Change Management in Montana Plastic Inc.’s Shelby Division

This report discusses change management in Montana Plastic Inc.’s Shelby Division, including force field analysis, types of changes, organizational practices, behavior and culture, and leading change. The report analyzes the internal and external factors that are driving or resisting change, identifies the types of changes needed, evaluates the impact of change on organizational practices, behavior and culture, and discusses the skills necessary for effective change management.

BSC ACCOUNTING AND
FINANCE MODULE
CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Question 1 – Force Field Analysis...............................................................................................3
Question 2 – Types of changes....................................................................................................4
Question 3 – Organisational practices, behaviour and culture....................................................5
Question 4 – Leading Change......................................................................................................7
Question 5 – Two recommendations...........................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Change management involves all those methods and manners of company in which it
undertakes to describe and implement change across its various processes which is both internal
and external. The organisation gets highly benefited of the well-developed structure of adopting
change which is critical to the successful transition along with mitigating any kind of disruption.
The change can be in form that is, of goals, technologies and processes (Dzwigol and et.al.,
2019). The aim of change management is to effecting change through framing and implementing
change strategies which even includes the act of controlling and helping people for adapting to
change. The present report is based on such case where there is an immediate need of effecting
change in order to bring down the company’s waste rate. The company here focused will be
Montana Plastic Inc.’s Shelby division whose business is of manufacturing plastic gasoline tanks
for global automotive brands like Toyota, Ford and General Motors. Therefore, the main
discussion pertaining to this company will be done in respect of Lewin’s Force Field analysis to
analyze the external and internal factors that are acting as a resisting and driving forces of change
in the company. With reference to the theories and models of change, the various types of change
the company is expecting will be identified. Then the resulting organisational practices from
proposed change will be evaluated in terms of its impact on organisational culture and behaviour
of its staff. Also, it will be discussed that how Stewart Belton could have influence others in the
organisation to embrace change. And at last, two recommendations will be made which help to
embed change which could result in the desired culture and behaviour in the company.
MAIN BODY
Question 1 – Force Field Analysis
Lewin’s force field analysis is helpful in distinguishing factors within an organisation that are
driving or avoiding the adoption of a desired state. These forces can be analyzed in order to make
informed decisions to ensure the acceptability of the proposed changes. To identify what leads to
people to accept or resist change, there is a need to understand their values and experiences
(Rosenbaum, More and Steane, 2018). This can be carried out in a best manner by developing
emotional intelligence and self-awareness which facilitate understanding of such driving and
resisting forces with others and us, as the behaviour and attitude of others indicate these forces.

There are certain steps in which force field analysis will be carried out for Montana Plastic Inc.’s
Shelby division in order to identify and evaluate such driving and resisting forces.
Definition of change that management is desiring: The goal of the director of the company that
is, Stewart Belton was that to bring down the rate of waste, avoid slowing down of topline
growth and issues related to production, effective management of workforce through change in
leadership, restore profitability.
Brainstorming the driving forces and restraining forces:
Evaluation of the above identified forces: In the above pictorial representation, there are many
driving and restraining forces identified within the Shelby division. While analyzing the driving
forces, the first force identified is executive mandate which Belton is proposing in his attempt to
turnaround the operations of their division. It is necessary to manage effectively the workforce
within the manufacturing by refining the management ranks, so that right people can be placed at
right position (Jayatilleke and Lai, 2018). Employee turnover is causing quality issues, but the
high end customer specification is demanding appropriate training to the new joinees so that
quality issues can be overcome at the earliest. Carbon emission control is demanding the change
of technology in terms of launching billet technology products. This change will lead to change
in the equipment required for producing plastic based tank rather than metal based tank.

