-Term Wins

5. Empower Others to Act



8. Create a New Culture

7. Don‘t Let Up


Case Study I

Challenges:

• Getting her older co-workers convinced

• Most co-workers were skeptic

Create a Sence of Urgency:

• Create willingness to raise safety and operational standards

• Process of raising urgency level in company took about 2 months

Pull Together Guiding Team:

• Formed “The Iceberg Group“ consisted of 9 people from different

parts of organization


Case Study II

The change vision:

• To change everyone’s mentality and attitude about safety

• Injuries could not be treated as an acceptable risk at a railroad

Communicating for understanding:

- Most railroad’s employees are on move at any given

time

- Most of crew members have no access to modern

communications

• Vision was communicated through “job briefings”

• Over time every crew member touched by vision multiple times

http://www.kotterinternational.com/kotterprinciples/changesteps/step3

http://www.kotterinternational.com/kotterprinciples/changesteps/step4


Case Study III

Empower Others to Act:

How can you make people really care about the highest possible safety

standards, when current standards are already high?

• Make it personal Forced people to think about own families

• Over time people started to change their behavior

Short-Term Wins:

• Six months injury free

Result:

• Has gone almost 9 months injury free and down about 97%

• “The Iceberg Group“


Discussion Questions

• How open is the company culture towards change in this

case? Do you consider it to be adaptive or unadaptive?

• If you have to decide on a leadersip-style to enforce

change in this company, what will it look like?

• Do you see any similiarities to Lewin‘s Change Model?

• How important is communication in this case?


Discussion Question

• Do you think Kotter‘s 8 steps are an effective tool to

implement change?

• If you compare it to Lewin‘s model what would you prefer

and why? Or would you consider both the models when

undertaking change and why?

• Do you know any other example of a successful

implementation of change in a company?


Bibliography

Coutts, Peter. Kotter’s 8 Steps to Successful Change. Sirius Meetings. PDF.

Goodfellow, B. The evolution and management of change in large organizations. Army Organizational Effectiveness Journal,

Vol.9, No. 1. 25. Print.

Hentze, Joachim, Andrea Graf, Andreas Kammel, and Klaus Lindert. Personalführungslehre: Grundlagen, Funktionen Und

Modelle Der Führung. 4th ed. Bern [u.a.: Haupt, 2005. Print.

Keller Johnson, Lauren, and Richard Luecke. "Eight Steps to Change." The Essentials Of Managing Change And

Transition. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business, 2005. 69-89. Print.

"Kotter International - 8 Steps for Leading Change." Kotter International - Home. Web. 12 May 2011.

<http://www.kotterinternational.com/kotterprinciples/ ChangeSteps.aspx>.

Levasseur, Robert E. People Skills: Change Management Tools— Lewin’s Change Model. Annapolis, Maryland: FOX Consulting

Group, Inc., July-Aug. 2001. PDF.

"Lewin's 3 Stage Model." London Management Centre - Management Training, Leadership Training and Executive Courses. Web.

15 May 2011. <http://www.lmcuk.com/management-tool/lewins-3-stage-model>.

"Lewin's Freeze Phases." Changingminds.org. Web. 17 May 2011. <http://changingminds.org/disciplines/change_management

/lewin_change/lewin_change.htm>.

THE LONG VIEW// John Kotter. T+D, Dec. 2009. PDF.

Ridder, Hans-Gerd. Personalwirtschaftslehre. 3rd ed. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2009. Print.

Thomson, Neil, and Charles Baden-Fuller. Basic Strategy in Context European Text and Cases. 1st ed. Chichester: Wiley-

Blackwell, 2010. Print.

Thank You For Your Attention!

organizational change by magdalena neumann, alina sachapow, lucia soskova

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