CRUDU - Understanding and Leading Change: A Report on British Airways

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CRUDU - UNDERSTANDING AND LEADING CHANGE

Executive Summary
Planned activities that bring positive changes in processes, technologies, strategies, procedures as
well as in the work culture of an organization is called organizational change. The aim of this
report is to undertake a detailed study regarding organizational changes in British Airways. The
transformational approach of leadership in British Airways that successfully brought positive
organizational changes has been discussed in detail. Also, detailed discussion regarding the
impacts of changes in organizational strategies as well as barriers to organizational changes has
been discussed. A detailed concept of Force Field analysis along with its merits and demerits in
an organization has been made.
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Company background......................................................................................................................3
LO1: Impacts of change on an organization’s strategy.................................................................4
P1: Different organizational examples leading to change an organization's strategies...............4
M1: Assessment of Different drivers responsible for changes....................................................5
LO2: Evaluation of drivers that change organizational behaviour................................................5
P2: Effect of internal and external drivers in leadership............................................................5
P3: Measures to minimize negative impacts in organizational behaviour.................................8
M2: Theories and models to evaluate organizational changes..................................................9
D1: Conclusions and recommendations for planning effective change.....................................9
LO3: Barriers influencing leadership decision making:................................................................10
P4: Different barriers influencing the changes:.........................................................................10
M3: Force field analysis and resisting forces influencing decision making..............................11
D2: Critical analysis of Force field in organizational objectives...............................................11
LO4: Application of different leadership approaches...................................................................13
P5: Different leadership approaches in organizational changes................................................13
M4: Extent of leadership approaches in delivering organizational changes..............................14
D3: Critical evaluation of the effectiveness of leadership approaches:.....................................14
Recommendations and Conclusion:..............................................................................................15
Reference list.................................................................................................................................16
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Introduction
Planned activities that bring positive changes in processes, technologies, strategies, procedures as
well as in the work culture of an organization is called organizational change. In today's fast-
moving world, there has developed a high competition among business organizations. In order to
gain a competitive advantage in the business world, these organizations continuously look for
changes in their strategies, technologies and work processes. The aim of this report is to study
the impacts that large scale organizational changes may have upon an organization's operation
and strategy. Analysis of theories of organizational changes as well as the barriers of
organizational changes has also been discussed in this report.
Company background
British Airways is the principal airline company operating in the United Kingdom. It is
headquartered at Harmondsworth with principle hubs at Heathrow and Gatwick airport. British
Airways currently has a fleet size of more than 280 aircrafts The Company collected annual
revenue of approximately £11,443 million in 2016 and had a net income of approximately
£1,473 million in the same year (British Airways, 2019).
LO1: Impacts of change on an organization’s strategy
P1: Different organizational examples leading to change an organization's strategies
Initially, after the merger of British Airways, with Iberia, a Spanish airline company, the
company failed to show optimum performance levels (British Airways 2019). The main reasons
behind this poor performance were status and cultural differences that arose among employees as
a result of this merger. There was an absence of leadership in British Airways, and there was a
lack of ability in a company's management, to deal with various emerging problems. In order to
resolve these problems, the appointment of a new chairperson was decided by the company.
Thereafter, the company also made a decision of appointing a chief executive. Both of these
leaders were aware of changes that were necessary within British Airways. They noticed that
performance of the company was extremely inefficient. The leaders also noticed that there
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existed cultural differences among the employees. Thus, the management of British airways
developed several strategies and programmes in order to deal with existing problems.
The newly appointed leaders decided to reconstitute entire organizational structure of the
company. They also changed management plans as well as working methodologies, in order to
gain more profit for the company (British Airways, 2019). The leaders also identified that there
was an extreme inefficiency in existing system. Hence several measures like removing
inefficient staff and production cost-cut policies were adopted. The chairperson of British
Airways also decided to privatize the company. He also gave the employees reasons behind the
adaptation of privatization policy to employees so that their preparations may be made by them
for forthcoming changes.
To improve customer service, several new policies were adopted. In order to reorganize the
company, a new marketing policy was created. “Putting People First” was one such programme
that was adopted in order to improve customer service (British Airways, 2019). The main aim of
this programme was to improve the company's image and to attain maximum possible customer
care standards. Emphasis on changing attitude concerning internal and external customers was
also laid. Similarly another programme “Managing People First” was also introduced (British
Airways 2019). The main motive behind this programme was to ensure that employees treat their
colleagues with dignity and respect.
M1: Assessment of Different drivers responsible for changes.
There are different drivers or catalysts that play essential roles in bringing organizational
changes (Salman and Broten 2017: 54-56). These drivers should be accurately addressed in order
to obtain positive changes within the organization. Some important drivers responsible for
bringing changes in British Airways are discussed below:
● Environment: The context in which employees within an organization perform their
duties is defined as the work environment. Work environment plays a leading role in
improving productivity of an employee. Work environment also enhances an employee's
performance. Initially, in British Airways, there was an absence of a proper work
environment (Doppelt, 2017). There existed cultural differences among employees and
thus, productivity, as well as the performance of employees was poor. By privatizing the
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company, work environment changed, which resulted in increased productivity and
performance of employees.
● Change in strategies: Strategy change is considered to be a primary catalyst or driver
that leads to organizational changes (Hillson and Murray-Webster, 2017). In British
Airways, the management approached an external company for auditing customers'
perception of services that BA was providing them. In this way, BA was able to
understand if customers were satisfied with their services or not which helped them
improving customer services.
LO2: Evaluation of drivers that change organizational behaviour
P2: Effect of internal and external drivers in leadership
External factors that impacts upon an organisation are technological, legal, political,
environmental, economic and social factors. On the other hand, internal factors are inevitably
characterised by relationship of a particular organisation with external environment. Some
internal factors can be considered as financial resources like income, investment opportunities
and funding. Human resources can also be included as internal factors such as volunteers, target
audiences and employees (Maduenyi et al. 2015). Major external forces that forces
organisational change are managing ethical behaviour, technological change workforce diversity
and globalisation. Major internal factors aids in organisational changes are alteration in work
climate, change in expectation of employees, declining effectiveness and crisis.
SWOT analysis of British Airways:
Strength Weakness
● Long term experience in industry
● Parent company is IAGC which is
third largest in world in revenue
generation (British Airways, 2019)
● Brand with strong commercial value
● Tech-savvy company (Al-Hadda and
Kotnour, 2015)
● Breakdown of bargaining process by
employee unions on regular basis
● Under-penetrated in developing or
globalised markets (McLaren et al.
2016).
● Overdependence on market of UK
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● Backed and Resourced by UK
government
Opportunities Threat
● Increasing demand of
interconnectivity provides great
chance to expand market
● Immense pressure over smaller players
● Increased competition in global market
● Highly regulated by UK government
● Threat from alternative transportation
mode (McLaren et al. 2016)
Table 1: SWOT analysis of British Airways
(Source: Created by researcher)
Strength: British Airways can be considered as largest international and scheduled airline of
United Kingdom. IAGC international airlines are parent company of British Airways. IAGC has
beheld third position relevant to revenue generation. This brand also possesses a positive and
strong commercial value. UK government has made this airline nationalised with a huge resource
and back up (George et al. 2016). It is also a tech-savvy company moving from offline to online
mode in terms of ticketing or ordering.
Weakness: British airways are trying to be globalised because it has underpenetrated in
globalised markets. Business performance is strongly affected by formation of employee unions.
Over 50% of generated revenue comes directly from UK market.
Opportunities: British Airways is strongly backed up by UK government. Hence, small
business organisations are threatened from this strength of brand. There is strong opportunity of
market expansion by British Airways due to increasing demand of interconnectivity.
Threat: Fare discounting by several competitive companies has threatened British airways.