However, capital tied up in the customer equipment has been acting as a restraining force for this
change of technology.
HR program if strictly implemented could result in better results in terms of placing right people
at right place but the bad reputation of HR function is acting as a restraining force for this change
and accordingly HR efforts of effective workforce management will become useless (AlManei,
Salonitis and Tsinopoulos, 2018).
Management of engineer workforce is acting as a restraining force in running the manufacturing
process off the process definition which is expected to offer wide and valid range of
opportunities to the Shelby division.
Also, time required in training new comers due to high employee turnover is acting as a
restraining force in minimizing the defects to lower down losses because training involves
consumption of much time and this is not possible during the time of high customer demand.
From the above discussion it has been analysed that there are many forces within the Shelby
division which is driving change within the division, however there are many restraining forces
which is acting as roadblock in carrying out actions to enable changes wihtin the Shelby division.
For instance, as capital is being tied up in customer equipment, the driving change in terms of
changing technology in an attempt to control carbon emission can't be accomplished.
There are many relative strengths that has been identified with reference to Shelby division:
 Firstly, company has a caring and traditional organisation culture which is considered as
the biggest advantage when changes are required to be implemented within the Shelby
division.
 Shelby division is also having talented and skilled staff with the help of which it can
avoid problems while implementing change within the division. Also, resistance to
change can be reduced to a large extent.
The certain issues that has been identified with reference to Shelby division are as follows:
 Due to the arisal of quality issues, the situation demand for Quality assurance check from
director as it is affecting the profit making ability of the division.

 There was an issue of staff shortages where the Shelby division is finding it difficult to
hire fresh talent.
 Due to different working style of supervisors, it act as an issue and accordingly demands
for provision of training to these supervisors in order to ensure their consistency in the
style of working.
Question 2 – Types of changes
With the application of Mckinsey’s 7’s model which has identified the organisational design and
divided the whole into seven key elements. How these 7’s will interact is what the subject matter
of this model (Matthews and et.al., 2018). The 7’s identified are Structure, strategy, skill, style,
staff, shared values and system. On the basis of this 7’s model the changes needed in the
different aspect of the organisation can be identified and implemented accordingly. The various
types of changes that has been identified in the case of Montana plastic’s Shelby division are as
follows:
Strategic transformational change: These type of changes are meant for reshaping the strategy
and processes of the business which generally results in the shift in the work culture of a
concern. Such type of changes arises due to the business’s response to the unexpected or extreme
changes taking place in the market.
In the case study given, this type of change has been identified where the manager and
the whole organisation is considering a change of technology in terms of refining and launching
its new billet technology products (Hayes, 2018). Therefore, as the change is related to the
technology, the nature if change is of technical nature which is considered to be a very fast
changing environment for the modern businesses.
People centric organisational change refers to the change taking place that affect the people
within the organisation or results in change in roles and responsibilities within the organisation.
This type of change was seen in the case study when the manager Belton realizes that there is a
need for change in leadership while believing that the key to success in manufacturing is
effective management of workforce (Cameron and Green, 2019). And when the reviewing of
entire manufacturing operation take place, the plan to refresh management ranks has been carried
out in order to place right people at right place and accordingly the whole production process of

the Shelby division has been amended. Therefore, there is a change related to people so the
nature of change is people related one which is always affected by an individual’s attitudes,
behaviour, knowledge and style of working.
So, these two types of changes as identified in the case study are satisfying five of the S provided
under Mckinsey’s 7’s model that is, staff, system, structure, skill and strategy.
Question 3 – Organisational practices, behaviour and culture
When changes takes place in an organisational practices which have an impact on many other
practices within an organisation. Organisational practices involves actions and behaviour of
employees that results from the changes taking place within an organisational context. Whenever
there is a change taking place in the technology, system or leadership, there can be seen an
immediate reaction of this change in the behaviour and actions of the workforce within the
organisation (Doppelt and McDonough, 2017). As it is a common fact that it is a human nature
of resisting change because they interpret change as a threat or fear and thought that they need to
fight with the change in order to fly higher in the sky or in the context of organisation, it can be
termed as getting promoted or benefitted from some kind of monetary benefits so attached with
the acceptance of change. As per the handy's model, there are commonly four types of culture
prevailing in an organisation or that organisation follows, such as the following:
Power: There are many instances found in the case study where it has been realized by the
manager of Shelby division Belton like he wanted to make changes in leadership within the
Shelby division by changing ranks in the management in order to establish more control over the
production process, so that the rate of wastage can be minimized in a desired manner.
Task culture: Belton has decided to implement lean manufacturing system or what is commonly
known as Toyota Production System as suggested by Toyota Motors Corporation in an attempt
to turnaround the operations of Shelby division so that the productivity can be enhanced along
with a simultaneous decrease in waste within their manufacturing concern (McCarthy, Eastman
and Garets, 2021). Both of these changes in terms of leadership and system followed along the
production process can have a huge impact on the behaviour aspects of employees and overall
culture prevailing in the organisation.

Person culture: The change when take place in leadership in an organisation leads to change in
the culture within organisation and accordingly the behaviour of employees changes. Due to this
there are many issues arises with the implementation of leadership changes. Different leaders
have different style of working which in turn results in goal setting, recognition of employee’s
efforts and provision of opportunity to grow and develop for the employees. If nature of
employees is an open and ongoing one then they will always welcome changes over those having
restricted nature who generally prefer to maintain status quo. As Shelby has a caring and
traditional type of culture prevailing along the organisation then it is means there employees are
quite pampered which acts as an obstacle to implement change in such environment.
Role culture: Another change in practices highlighted in the case study where Belton is looking
for implementing new technology of producing gas tanks that is, billet technology which has a
benefit of reduction in emission of carbon by 30 per cent (Van der Voet and Vermeeren, 2017).
This is regarded as a change in practices in terms of technology which is expected to be result in
opposition from both customers and employees. Customer will resist this change as their huge
capital has been tied up in the equipment useful in manufacturing metal based tank and
employees are expected to resist this change on the ground like change in machines suitable for
handling plastic rather than metal which could demand additional or completing different skills
to handle new technology resulting from this change. Such changes may sometimes results in
non – cooperative culture across the organisation and leads to many behavioral issues such as
resistance from employees to upgrade their skills, work under different supervisors and team
members.
Also changing organisational practices from the aspect of strict HR program in Shelby
division where the reputation of HR is bad in the eye of employees due to having an image like a
stick to punish employees may not be an appropriate move by the manager. Often changes in
such situation leads to high level of resistance from employees non – cooperative culture arises
in the organisation as these employees are having prior inappropriate mindset and bad image for
their HR executives. Manager intends to do this changes in HR programs in an attempt to ensure
that the position within an organisation must be filled with the right talent demanded by the
position. Also, practices of involving front line employees in recommending ideas has been
suggested by Belton which is considered as the best move to identify production issues at early

hand and it has a simultaneous benefit of encouraging employees to focus on minimizing those
issues through their conduct and efforts (Brones, de Carvalho and de Senzi Zancul, 2017). When
workers are valued by their superior, it has an additional benefit for the management of getting
higher productivity at highest possible efficiency.
In this way different changes in an organisational practices can be resulted in different
attitudes and behaviour of employees towards it and accordingly leads to changes in an overall
culture prevailing in the organisation.
Question 4 – Leading Change
Change is the one thing but making it success is completely depends upon the leaders who are
leading the team from whom incorporation of change is expected. Thus, an effective leadership
is critical to a successful change. This can be achieved through right skills and abilities of leaders
through which they can contribute towards making the change successful. There are 3 C’s theory
which indicates the skills of leaders necessary for change management which are as follows: Communicate: Successful leaders always undertakes to communicate the why and what
of the change in order to highlight the purpose of the change. By doing so, leaders are
able to communicate the organisational values and benefits that would resulted from
change and thus create urgency for change. Stewart belton by communicating their four
major customers could facilitate the urgency of making change in technology by moving
on to billet technology which would be helpful in meeting emission standards without
retooling. Collaborate: Successful leaders encouraged their followers to avoid tolerating unhealthy
competition and then involve them in decision making related to change in order to
strengthen their commitment towards the change (Bennett IV and Soylu, 2021). Belton
has an ability to collaborate in order to put right talent at the right place. Also, Belton
collaborate with the front line employees who are deemed to be an important source of
ideas as information gathered from these employees are helpful in resolving many issues
associated with the production.
 Commit: It is prerequisite quality of leader to support change through their own beliefs
and behaviour. Leaders must step outside their comfort zone to negotiate change with

