In order for managers to respond effectively to environmental or organizational pressures that can be disruptive to an organization, they must implement clear intervention strategies. In a 1,000-1250 word paper, propose a change plan to respond to the most significant pressures affecting the organization represented in your Pressures for Change assignment from Topic 2. Include the following:
1. Review the organizational/environmental pressures you presented in your initial paper: Determine which pressure is most important to address at this time in order to maintain a competitive and viable company. Summarize the pressure and how the organization is currently being affected. Project the outcome for the organization if it fails to address the pressure.
2. Develop a change vision to respond to the organizational or environmental pressure: The vision must define the organizational change and resonate with the decision making and strategies proposed in the paper. Additionally, the vison must include a cognitive and affective component in order to help stakeholders understand how to achieve the goals, and to inspire and motivate them to engage in the change.
3. Develop a change model to implement your change vision. Identify the specific steps needed to implement a change and effectively respond to the pressure. Describe a strategy for implementing each step.
4. Evaluate the potential resistance from stakeholders. Discuss the reasons for the resistance, at what point the resistance will likely occur, and some strategies for overcoming the resistance.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

Implementing change

Part 1. Organizational/environmental pressure

Hexel Carwash Services (HCS) is an organization that provides carwash services as its primary business activity. In fact, it offers cleaning, washing and waxing services for the interior and exterior of cars, as well as cleaning services for furniture and carpets. The organization has been operational for eight months and is operated as a sole proprietorship. Like any other business entity, HCS seeks to maximize its competitive advantages even as it grows and expands to acquire a larger market share (Mitra, 2017). To be more precise, the company is under internal and external pressures the help in setting priorities for the organization and identifying a need for change. The external pressures for change include technological, political, competitive and economic forces, as well as customer preferences. The internal pressures for change include resource limitations, profitability, speculations, administrative processes, and systemic forces (Nickels, 2019). As a company already in business, the internal and external pressures determine how HCS should prioritize its business decisions. Although the company is already in business, these pressures have created a need for a second-order change with radical organizational changes required. Failing to address these pressures could cause the company’s growth to not only stagnate, but there is a possibility of losing market share (Kahle, 2017). Consequently, the company has determined to implement change by offering fully automated carwash services that involve the use of programmed equipment to conduct car cleaning, washing and waxing services as well as collect payment so that no personnel will be required. This change is anticipated to increase its market share, acting as second-order change since it creates a new way of doing business and requires new learning as new technology is introduced. The change would occur in management since an automated car wash facility does not require as many personnel as a full-service car wash with attendants. The change will require HCS to consider new organizational forms as it shifts responsibilities, restructures roles, modifies objectives, shifts focus, and develops new forms as adaptive efforts targeted at improving the odds of success for the change . Implementing Change of Environmental Pressure Discussion Paper

Part 2. Change vision

The internal and external pressures have been identified, and they inform the business environment for HCS. These pressures have created a need for change. To rally the whole organization to change, a change vision has been created that presents the ideal future state for HCS. The organization has a new transformational goal of increasing its market share while increasing customer retention by significant margins in the next six months. The change vision for the organization is: “Striving to be the city’s leader in car wash services delivery”. This is a feasible and lofty vision that is in line with the company’s transformational goal. It deals aggressively with market share increase and staying ahead of the competition as the pressing emergent issue (Hisrich & Kearney, 2014).

It is based on four principles. The first principle is simplicity. It is a single statement of eleven words that articulates a powerful objective that stakeholders can understand and envision its outcome. The second principle is authenticity. HCS is already in business and the next logical step is the company growth. Although it does not as yet have an established organizational culture since it has been operational for a short period of time, the company has accountability as a foundational element since its primary objective is making a profit. The presented vision allows for immediate action through investment in an automated car wash facility, and following through on this will be a good way to build trust. The third principle is consistent behavior. The vision and proposed change can easily be embodied by all stakeholders. The final principle is feedback. The vision allows for feedback (Roetzer, 2014). Overall, the presented vision describes the inspirational and clear long-term desired outcome that is anticipated to result from setting up an automated car wash facility as the organization change.

