Saving the failing department of an organization, especially under the contemporary circumstances of tough, ever-growing competition is an extremely complex task to accomplish. In order to succeed it is necessary to take into account all reasons for the failure and try to re-structure the department in such a way so that it fitted both the profile of the company and the needs of the customers.
The first issue to start the analysis with should be the organizational structure of the department. Since the department is on the verge of a failure, the change should be accompanied by reducing costs. Thus, it will also involve the narrow span of control, high level of centralization and low level of formalization (to promote creativity and employee participation), low departmentalization. Departmentalization should be functional to correspond to the limited set of established necessities. For the same purpose it is important to make the chain of command short – the department has to become flexible, mobile and responsive to the quickly changing surroundings (Robbins and Coutler, 2006).
The need for the change also dictates the necessity to form an organic organization – it possesses the features that would be helpful for building up a potentially profitable segment of business: it has flexible, adaptable structure, non-standardized jobs, its structure is team-based, the imposition of rules is minimal, employees are motivated and have the power for making decisions (Robbins et al., 2006). Besides, an organic organization has more chances to survive in the unstable and changing environment.
It is desirable to build up a department with simple structure because of its being team-based (a team is the most efficient way to organize the activity of the department to ensure the success). And, of course, it surely should be a learning organization: its main characteristics are being open, team-based, giving a high level of responsibility to employees, ensuring quick information exchange, creating relations based on trust, sharing, sense of community and deep commitment to the common goal, collaboration etc. (Robbins et al., 2006).
Speaking about the peculiarities of handling the change, it should be first noted that only internal forces will be included, since one single department does not have power to influence external forces. The change of the organizational strategy should include both attitudes and equipment. The technology of change should be focused on the approach designated by the white-water rapids metaphor: to change constantly in order to adapt to the environment and survive (Robbins et al., 2006).
The strategy of change, in order to be efficient, should include the following elements: team building, intergroup development (explicit communication of the purpose of change to raise inner commitment), survey feedback (analyzing the market to find the successful ways for the change), sensitivity training (unstructured group intervention to enhance motivation and cooperation), process consultation (involving outer specialists who may help arrange the change with their legal advice).
Team work and creativity should be the key issues to which the manager should pay attention – these are the essential conditions that will rapidly increase productivity and motivation of the working group. According to the opinion of Robbins and Judge in their work “Organizational Behavior” these stimuli play a central role in the success of any business undertaking (Robbins and Judge, 2008).
No manager should forget about stimulating creativity of employees – this will ensure diversity of ideas, higher productivity and commitment, will encourage risk-taking. It is also important to trace the level of stress present in the team and work out a set of measures to reduce it. A step that may also turn out to be necessary is excluding the members of the team reluctant to change, therefore dragging the team backwards (Robbins et al., 2006).
Thus, making a conclusion for the work the schedule of activities for the planned change may be organized the following way:
References
Robbins, S.P., and Coutler, M. (2006). Management. 9th edition. Prentice Hall.
Robbins, S.P., and Judge, T. (2008). Organizational Behavior. 13th edition. Prentice Hall.