their followers and must extend their efforts towards the change to adapt to the change.
Here Belton should exercise his commitment as a leader by placing right person at a right
place and this is what he is actually doing. He is committed to change leadership in order
to ensure higher effectiveness. Also, he has reviewed the entire manufacturing operations
to identify the need for change and has determined the need for changing management
ranks to overhaul the entire manufacturing process. He has also announced the adoption
of Toyota Production System due to his commitment towards restoring profitability.
3 Most important qualities of leader to embrace change Support: Successful leaders are those who removes all the barriers coming in the way of
their followers. Barriers may be personal like egos and fear of loss as well as professional
like resources and time needed to implement change. In an attempt to boost the morale of
the employees, Belton has developed a new and strong HR program through which right
person can be placed at the right place or their interest areas. This could be definitely
helpful in boosting morale of the employees and accordingly, Belton has played his role
of supporting employees as a leader. Sway: Leaders must influence employee’s behaviour to gain both compliance and
commitment in an attempt to drive change. Along with this, identification of key
stakeholders and communicating them the vision of successful is necessarily expected
from the successful leaders of change (Paraschiv, Niţu and Savin, 2019). Belton has a
challenge of engaging employees in his turnaround effort, but with the development of
new HR program it has become easier as there was a compliance from front-line
employees in providing information related to production issues.
 Learn: Successful leaders should never assume that they have all the answers rather they
should continuously welcome questions from their subordinates to obtain their feedback
throughout the change process. Thus adjustments can be made to the change accordingly.
Belton as a leader has a habit of asking suggestion from the front line employees in order
to resolve production issues. He take around four weeks for talking and listening to his
team members who provide them a lot of informations

Question 5 – Two recommendations
From the above report prepared on change management by conducting a detailed study of
Montana Plastic’s Shelby division by referring it through various theories and models of change
management there are two recommendations that can be provided for the accomplishment of the
defined mission and vision of the management behind the introduction of change.
 On the basis of Lewin’s model of change management, it can be recommended that the
current process should be unfreezed at first step which helps in analyzing how the it can
be best improved in order to facilitate the understanding of need for change for all
associated with it. Then changes should be implemented accordingly along with guiding
employees along the process of transition (Hayes, 2018). Feedback of employees must be
taken at each stage of change implementation and accordingly adjustments should be
made. After all this the new status quo should be adopted and refreeze the situations
accordingly. This model of change management involves quite longer term and helpful in
overcoming behavioral issues like resistance to change and cultural issues like provision
of adequate training. In the context of given case study of Shelby division, some actions
that could be taken are implementing billet technology at a small scale and then citing it
as an example among customers and employees which would indicate how profitability
can be restored and efficiency can be improved. In this way, the change process will
become quite easier and resistance from employees and customers can be reduced or
even avoided.
 On the basis of Kotter’s theory of change management which suggests eight stages
towards managing change like creating urgency for change, building strong team of
change, forming strategic vision, communication of vision, removing barriers to change,
etc. The steps of this model if appropriately followed throughout the change process leads
to building enthusiasm by facilitating an understanding of need for change with the
creation of checklist which acts as a guide for the change team (Doppelt and
McDonough, 2017). This model is highly recommended for a large concern and even in a
smaller concern if this model is paired with the model which facilitate employee’s
feedback throughout the change process. Employee’s feedback is considered to be a
critical factor for successful change management or implementation and helps in

avoidance of employee’s resentment or poor morale. Here in the context of case study of
Shelby division, for overcoming the issue of low morale and quality related issue, there
should be some incentives that must be offered by an immediate supervisor in order to
boost morale of employees and encouraging then initiate such actions or pool enough
energy, so that efficiency could be enhanced and wastage could be minimised.
Accordingly, change process will become easier with the offering of incentives and
profitability can be restored.

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