Understanding & Leading Change in Organisations - Desklib

This article discusses the impact of change on organisational strategy and operations, drivers of change, leadership approaches, and measures to minimise negative impacts of change on organisational behaviour. It includes a comparison of different organisational examples, an evaluation of internal and external drivers of change, and an explanation of different barriers to change and their influence on leadership decision-making. The article also provides recommendations for planning effectively for change and applying change impact analysis.

Unit 17 –
Understanding &
Leading Change

Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
P1 Compare different organisational examples where there has been an impact of change on
an organisation’s strategy and operations....................................................................................1
M1 Assess the different drivers for change in each of the given examples and the types of
organisational change they have affected....................................................................................3
P2 Evaluate the ways in which internal and external drivers of change affect leadership, team
and individual behaviours within an organisation.......................................................................4
P3 Evaluate measures that can be taken to minimise negative impacts of change on
organisational behaviour..............................................................................................................5
M2 Critically evaluate the long-term implications of internal and external drivers of change
within an organisation..................................................................................................................6
D1 Draw conclusions and recommendations with valid justifications for planning effectively
for change and applying change impact analysis.........................................................................6
P4 Explain different barriers to change and determine how they influence leadership decision-
making in a given organisational context....................................................................................7
M3 Use force field analysis to analyse both driving and resisting forces to show how they
influence decision-making in a given organisational context......................................................8
D2 Make valid decisions and outcomes based on force field analysis in the context of meeting
organizational objectives.............................................................................................................9
P5 Apply different leadership approaches to dealing with change in a range of organizational
contexts........................................................................................................................................9
M4 Evaluate the extent to which leadership approaches can deliver organizational change
effectively applying appropriate models and frameworks.........................................................10
D3 Critically evaluate the effectiveness of leadership approaches and models of change
management...............................................................................................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCE ................................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Change is the only constant thing that is determined to happen, organisations and businesses
goes through many transformations also known as changes which can have a positive or a
negative impact on the organisation. The way these changes are regulated or managed is referred
as change management, which is systematic process of handling the changes or transformations
through which a company goes through (Thakur and Srivastava,2018). Change Management
helps business enterprises in controlling the chances and the consequences of the following
changes, with the help of effective coordination and strategies a company can consciously adhere
to changes. The management needs to follow a systematic approach to handle the consequences
of a change by attentive scheduling, managing and analysing the resources. In the intense process
of change management documentation has a crucial role to play, documentation helps the people
involved in the process to look back to analyse the repercussions of the previous actions taken by
the management.
MAIN BODY
P1 Compare different organisational examples where there has been an impact of change on an
organisation’s strategy and operations.
For the differentiation of different organisations, Unilever, Tesco and Mark and Spenser are
taken into consideration as the three of the companies operates in different sectors and have their
own way of executing their processes, the impact of change can be determined by PESTLE
Analysis.
1. Political -
 Unilever: While holding a huge product portfolio a drastic change in the presentation of
the brand can create much disturbance in the company’s operations for which they are
required to stick with the laws of the nations they are operating which helps them in
avoiding the chances of any drastic changes.
 Tesco: The organisations main suppliers are currently in a war like situation which is not
beneficial for the company in any way, because of which they are required to handle
these processes effectively.
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 Mark and spencer: The political factors have positive impact on the business processes,
as the company enjoys the benefits of free trade which is allowing it to enjoy a
sustainable profit margin.
2. Economical:
 Unilever: The booming economies of the nation can bring positive impact in the
operations of the organisation and the vice- versa could bring drastic issues for the
company.
 Tesco: The company is generating its major revenue through The UK, if this partnership
between the brand and the nation faces any hardship, will bring negative change in the
company’s operations and strategies.
 Mark and spencer: The new arising competitors are a big threat for the company as they
are facing issues in matching the price as their competitors are doing,
3. Social:
 Unilever: As being a global brand the company is required to analyse the demographic of
the country and come up with effective marketing strategies, the marketing campaigns
could bring positive as well as negative change in the operations of the company.
 Tesco: With the evolving time, people prefer buying thing in bulk, on the basis of which
the company has developed its strategies and operations. Because of which the company
is required to analyse the social trends.
 Mark and spencer: As being an old brand, irrespective of the marketing campaigns
launched by the company the organisation is not able to come up and overcome its old
image.
4. Technological:
 Unilever: The technological modifications has brought the right changes in the operations
of the company as they prevent their employees from doing hazardous activities, as
machines are there to do perform such activities. Transformational changes have brought
positive changes so far.
 Tesco: to keep pace with the market competitors the company has installed technologies
which has helped the brand in expanding along with making the business operations
smoother.
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 Mark and spencer: The company has installed technologies which has made the
functioning of the brand much effective. The technological modifications include, self-
checkout services, online shopping etc.
