Red Carpet is a national hotel and entertainment company. It owns a multitude of small hotels, inns, and other entertainment facilities across the US. Recently, it has acquired a movie theater company and needs to manage its incorporation into the greater whole. The purpose of this paper is to identify and describe internal and external forces for change and highlight the biggest OD (Organizational Development) challenges for a consultant at Red Carpet.
External Forces for Change
External forces for change in an organization include several broad categories, over which a company has limited to no control. These are the economic environment, technological development, the political and government situation, the socio-cultural aspect, and the operational element (Cameron & Green, 2019). For Red Carpet, the most prominent external forces are culture, tech, and economy. Culture has a significant impact on the popularity of movie theaters – modern youth watches movies from the comfort of their homes. In order to compete, a cinema needs to offer a better experience, or feature products not available in the Internet. In terms of technology, movie theaters are to be kept at the cutting edge of cinematographic experience. Finally, economic and geopolitical crises have made the population poorer, reducing the amount of money to be spent on cinema (Cameron & Green, 2019). All of these factors are to be accounted for when incorporating movie theaters into Red Carpet.
Internal Forces for Change
Internal forces in an organization are associated with management, restructuring, and entrepreneurship. For Red Carpet, changes in management and restructuring are the two obvious drivers of change (Cameron & Green, 2019). The company has just acquired a chain of movie theaters, which need to be integrated into the greater whole. It means that the board of directors would likely be expanded to include a representative from a newly-acquired branch. Restructuring will have to take place to determine which theaters are to remain and which to be disposed of or reformatted, should an audit prove their financial deficiency.
In addition, the chain has to adhere to new standards of practice established by Red Carpet, which would require a rehaul in both the command structure and the overall rules and regulations for employees to follow. Smaller changes would include physical appearance of the newly-acquired brand, changes in prices, services offered to customers, uniforms, and other small parameters (Cameron & Green, 2019). Alternatively, Red Carpet could keep the brand unchanged, and maintain outside control. This scenario is, however, will be a temporary measure before the entirety of the company is fully incorporated into the greater whole.
Biggest Challenges in the Role of an OD Consultant
In my opinion, the biggest challenges in the role of an OD consultant are two – reacting to external driving forces for change utilizing internal capabilities to adapt, and the ability to gain rapport inside the company. The position of an OD consultant is different from that of an OD officer appointed at the company. A consultant is there to provide options and solutions rather than see them implemented in practice (Cameron & Green, 2019). Their role is, more often than not, advisory to the organization’s own OD groups. This makes initiating and controlling the results of changes difficult. Companies may follow your recommendations to the latter, or choose to follow them sparingly. Alternatively, the OD group may say they are following instructions, while doing everything to sabotage them. In order for an OD consultant to be effective, they require to have a high level of rapport and trust in the company (Cameron & Green, 2019). Given all of the aforementioned challenges, the greater task of reacting to external factors outside of the company’s control is becoming an even greater challenge.
Reference
Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2019). Making sense of change management: A complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.