Strict regulation of UK government is also a potential threat for British Airways.
PESTLE analysis of United Kingdom:
Factors Effect Impact
Political Tax rates: 21%
National stability: Moderate
Positive
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currency rate: 90.99
Economical GDP: £2,434.24 billion
Revenues generated from the market: £789.0 billion
Positive
Sociocultural Population: 65 million
Mean age: 80.96 years
Negative
Technological Technical growth: 4.5% Positive
Legal Labour laws: Employment Rights Act 1996
Company laws: Companies Act 2006
Positive
Environmental CSR: Positive
Pollution laws: Environmental Protection Act 1990
Negative
Table 1: PESTLE analysis of United Kingdom
(Source: Created by researcher)
Political: Political factors of UK are considered as one of most powerful factors in world. It is
also considered as popular destination in regard to FDI. Business tax rate is also moderate and
suitable for conducting large scale business (George et al. 2016).
Economical In respect to nominal GDP, economy of UK is considered as 5th largest in world.
Hence, economical factors of UK show positive responses.
Sociocultural: Consumer market of UK is quite large and expanding day by day. About 2.4%
people are aged 85 and 65 aged people were 18% of whole population.
Technological: Technological advancement of UK is commendable in whole world. A lot of
investment has been made in this sector by FDI (Al-Hadda and Kotnour 2015).
Legal: There are significant rules and regulations regarding business and employment in UK.
These are important in regulating a successful business.
Environmental: Economical activities have impacted severely on environmental factors.
However there are relevant rules and regulations to control it.
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P3: Measures to minimize negative impacts in organizational behaviour
Negativity has become an enhancing issue in current organisational behaviour of British
Airways. It may occur due to loss of community control or confidence. Organisational negativity
can be effectively reduced by taking input or opinions of employees in organisational decision
making procedure (Coccia, 2015). Employees must be informed whatever decision is taken
within an organisational context. Changes impact in several areas such as working conditions,
job requirements, office locations, dress code, overtime hours and pay benefits must be
recognised. Alteration in such areas is distinct signals of changing of organisational behaviours.
Employees must be treated equally in terms of payment, working hours and other opportunities.
Rules and regulations must be standardized and normalised for all employees. Employees must
be provided with greater opportunities for development and growth. Appropriate training and
education can improve performance of an individual as well as it also improves team efficacy.
Leadership must be appropriate when mediating large scale business organisations like British
Airways (McLaren et al. 2016). Management and leadership are two strong stakeholders who
behold the entire team. Success rate of British Airways is dependent on these two stakeholders to
a large extent.
M2: Theories and models to evaluate organizational changes
Organisational behavioural change can be better explained with model of Lewin’s Change
Management. As per this model there are three different stages of organisational change. They
are unfreezing stage which involves preparatory phase for accepting changes. Second step
includes change which can be defined as stage of real transition. Reassurance and support from
good leadership is mandatory in this phase (Georgalis et al. 2015). Final phase is Refreeze which
is defined as stabilization phase after accepting and implementing organisational change.
D1: Conclusions and recommendations for planning effective change
From above analysis of this study it can be concluded that there is a great opportunity for British
Airways to develop and plant effective change in their organisational sector. This can be better
achieved by considering and proper analysing of external and internal factors of the company
(Coccia, 2015). In addition to that, they must be look forward to normalisation and
standardisation of business activities.
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LO3: Barriers influencing leadership decision making:
P4: Different barriers influencing the changes:
In order to design a successful strategy for bringing positive changes in the organization, the
leaders should be aware of various types of barriers that business organization may face. Early
identification of potential problems is always preferable. This helps an organization to develop
early remedy plans for various problems that may arise in bringing organizational change
(Georgalis et al. 2015). A management approach can be designed, which helps to overcome
difficulties that business organizations face during change.