5. Legal:
 Unilever: The company is required to look towards it products and services as they can
be replicated which could be harmful for the company as it will increase the company’s
competition, for which the company need to have a strong legal team which will help
them in combatting from such change (Jabri and Jabri, 2022).
 Tesco: Any modification in governments policies directly impacts the functioning of the
business, which can leave a negative impact on the business operations and strategies.
 Mark and spencer: the company need to stick to the rule and regulations of the company
as they could immensely impact the functioning of the brand in the respective nation.
6. Environmental:
 Unilever: The company is conscious of the environmental changes and have taken out
many steps to create and promote sustainability.
 Tesco: The company has launched many projects which are working towards making the
brand much sustainable, the projects primarily focuses on reducing the waste and making
the packaging reusable.
 Mark and spencer: The wave of sustainability has not exempted the retail industry
because of which the company has come up with suitable clothing line which has helped
them in meeting the world's objectives.
M1 Assess the different drivers for change in each of the given examples and the types of
organisational change they have affected.
The affect that the companies goes through the changes because of the external and internal
factors affects the operations and the motives of the organisation. Companies are required to
analyse the trends and patterns of their particular sectors and come up with remedies which helps
them in sustaining their operations along with their vision and mission (Wuand et.al, 2021). With
the evolving time the companies face many unexplored issues for which the companies have
young employees which have the calibre and the understanding of dealing with the issues that
are being faced in this time of the economy. Throughout the years many things have changes and
creates a much bigger effect on the organisations as they create products and services for the
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people, if by any ways their preferences change the companies are required to understand the
surrounding and evolve themselves in a way which will helps them in keeping up with the
customer’s preferences.
P2 Evaluate the ways in which internal and external drivers of change affect leadership, team
and individual behaviours within an organisation.
Organisational culture, the diversity within a workplace, technology that is being used
within an organisation, the values and ethic the employees of the company holds, the resources
that are being available to the leaders, the economic and political and technological factors are
the major ones which creates a much bigger impact on the leadership. As the mangers are
required to work along the factors which are mentioned above changes the leadership style as the
mangers are required to adapt to these factors accordingly. The culture of an organisation has a
major role to play as this determines the way the operations are executed, the culture determines
the values the seniors holds and has pass on to their fellow colleagues. The reason why an
organisation exists is because of its mission and the vision they hold, for making the brand a
success the company is required to hold up to its motive, which is one of the internal factors
affecting the company’s functions. External factors which affects the functioning of Unilever
includes the ever increasing interest of other business organisation towards sustainability which
has been the ultimate goal of the company to motive and encourage the market competition
towards the environment, because of this step many companies have started focusing, on making
the business processes much environment friendly (Lamba and Singh,2018). With the wave of
sustainability its quite visible that the companies have made efforts in making their organisations
products and services much sustainable which has turned out to be an opportunity for the
organisation. Many countries have started focusing on the sustainability of company’s product
because of which the organizations are required to market and create their products while
holding the spirit of sustainability, which turns out to be an opportunity for the organisation as
from the very beginning the company is focusing on this particular goal.
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P3 Evaluate measures that can be taken to minimise negative impacts of change on
organisational behaviour.
1. Effective Communication: Unilever from a while has been practising the effective
communication within the organisation which has helped management in developing
transparency among the employees. Well this openness helps employees in collaborating
in the times of change and its management. They are capable of handling the situation
because they do not have any communication gaps among themselves.
2. Adequate Training: Changes can't be predicted accurately for which Unilever is
required to train their employees in such a way which helps them in creating the adequate
skills which will pave them through the changes that the company is going to face in the
upcoming years (Nugroho, 2018). As the company hires talents which has the capability
of handling such pressurising conditions, training such individuals is then not a bigger
deal for the company.
3. Recognising Talent: When the employees are recognised and promoted for the good
work they have done in the organisation, this boost the morale of the employees and
helps them in building enough confidence which helps the company in building future
leaders. As these employees knows how things takes place in the organisation, it becomes
comparatively easier for these employees as compared to the new ones in handling
pressurising conditions and come up with solutions which helps the company in coming
through such hard time.
4. Sufficient Time for planning: Any decision taken in any hurry can result in much
destruction in Unilever which is not favourable for the company neither for the
employees as their lives and careers are too depended on the success of the organisation.
When the employees are given enough time to process the change and come up with
solutions which will helps the company in overcoming from such situations helps in the
effective management of the change along with it sustains the market place of the
company.
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M2 Critically evaluate the long-term implications of internal and external drivers of change
within an organisation.
 Internal Drivers – Unilever internal driving factors are its work environment, the work
ethics that the company holds, the organisational structure of the company and many
more. All these factors are impacted by the mission and vision of the company and holds
accounts of all the things that the company is working on (Kumarand et.al, 2018). These
factors have a major role to play as they determine how the company is going to adjust
and adapt the changes and the ways they will adapt to manage such changes.
 External Drivers – The macro factors affecting the organisation are the major game
players in bringing the change within an organisation. The effects generated by the macro
factors are the one which impacts the organisations for long with the the company is
required to manage such changes in a much sustainable manner which will prevent the
company from going through any drastic transformation.
D1 Draw conclusions and recommendations with valid justifications for planning effectively for
change and applying change impact analysis.
 Change analysis has helped organizations has helped Unilever in understanding the the
possess the company has to imply for the effective change management, which explain if
the company has installed or implement too many functionalities with one product or a
service it will be much difficult to hold on with the product in the change environment
and to imply the modifications which are required for the survival of the product.
 The employees and the team involved in the implication of the change are require dot go
through the product and its model to understand the core of the project which will
certainly help them in effective change management.
 The area where the company is required to implement the change should be well
identified which will help them in effectively manage the efforts they are require to input
in the completion of the task.
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P4 Explain different barriers to change and determine how they influence leadership decision-
making in a given organisational context.
The primary barriers which influence change within an organisation and other influential factors
including the leadership and decision making includes:
1. Ineffective Communication: When a team in an organisation is not able to communicate
effectively this will lead to much complexities in the future as the organisation is required
to adapt and overcome the barriers which will possibly come in the way of the company
while making the change adaptable for the employees as the consumers(Bednárik,2019).
As with ineffective communication Unilever will also be not able to communicate their
message to the customers of the brand.
2. Monopoly in decision-making: When the whole team is not involved in the process of
decision making it results in the loop holes which arises with the lack of transparency in
the decision formulated. Unilever has practised the monopoly of decision making which
as not drastically impacted the organisation as the objectives and the goals of the
decisions are conveyed to the employees of the organisation(Izawa,2022). In other
organisation this monopoly turns out to be disadvantageous as they higher management
do not involves the employees in the process which prevents them in giving their input in
the decisions.
3. Collaborating and negotiation skills: When the company doesn't focus on the
collaboration and negotiation skills of the employees, they are generally not able to
portray the same in the time of emergencies of change. As collaborating helps the cross
functional teams in taking help from each other and formulating a solution for the issues
which are being the barriers in the functioning of the organisation. The employees within
an organisation should know the way they are required to function and bring plan into
reality which could be done by effectively collaborating and negotiating with the team
members along with the stakeholders.
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M3 Use force field analysis to analyse both driving and resisting forces to show how they
influence decision-making in a given organisational context.
Force Field Analysis helps one in understanding and identifying the root cause, which
determines the actions that the company is required to take. Once the issue id identified the
technique of eliminating opposing forces is implemented which helps Unilever in eliminating the
negative component and enhance the effects of the positive components. The techniques of Force
Field Analysis are based on the assumption which states that the forces stay in the state of an
equilibrium(Sivakumar,2021). The analysis helps in these following actions:
 It helps in identifying the positive and negative aspects of a circumstance and around
which helps the team in identifying the intensity of the conditions and take actions
accordingly.
 This analysis helps in analysing all the aspects which could possibly affect the
functioning of the operation and tries to present the overview of the change and the ways
it will be impacting the aftermath which eases out the pressure upon the employees.
D2 Make valid decisions and outcomes based on force field analysis in the context of meeting
organizational objectives.
This analysis is widely practiced tool for change management and has significantly helped
organizations in creating a comparatively smoother process for the implication of the change. It
is one of the trust tool used for making effective decisions which helps in the implication of the
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project (Zhongming and et.al, 2021). This can be derived from the above discussion that the
analysis helps in diminishing the effects of negative factors during the time when the
organization is going through a change. The concept of the analysis tool helps Unilever in
meeting organizational objectives through several meaningful ways. The process that can be
followed by the employees to conduct the force field analysis is as follows:
 It helps in brainstorming the possibilities which could go wrong the solution that the
company has created along with the possibilities which will go along the solutions
formulated by the organisation.
 It will help in identifying the strengths that build up each force as this will be enough to
identify the possible solutions with the help of the factors.
P5 Apply different leadership approaches to dealing with change in a range of organizational
contexts.
Leadership is one’s capability by which they are able to influence people or members of any
organization. It is one of the complex processes as an individual is required to analyses many
factors a derive a result out of it, the decision making for the organization is depend on a
particular individual, the success of any project also relies on the decisions that the person has to
make (Ahworegba and Colovic,2019). There exists different kind of leadership approaches
which determines the management of change within the organizations perspective.
1. Transformational Leadership: This approach helps in improving the performance of an
individual and the way they deal with situations which are pressurizing and need quick as
well as quality decisions. A transformational leader is the one which have the caliber of
motivating and inspiring others, they help individuals in developing critical thinking
skills which helps the organization in many ways.
