Change Plan Stakeholders
In a change process, there are many stakeholders who are involved. Some lose while the others gain. This is because any change process is viewed as a threat of “how things have comfortably been operating” (Levine, 1995). In Kudler Fine Foods, there are various stakeholders. These include the administration team that runs the three Kudler fine foods branches.
The administrative team is composed of Kent Vesper who is the La Jolla store manager, Laurie Priest, who is the Del Mar store manager, and Juanita Lopez who is the Encinitas store manager.
These managers will be affected in the change process since they will be required to make more decisions on their own without consulting Kent who is the owner of the Kudler Fine Foods. Since the leadership management is autocratic, the owner of the Kudler fine foods is to initiate a change which means empowering most of the employees to make independent management decisions.
Other stakeholders to the management change plan include the employees who will be required to adapt to the new leadership style anticipated. Empowering employees enables them to be actively involved in meetings, to diagnose various issues and identify accurately possible and practical solutions to the problems.
Current State of Kudler Fine foods
The current state of the organization is wanting in many areas. The leadership style is autocratic where the owner heads all the functional areas of the organization. She hires and fires employees by her own, signs all inventories, makes all orders manages the accounts and she only includes the stores managers on a need to know basis.
This has led the organization to having a kind of culture where the owner dictates and decides a lot of things. This has killed the innovativeness of the employees as they only act on instructions which are mostly issued during the weekly meetings held with them. The organization, however, has an elaborate structure that has chain of command in executing management decisions.
This chain of command is fully effective since the Kent issues majority of the orders and due to the type of leadership style; the orders are passed down from the management. The organization also uses psychological and monetary rewards system.
Evaluations are carried out by the various supervisors who give appraisal results to the management for rewards. The rewards system in the organization can be termed as effective since employees who show excellence in performance are rewarded with high pay, bonuses, promotions and top levels in the organization.
Desired future
Kudler Fine Foods desires to have an organization where the decision making process involves the inputs of the supervisors and managers. This is because they are always at a functional level and thus able to make decisions from a more informed and competent point of view. Enabling supervisors and managers to make decision will ensure that the organizational processed will become more efficient and effective (Kirkpatrick, 2001).
It will also lead to more appropriate courses of action because the managers will be assumed to be more knowledgeable in their area of operations. The decisions will be also more reflective on the real issue affecting the organization and address those matters in a more practical manner. The organizations processes are, therefore, expected to be streamlined resulting in more efficiency in service delivery.
Gap analysis
The current state of affairs at Kudler Fine Foods presents a situation that needs change to be implemented. The culture of the organization is the type of culture that expects the management to dictate the courses of action. This is due to the autocratic leadership style being practiced. The supervisors and managers receive decisions from the owner of the organization.
They then pass the information to their subordinates who carry out the executions. The desired state is where the managers and the supervisors are able to diagnose problems and make independent decisions without necessarily consulting the owner.
To do this, the owner needs to communicate fully the change strategy to the managers and supervisors as well as initiate delegations where they will be required to make decisions on their own.
Barriers to change
Naturally, human beings do not like change. They prefer to remain in their comfort zones where things remain as they have always been (Levine, 1995). In Kudler Fine Foods, a sense of insecurity by the owner could be the biggest barrier to change. This is because the owner may feel as if she is relinquishing her powers to other individuals who may make wrong decisions affecting the organization.
This is because she may feel that the powers she has held for long are being distributed to the employees who may bring the organization down. Individuals in power are usually reluctant to share their powers with the others so that they may continue enjoy autonomous right to make decisions.
Flawed communication strategies may also act as barriers to change in Kudler fine foods. People tend to reject change if it is communicated from the top management (Dew, 1997).
In Kudler Fine Foods, if the communication does not come from the direct, supervising may results in employees seeing the change process as the only beneficial to the owner, thus resisting the intended change. Involving the store managers and the supervisors will ensure that the change process is embraced by the employees in a holistic manner.
References
Dew, J. R. (1997). Empowerment and Democracy in the Workplace. Westport: Quorum Books.
Kirkpatrick, D. L. (2001). Developing Supervisors and Team Leaders. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Levine, D. L. (1995). Reiventing the Workplace: How Businesses and Employees Can Both Win. Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution.