Cheryl Hailstorm is a dynamic and energetic leader at Lakeland Wonders, a manufacturer of high-quality wooden ties and a legacy going back many decades. The vibrant CEO of the company has brought in many new strategies to the forefront that have been able to help the company improve its status in the market considerably. Her go-getter and aggressive style of management that strives to get out results at a fast pace can be said to have injected a growth potential within the firm.
The problem at the center of the events occurring at the company and some areas of conflict among the top management revolve around the speed of the change that Cheryl wants to bring to the organization. Lakeland Wonders has been working for a considerable amount of time with its own culture. Most of its decisions makers and top-level management have been at the company for a long time and know its workings thoroughly. This has led to the creation of a specific culture at Lakeland Wonders. Things are done in the way they have been done for a long time and acceptance to change is slow.
The thinking of the senior management is represented by the attitude of the senior vice president of operations Mark Dawson. He is a veteran in the company and knows all its ups and downs. When Cheryl pushed for the expansion of the company overseas into China and other cheaper areas where they could get lower costs, Mark had considerable doubts about the company’s capability to do so. He was concerned about the worst-case scenarios and the potential problems the company would have to face with the expansion of production facilities overseas at this juncture. He was wary about the firm’s union problems and others accompanying it. This typified the top-level management’s attitude towards decision-making that considered all the negative aspects and potential problems and put the potential gains to be had second. Even though Cheryl’s plans had appeared to work before, Mark was unwilling to go ahead wholeheartedly with the aggressive expansion and wanted to take things slowly and wait for calmer waters before giving his assent to such a big decision.
This is not a completely new concept. Resistance to rapid change in an organization can exist at multiple levels as theoretical literature points out. The signs of resistance to change and the underlying reasons need to be separated. Employees can manifest active resistance to change by searching for drawbacks to proposed plans or through manipulation. Mark illustrates this to some extent as he is very open about the potential drawbacks of expansion overseas and is worried about union problems. Passive resistance is expressed by agreeing to plans verbally but not at all taking part in their implementation and even hampering the work most of the time. This is being illustrated by most of the senior management at Lakeland as the senior managers all appear enthusiastic about Cheryl’s plans but don’t really back it up with tangible efforts to implement them.
The reasons for resistance to change in an organization can be very foggy and sometimes very difficult to decipher. One of the prominent ones is that employees are required to perhaps learn new techniques or procedures that accompany change. There may not be an actual denial of the benefits the change may bring but a certain level of apprehension is there about unknown factors and the possibility of failure and what that could entail. This plagues the senior management very strongly at Lakeland Wonders who appear fearful of the potential difficulties to be encountered and the worst-case scenario if things don’t work out. They want to implement the changes slowly. It can be said that they are reluctant to leave the familiar behind. There is also the case of people’s knowledge of the need for change but not being psychologically ready to accept a transition to a new mode of things. Cheryl’s aggressive and expansive decisions would have led to a culture that would require aggressive tackling of goals and objectives, setting more challenging deadlines, and always being on the edge to complete the work and grow further. This conflicts with the culture existent in Lakeland Wonders where the office becomes a ghost town at 6 pm and setting and meeting more challenging deadlines does not hold considerable sway. The whole length and breadth of the culture would have to be altered if Cheryl’s leadership philosophy was to come into full implementation.
My solution to this problem of the pace of change would involve the whole structure of the organization. The new goals that need to be set to take Lakeland to higher levels of growth would need to be fully understood by the employees and the senior management if something is to be done. I would implement the changes more slowly. My starting measure would be to call a meeting of all the top-level management and discuss in detail the need for a change in culture if things are to be done at a greater speed in the organization. In an expanding market with increasing globalization and competition, the need of the hour is for Lakeland Wonders to seize the opportunities it has and exploit them now. Since overseas production offers lower operating costs and manufacturing costs, it is worthwhile to expand overseas. It is important to make the senior management understand that if Lakeland does not take this step now, some other competing firm will take it. The company has the opportunity right now to take the Bulls Eye order and make sure its products end up on the shelves there and it can capture that customer before others expand overseas and Bulls Eye changes its preference.
This will have a marked effect on the leadership. Once they are aware of the need of the company to take some aggressive steps, they will engage them more vociferously. When the long-term survival of the company is at stake, they will spur into some sort of action. It would be a lot easier to change the culture of the organization once the senior management is onboard. They would know how to deal with the employees in their departments and make sure the change in culture seeps into them. Once this fear of change is dispelled and change is seen as a requirement of the organization at this juncture, the management will not be as apprehensive about it and accept it more openly.
References
Coetsee, L. (1999). From resistance to commitment. Public Administration Quarterly, 204-222.
Morgan, G. (1997). Images of organization Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.