2. Value - Based Leadership: This kind of leadership encourages leaders in inspiring
other in a way which encourages them to stick with the value that Unilever has defined
for their employees. Because of this leadership approach the people are able to determine
the factors in a way which helps them in sustaining the brand value as the employees of
the organization are sticking with the core values.
3. Situational Leadership: This leadership approach helps leaders in understanding the
behavior of the employees within an organization and try to mend their leadership style
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with the people they wish to influence. This leadership style helps in analyzing the
performance and the speed of an individual to complete a task (Blanco, 2021). This has
been experienced that the performance has reached to much higher levels after the
M4 Evaluate the extent to which leadership approaches can deliver organizational change
effectively applying appropriate models and frameworks.
Change is the only constant thing that is certain will happen, for which organizations use
different frameworks and analysis theories to overcome from the degrading impact o of the
company and bring the efficiency with the change management of an organization (Sroufe,
2018). The most popular model used for the determination of the change management is as
follows-
McKinsey 7's Model:
1. Strategy: The whole implication of the change management relies on the strategy
formulated by Unilever for which they need to pay all of their attention to.
2. Structure: The organizational structure that is being followed by Unilever will be
counted in this step which have a major role to play in the change management.
3. Systems: The structure that is being followed by the organization for performing its
activities is referred as the system of the organization.
4. Shared Values: The value and ethics the employees of an organization hold are referred
as the shared value of the organization.
5. Style: The ways Unilever implement its strategies and functionalities determines the
succeeding events which is referred s the style of the organization.
6. Staff: The human resource team of Unilever is determined of recruiting the right talent
along with the management of the hired talent in the most acceptable way.
7. Skills: The skills of the employees working within an organization matters as it helps in
effectively managing the situations.
D3 Critically evaluate the effectiveness of leadership approaches and models of change
management.
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The effectiveness of the leadership styles relies on multiple factors which needs to be taken into
consideration for the effective implication of this leadership approaches. This has been noticed
that the values and the skills of the employees have a major role to play during the course of
change management as their values and skills determines the way they will be handling the
succeeding repercussions (Mukha, 2019). If an employee doesn't have the adequate skills that
person will not be able to handle the much pressure that the company will be going through out
the process of change management.
CONCLUSION
The aim of the report was to convey the overview of Unilever and its change management
strategies. The report contains the overview of the internal as well as external factors and the
way they impact the procedure of change management in an organisation, the ways the
organisational structure and its operations are impacted are covered in this report. Later in the
sections the report analysis the ways the internal and external factors have impacted the
organizational the ways they were managing the change. With the help of the force field analysis
framework the company was able to minimise the negative impact of the operations involved in
the change management followed by the long term implication of the internal as well as external
drivers.
REFERENCE
Books and Journals:
Thakur, R.R. and Srivastava, S., 2018. From resistance to readiness: The role of mediating
variables. Journal of Organizational Change Management.
Jabri, M. and Jabri, E., 2022. Managing organizational change. Bloomsbury Publishing.
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Wu, M.Q., and et.al, 2021. Form-stable phase change composites: preparation, performance, and
applications for thermal energy conversion, storage and management. Energy Storage
Materials, 42, pp.380-417.
Lamba, K. and Singh, S.P., 2018. Modeling big data enablers for operations and supply chain
management. The International Journal of Logistics Management.
Nugroho, M.A., 2018. The effects of collaborative cultures and knowledge sharing on
organizational learning. Journal of Organizational Change Management.
Kumar, M., and et.al, 2018. Managerial support for development and turnover intention: Roles
of organizational support, work engagement and job satisfaction. Journal of
Organizational Change Management.
Bednárik, J., 2019. Change of paradigm in personnel strategy–corporate social responsibility and
internal communication. Communication Today, 10(2), pp.42-57.
Izawa, R., 2022. Corporate structural change for tax avoidance: British multinational enterprises
and international double taxation between the First and Second World Wars. Business
History, 64(4), pp.704-726.
Sivakumar, S., 2021. Study of Internationalization Process of Unilever. Available at SSRN
3939738.
Zhongming, Z.,and et.al, 2021. Unilever launches wide-ranging set of commitments and actions
to raise living standards, create opportunities through inclusivity and prepare people for
the future of work.
Ahworegba, A.H. and Colovic, A., 2019. Embedded opportunities and conflict of subsidiary
initiatives. Journal of Organizational Change Management.
Sroufe, R., 2018. Integrated management: How sustainability creates value for any business.
Emerald Group Publishing.
Mukha, S.V., 2019. Modern Ukrainian Corporate Culture and Transformation of Business
Processes. Бизнес информ, (5), pp.204-209.
Blanco, C.C., 2021. Supply chain carbon footprinting and climate change disclosures of global
firms. Production and Operations Management, 30(9), pp.3143-3160.
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