The different barriers that create resistance in organizational change are:
1. Lack of cooperation from the employees: The most common barrier to organizational
change is a lack of cooperation from employees. The fear of change is always there
among employees. The organizations must involve their employees in organizational
change processes (Hottenrott et al. 2016). As a result of organizational change there is a
risk that employees may lose their job. Hence, there exists a lack of willingness among
the employees to accept a new culture.
2. Lack of Potential communication plan: There are many organizations which lacks an
effective communication plan. The leaders of such organizations generally assume that
changes that they have announced will be applauded by employees. This creates
resistance in bringing organizational change (Pollack, 2015). It is important for the
leaders to sit with their subordinates and discuss possible changes that management
thinks would be beneficial for the company. The leaders of an organization, instead of
forcing the employees to adapt to changes, should discuss with their subordinates, the
effects of changes.
3. Poor Cultural Shift: It has been often noted that planning team focuses mainly on
planning new administrative structure and new job responsibilities and ignores the effects
that these changes might bring on employees (Burnes et al. 2018). Thus, there develops a
barrier as a planning team overlooks the problems that employees may face in new work
culture.
4. Organizational Complexity: Hindrances in organizational change appears when an
organization starts to deploy complicated processes thereby, creating difficulties in
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planning and implementation of changes. In order to remove this barrier, Hottenrott et al.
(2016) recommend organisations should introduce a skilful approach in order to handle
complexities. This can be done by employing an efficient, diligent, quality and effective
approach of project management.
M3: Force field analysis and resisting forces influencing decision making
The concept of force field analysis was created by Kurt Lewin. Force field analysis is generally
used for decision making mainly for implementing management changes and planning (Burnes,
2018). This is a powerful tool and may be used to gain a detailed overview of several forces that
acts on various issues of organizational change and helps in assessment of their strength and
source. This process is preferably carried on a small group of people, containing six to eight
members. The process is employed in such a way that each member can see things going on. The
first step involves a discussion of an area that requires change. The forces supportive of changes
are then noted in left column, while the forces against changes are noted in right column.
These forces are called driving forces while forces opposing the changes are resistive forces.
Resistive and driving forces are then evaluated by scoring the forces according to their
intensities. The scores on both sides are then compared and an effective strategy is made to
reduce resistive forces. The score of these forces on either column plays an effective role in
influencing decision-making (Farkas, 2016). It is mandatory for every employee to take part in
force field analysis. There should be different groups comprising of managers, technicians,
internal clients, and other employees. Force field analysis group may also contain shareholders
and external clients of an organization. The advantages of force field analysis are mentioned
below:
1. It helps to investigate power balance concerning an issue.
2. It plays an important role in identifying main stakeholders of an issue.
3. It helps to identify supporters and opponents regarding an issue.
D2: Critical analysis of Force field in organizational objectives
Force field analysis is an effective tool that allows inspecting or scrutinizing all different forces
that come to play for and against a particular decision. An important advantage of force field is
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that it promotes a visualization of different factors that are opposing or supporting a specific idea
(Farkas 2016: 13-22). Force field analysis also helps an organization to identify the hurdles that
it may face in the future. This helps organisation’s management to create strategies on
strengthening those supportive forces and eliminate the opposing forces. A diagram representing
force field analysis is often used as an exemplary guide.
Figure: Force Field Analysis diagram
(Source: Ceulemans et al. 8881-8903)
It contributes to the simplification of communication between staff thereby, breaking
communication barricades. It can be effectively used to assist a group of people in order to
promote a common understanding of a particular topic. As it is said that no tool is idea, force
field analysis too, comes with some disadvantages. One major demerit of force field analysis is
that participation of every member of a group is mandatory in a force field analysis, in order to
receive information for better inspection of a topic. It is not always possible for every group
member to participate in force field analysis (Ceulemans et al. 2015). Hence it becomes difficult
to get a clear picture of driving and resistive forces involved in a change. Also, force field
analysis usually promotes destabilization of groups by creating divisions within a group.
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