Part 3. Change model

The change model proposed for the present case is Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model. The first step of the model is creating urgency in which stakeholders are influenced to want the change. This is intended to spark the initial motivation for the change. This step will be achieved through identifying competition as a threat to the company, and developing future scenarios of the company losing growth opportunities if it does not introduce new business lines. In addition, it examines the opportunities that could be and should be exploited. Also, it facilitates honest discussion and offers convincing and dynamic reasons to get the stakeholders thinking and talking about the need for change. The second step is to form a powerful coalition of stakeholders who support the change. This focuses on convincing stakeholders that change is necessary, getting visible support and strong leadership from key stakeholders with a diversity of expertise and status. The specific activities undertaken in this step include identifying leaders, asking for emotional commitment, and building strong teams. The third step is to create a clear vision for the change. The vision presented for the change is: “Striving to be the city’s leader in car wash services delivery”. This vision helps stakeholders in understanding their position in the change agenda. It determines the values central to the change and organization, presents a summary of the company’s future, and creates a strategy for addressing the change (Kotter & Rathgeber, 2016). The fourth step is communicating the vision by embedding it in all the company activities so that it remains fresh in the mind of all stakeholders. This helps in addressing all anxieties and concerns honestly and openly. The fifth step is to remove obstacles where the stakeholders, structures and processes that are resistant to the change are identified and targeted action implement to quickly remove the obstacles. The sixth step is creating short-term wins whereby the change vision is presented as short-term objectives. These short-term wins help in motivating stakeholders even as they indicate that the organization has partially achieved its change vision. The next step is building on the change whereby the vision is always revised to reflect the prevailing environmental conditions, and objectives changed accordingly. This step helps in maintaining and increasing the change momentum through keeping ideas fresh. The final step is anchoring the change so that it becomes a part of the company culture. This requires regular communication and updates, training, and planning for continued change even through leadership changes (Kotter & Rathgeber, 2016). The presented change model is anticipated to guide the change process while improving the odds of successful achieving the change vision.

Part 4. Potential resistance

Although the proposed change is anticipated to benefit the HCS, there are stakeholders who are likely to express resistance to the change with the potential for the change to fail. Eight reasons have been identified that could cause resistance. The first reason is job security and loss of status within the company. Although the proposed change does not result in roles being reduced or eliminated, they indicate a trend in which personnel involvement will be minimized. These second reason is fear of the unknown. The personnel are unsure about how the change will affect them. The third reason is peer pressure whereby some personnel will feel compelled to resist the change in order to protect their colleagues. The fourth reason is a climate of mistrust whereby the stakeholders do not trust the presented intentions. The fifth reason is company politics whereby some stakeholders will resist the change simply to cause it to fail and prove their rivals wrong. The sixth reason is fear of failure. The final reason is faulty implementation approach (Nickels, 2019). These barriers to change can be addressed through three strategies. The first strategy is good management that plans for the change and adapts the change plan based on the prevailing circumstances. In addition, there should be open an honest communication that prevents destructive speculation while addressing any questions and concerns that the stakeholders could have. Also, the change can be forced so that the stakeholders have no other option other than to support the change if they want to remain as part of the organization (Kotter & Rathgeber, 2016).

References

Hisrich, R. & Kearney, C. (2014). Managing innovation and entrepreneurship. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Kahle, D. (2017). The Good book on business: lessons from the #1 best seller of all time. Washington, D.C.: DaCo Corporation.

Kotter, J. & Rathgeber, H. (2016). Our iceberg is melting: changing and succeeding under any conditions. London: Penguin Publishing Group.

Mitra, J. (2017). The business of innovation. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Inc.

Nickels, W. (2019). Understanding business (12^th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Roetzer, P. (2014). The marketing performance blueprint: strategies and technologies to build and measure business success. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.  Implementing Change of Environmental Pressure Discussion Paper