All entries for March 2019

NECESSITIES TO CHANGE

Managing change is a very complex process. There are some important things that I learnt during the module. During change, people will be confused and would ask questions and suggest their own solutions. If you have a strong vision and finding it difficult to convince people to follow what is necessary for change, then the first thing that needs to be done is that we have to stop convincing them. Be critical and ask them the questions that you think are necessary for change. The overall approach to this process should be to find a solution to the problem, not suggesting your own solutions to the problem. If you are not able to answer questions about the reasons for change it means that the manager is not clear about why he wants to change the organisation. There might be different reasons for change in the SSIs. It might be linked to increasing the efficiency, managing the expectations of customers, Job enrichment or improving the job security of each person (making predictable sales, sales forecasting). Force field Analysis is another important tool that can be used in the process. Strategy is always about where we are and where we want to be? It is important to know the current scenario so that the changes can be made. There are several questions that need to be asked in order to drive it. What and Who needs to change? In order to encourage them to change it is important to buy them into the organisational vision. Appreciation of the future state of the organisations acts as a catalyst to change.

People's emotions are always at the forefront and cause hinderance for a leader. When you ask people to give up their traditional ways of working they start to resist it. It is necessary to keep in mind the change curve and be prepared for the emotions such as Anger, Depression, resistance. It is necessary to not take these things personally and guide the workforce through the whole emotional journey to instill a positive mindset. Continuous Improvement is a mindset that every employee in the organisation should follow. The reflective exercises will help to start the culture in the organisation.

Setting the organisational culture is important as a foundation. Things just build up on that. As people, who have operated in a traditional structure, the concept of changing the whole culture demands big changes. To build a resilient organisation, I need to develop a deeply rooted values and vision as a whole. The analogy of linking organisation with martial arts is very interesting. Just like a fighter you need to have strong base (deeply rooted values) and be agile in your response (believing in quick failures and learning from mistakes and standing up). Always looking into the opponents eyes (scanning the external environment) and making a counter strategy for the next move. Predictability is an important term that I came across. How predictable is the supply chain, sales, production capacitity, leadership, employee turn over. I would rate all of them low in the current scenario. The unpredictability makes the task of making change even more tough. It is a feature of the unorganised industries. Once I have predictable systems into actions, I can start calculating stable cycle time, give sales forecast. knowing procurement needs.

It is very imporatnt for me to start understanding what people are thinking. To manage change it is necessary to ask them the question of "why are they thinking what they are thinking?" Challenge their idea and generate solutions. As a traditional organisation, it is necessary to give the workforce the skills to change and transform themselves. This is how the change process will transform from the shop floor.

Saurabh Kukreja : 23 Mar 2019 15:14 |  Tags: Change Management Mbe |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

DRIVING CHANGE

I have also felt that the questions are more important than solutions at this point of time while I am in university. Although there are questions that I am trying to fing answers to. The question of , "How to drive change" always makes me curious. In order to change the current situation of the SSIs, I wouls like to apply the strategic change dimensions for driving it. First of all I need to ask my organisation the question of Why do I need to change? For this I need to measure the current capabilities and the compettencies of my organisation and compare it with the outside environment. I am still figuring a way out in order to find a way to measure the organisational capabilities. This will also help me to move one step ahead in my dissertation. This step is followed by asking what and how to change? Whether I need to change the organisational culture or something else? The how question is the phrase that will guide me to the right place. Kolb's reflective cycle is one other way in which I can grow. Th ereflection cycle can be useful in making a culture of organisational learning philosophy. What if all the employees in my organisation can follow this reflective cycle? Deming's PDSA cycle also comes into picture here. I fing a lot of similarities between these two cycles. The major difference is that PDSA is a process based cycle where you plan and learn whereas reflective cycle you don't plan any thing.

In the simulation exercise in the MOC module there was a lack of communication in the organisation in the Day 2 of the exercise.This was a major reason where the organisation was not able to learn. Once you don't talk to each other there is no learning. Learning comes with sharing. I would want my organisation to communicate well and be transparent in the operations. reflection will lead to fast failure. Fail and learn fast and move ahead. The employees did not know what the R&D department was doing nor did people know about the sales. This is because of the lack of communication. Once people are not communicating there are not able to understand what is their interdependent relationship. This becomes necessary for all the departments to run together. The end of day 2 was a bit disappointing because of the underperformance of the team. There was a need for better communication within the team. As a leader my role was very important in such a scenario. It is not always going to be easy to manage people to change. If I apply this change model in SSis, these difficulties of people not listening and resisting, miscommunicating, misunderstanding will always occur. It is my responsibility as a leader to implement change.

Today's day started with the tools and techniques to implementing change. The whole process has been made into a mindmap. There were some important questions that always came up into my head. We always talk about Continuous improvement culture. But how can I do it? How do I measure the CI or the organisational capabilities? ISO certificate can be an evidence of the capabilities but it still does not convince me. Also while looking at the problems I learnt that the way you ask the problem influences the solutions of the problem. For example for SSis, "How to make more money?" will have different solutions than" How to develop organisational capabilities?" Both problems are intended by the manager to help the business grow but the solutions given by the organisational capability problem does give a more holistic approach for orgsanisational development. The answer of the question "How?" is not very easy but at the same time very interesting.

Saurabh Kukreja : 21 Mar 2019 00:13 |  Tags: Change Dimensions Strategic |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

CHANGE SIMULATION

I am on a very interesting module cuurently named as Management of Change. Change leads to competitive advantage. I have seen the unorganised manufacturing sector where there is a lot of resistance to change. The need to survival forces them to develop their capabilities. Today I was put into a simulation where I was made as the finance manager of a company whose functioning I could relate to the organisations that I have experienced.There were a lot of similarities. I would take them one by one. We as a team were leading an organisation that had no direction. The people in all departments were busy with daily work without having a mission and a sense of direction. The main motive was to make profits and achieve a target but employees were clueless. There was a lack of strategic thinking in the organisation. We kept on producing the low profit margin product and no one thought about innovating the product. Easily we could have understood our manufacturing capabilities and produced a fine product. The lead times were too long, and the supply chain was not responding to the needs of the organisation. The possible ways to look at would be to be more customer consciouss and make products after researching the needs of the customer applying QFD in order to gain competitive advantage. Then it is very important for the R&D to introduce new products in the market. The current situation was such that the existing product could can easily loose its importance in the market due to the product life cycle. The introduction of new products is necessary. There was no transparency in the organisation as to the orders that came in and ones which got cancelled. this leads to delays and confusion within the organisation. A tarnsparent system can be of great benefit where the current order processing is fairly visible. The traditional organisations face fair amount of redundant paperwork, there is also a need to double check the processes causing duplicacy. There was further lack of communication within the organisation where the shop-floor workers were not able to communicate the difficulties in the production process with the top level management. These all are the problems that are face in the unorganised sector. To lead the market and change growth strategies are necessary to overcome these challenges. Hoping to enjoy next couple of days in the simulation.

Saurabh Kukreja : 18 Mar 2019 22:37 |  Tags: Change Efqm Management Of |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem