Managing Change in Organisations: A Case Study of John Good Shipping

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Understanding and Leading Change

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Task 1: Managing the Impact of Change.........................................................................................2
P1. Compare different organizational examples where there has been an impact of change on
an organization’s strategy and operations....................................................................................2
P2. Evaluate the ways in which internal and external drivers of change affect leadership, team
and individual behaviors within an organization.........................................................................3
M1: Assess the different drivers for change in each of the given examples and the types of
organizational change they have affected....................................................................................4
P3. Evaluate measures that can be taken to minimize negative impacts of change on
organisational behavior................................................................................................................5
M2: Apply appropriate theories and models to critically evaluate organisational response to
change..........................................................................................................................................7
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................9
P4: Explain different barriers for change and determine how they influence leadership
decision-making in a given organisational context.....................................................................9
M3: Use force field analysis to analyse the driving and resisting forces and show how they
influence decision-making.........................................................................................................10
Task 3.............................................................................................................................................12
P5: Apply different leadership approaches to dealing with change in a range of organizational
contexts......................................................................................................................................12
M4: Evaluate the extent to which leadership approaches can deliver organizational change
effectively applying appropriate models and frameworks.........................................................13

Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................14
References......................................................................................................................................15

Introduction
John Good Shipping is a company whose headquarters is in Kingston upon Hull, United
Kingdom, basically a shipping agency and freight forwarder. It offers air and sea freight services
to the places which have strong connections of port, like Grimsby, Hull, Immingham,
Felixstowe, and overseas. The company was founded in 1833 by John Good. The research
includes impact on the change on the strategies and operations of the organization, different
methods by which internal and external factors affects team, leadership and individual behavior
within the company. It also evaluates the measures taken to reduce the negative effect of the
change in the behavior of John Good Shipping. Different barriers of change will also be
discussed and how it will influence the decision making. The report will give a brief review as to
the changes in the organizational behavior.
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Task 1: Managing the Impact of Change.
P1. Compare different organizational examples where there has been an impact of change
on an organization’s strategy and operations.
Change is the process of moving the organization from where it is now to where it desires to be.
Change can be small like making improvements in the certain policies and procedures of the
company, or producing the goods so as to meet an unpredictable competition. The change is of
three types, i.e. developmental, transformational, and transitional change (Thompson, 2018).
Change is important to earn the competitive advantage. In order to manage such change, various
areas shall be identified like conflicted areas, considering the requirements of the customers; it
helps in fulfilling the gap between the ambitions of project team, executives, and those who gets
affected by the change.
Examples which have an impact of change on the strategies and operations of the
organization are:
1) Shell: Shell has faced a challenge in reduction of its share price because of the crisis in
oil reserves. This situation occurs because of the sudden departure of the chairman of the
oil group, Sir Philip Watts. Jeroen van der Veer, the new chairman believed that the
company shall make changes in its processes and structures so as to survive. The new
processes were established and they have an impact on approximately 80 operating units
of Shell.
In the programs of change, there is always a tension which involves management delegation,
leaders don’t want to face the change this can result in the failure of the change. Shell, however,
was able to face the change and adopted it more effectively with the support of the chairman.
And now, Shell is one of the healthy companies in UK.
2) Direct Line:It is an insurance company of UK.According to the leaders of Direct Line,
change can lead to two views. First: change can be delegated such as activities which are
implementation-based like risk and project management. Second: change is a risky
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process and it is considered to be processes of disruptive repetition that leaders in the
company have been recognized for their improvements over the time.
Because of the financial crisis in 2008, EU regulators give orders to the RBS Group to sell
their business of insurance; in return RBS would get £45 billion. The insurance business of
RBS Group was being led by the Paul Geddes, aims to separate its business to a single
individual company from RBS Group, by either listing its services on the stock exchange
market or by selling it to the competitors.
Geddes took this disruption into an opportunity and was successful in creating a rebranded,
viable, and standalone insurance company, which is now called as Direct Line Group.
Geddes was patient and waited for 18 months to distinct every strand of the company, from
independent functions, to customer data and governance. In the year 2012, the Board of
Directors of Direct Line Group introduced IPO in the London Stock Market and it was the
most successful and biggest listing of that year (Insights, 2015).
P2. Evaluate the ways in which internal and external drivers of change affect leadership,
team and individual behaviors within an organization.
Change plays a key role for the improvement and successful of the company. Change will have a
huge impact on the individual behavior, leadership, and team in the John Good Shipping.
The internal drivers of change are resources, desires, inventions, capabilities, and
dissatisfaction. The external drivers of change include competitors, government, customers,
investors, and technology.
Internal factors affect the leadership, team, and individual behavior in the company by the
following ways:
There are various internal drivers of change like inventions, capabilities, resources,
dissatisfaction, and desires. Inventions affects the leadership, team and individual behavior in the
company in a way that company aims to provide new and creative products in the market to earn
competitive advantage but usually the employees, leaders are not ready to accept such change.
They feel scared of the changes and think that change may cause them a heavy amount of loss as
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it is a risky process. The capabilities of the employees of the company also affect the leadership,
team and individual behavior. The capabilities of the employees help the leaders to motivate
them to work hard in order to adopt the change according to the changing environment.
Availability of resources, desires and dissatisfaction of the employees of the company has also
an impact. Resources are used for the production of the goods and less resource available will
affect the operations in the company and will ultimately affect the individual behavior. The
desires motivate and encourage employees and leaders to work hard according to the changing
business environment. Dissatisfaction among the employees because of the change can result in
increased employee rotation rate (Wroblewski, 2018).
The external drivers of change affect the team, leadership and individual behavior by the
following ways:
Competitors focus on capturing the highest market share by keeping its customers happy and
satisfied by providing them products of their choice. John Good Shipping in order to stand
against the competitors applies changes in its operations. Customers also have an impact in the
team, leadership, and individual behavior as their preferences, tastes changes with the changing
environment. Organization has to work according to the changing wants and tastes of the
customers so as to improve its profitability and growth. Updated technology encourages
employees to adopt the latest technologies in its business and thus affects the leadership,
individual behavior, and team. Government changes rules and regulations for the development of
the entire country. The changed policies, rules, and regulations in the country affect the working
conditions and thus affect the leadership, team, and behavior of the individuals. Investors also
play an important role in the change as they take a part in the decision makings of the company.
Investors are the key people of any company. The investors own the equity share of the company
and possess the power to sell it to the third party in case they are not satisfied with the
performance of the company. Investors can also drive change so as to improve the growth of the
company and thus ultimately affects its leader, team, etc (Spacey, 2018).
M1: Assess the different drivers for change in each of the given examples and the types of
organizational change they have affected.
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The organisation need to implement various changes in the organisational business processes and
function through tools and strategies for satisfying organisational needs and customers demands
according to the present market trends. The Changes are basically for achieving the business
objectives and competitive advantage. The Changes in a business organisation are caused due to
internal and external drivers.
Internal drivers: Technological changes are introduced in the organisation for effective
business management in Shell, thus the organisation has chosen to conduct programs for training
to make the employees suitable for the changing business processes (Burke, 2017). The
organisation chooses to employ more employees for performing various operation in the
organisation to increase productivity and invested effectively in advance technology for
improving overall capabilities.
External drivers: Shell presently is facing issues due to the limited oil reservation estimation
that has limited its business in certain area. Thus new strategies must be applied by the
organisation to sustain in this competitive market. Political and social concerns are the main
external drivers for Shell.
P3. Evaluate measures that can be taken to minimize negative impacts of change on
organisational behavior.
Behavioral change in an organization occurs because of various reasons which include merger or
acquisition, financial concerns, expansion of markets, growth accommodation, etc. Change is a
difficult and risky process and employees are generally does not accept it easily. Changes have
various negative impacts and for minimising this influence over business processes and
productivity and organisation must implement various measures:
Continuous improvement: It is the responsibility of the Managers of the organisations to
monitor the performance of employees and product quality offered considering the
organisational standard. The managers must apply Continuous improvement model for
monitoring and evaluating the performance of employee’s so that effective decision can be taken
accordingly for minimising the conflicts and deviations. All the barriers and pitfalls should be
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evaluated for overcoming influence of the change negative effecting the functionalities and
overall business.
Proper communication: Both formal and informal techniques of communication must be
encouraged in the organisation for minimizing the interaction gap between the employees and
higher authorities with intermediates like managers or leaders. Proper communication system
helps in reducing conflicts in case of any environment or technical changes prevailed in the
organisation. For an example, advancement of technology has forced organisations to implement
new or advance system for data storage, and it is the responsibility of managers to communicate
with the employees regarding the changes in business and to introduce training sessions
accordingly.
Analysing factors: Organisation as a measure to minimize negative impacts of change on
organizational behavior should effectively conduct proper analysis of all the internal as well as
external factors of the organisation environment that are or may lead to bring different changes
in the productivity and overall business process. The manager can chose to refer Burke Lewin
model, according to this model analysis in an organisation is conducted for controlling changes
and then taking decisions suitably for dealing with changes. For example, Globalisation is
resulting in high rate of employee turnover causing lots of business loss. Thus for mitigating
this, the manager of the organisation can introduce reward system to keep the employee
motivated and focused.
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M2: Apply appropriate theories and models to critically evaluate organisational response
to change
To evaluate the organisational response towards various changes, Mc Kinsey model is
considered as one of the best techniques. This model framework has 7S that postulates
effectiveness of the organization considering the internal factors that are reinforced and aligned
for attaining organizational success. The model has three hard element i.e. strategy, structure,
systems and four soft elements, hard values, skills, style, staff.
Strategy: To gain competitive advantage in the present freight forwarding and shipping market.
John Good Shipping presently has adopted different business strategy that includes offering
bespoke freight management solutions and delivery efficiencies to the customers so that
customers get their cargo on the estimated time. Electronic Data Interchange system has been
introduced in the organization for attracting more customers. The leaders of the organization
make sure that the overall decision making process involves employees for attaining the pre-
defined objectives.
Structure: John Good shipping presently follows a hierarchical organisational structure. Proper
organisational structure helps in establishing effective communication. The data flow follows a
proper structure minimising the gap of communication among the employees and customers.
With the help of hierarchical structure implementation of new technological, social or political
changes in the organisation become easy along with the related plans and strategies.
Staff: Different changes are introduced in the organisation for motivating and encourage the
employees to work hard and reduce their efforts are different level. With the new tools the
business operation enhances and supports the organisation to attain it goals and objectives.
Style: in the organisation it is very much necessary that all the employees working for serving
the organisation and employee must stay motivated and dedicated towards their work so that
delivery of the product to the customer is on time. Therefore, the leaders choose to adopt
autocratic and democratic style of leadership. When, the employees are lacking behind in their
performance the autocratic leadership style is used and when the employees are demoralised or
dissatisfied leader implements democratic styles of leadership (Chang, 2016).
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Skills: For gaining competitive advantage in the growing sector, the organisation needs to
implement various tools and technologies to satisfy the current market trends among the
customers. Thus, to reduce and to minimise the changes of conflict due to the changes in the
business process or the environment the leaders and managers are responsible for conducting
regular programs for employee’s training and development to enhance their knowledge and skills
to develop them professionally.
Systems: The organisation implement eextensive program for implementing IT and solution for
establishing proper communication among the customers, service provider and partners.
Centralized data management system will be helpful for the manager of the organization to store
various data and ultimately will lead to improve organizational productivity and profitability as
the effort required for data processing or recovery system become easy even in case of prevailed
disaster.
Shared values: John Good shipping introduced and encourages different changes in the
organisation and its business processes for attaining high performance. That ultimately leads to
development of the brand image increasing profit margin and revenue.
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Task 2
P4: Explain different barriers for change and determine how they influence leadership
decision-making in a given organisational context
Changes have both positive as well as negative impacts on the organisation and its business
process. In case of unplanned and unorganised changes implementation in an organisation
including its environment and functions changes of rising in change barriers may increase
undoubtedly. Few barriers that comes across changes for the organisation is stated below:
Cultural differences: Being a large organisation, the organisation need to perform various tasks
in various sector including finance, marketing, store, production etc at various level involving
thousands of employees (Northouse, 2018). Being a multinational company the organisation has
number of employees at different levels belonging to different background, race, caste, gender
religion etc. for serving customers and satisfying their needs. Reaction of every individual
regarding the changes may differs from each other raising the level of complexities in the
organisation while serving customers according to the set standards. The leaders and managers
are responsible for offering a healthy and friendly work environment offering all the workers
with equal opportunity to discuss their issues and for attaining training session to cope with
changes.
Low changes tolerance: One of the common conflicts that have been found among the
employees and managers is low tolerance to any big changes. It has been seen in that Managers
are having disagreement regarding experience teams that were basically organized for sustaining
change implementation. According to few managers, John Good Shippings has the changes of
facing issues relate to shortage of skills and qualified employee for effective marketing.
Lack of communication: Inadequate information among the employees may be considered as
another barrier. The technological advantage has brought new changes in the technological
facilities used by employees. The team was uncertain regarding the IMC system used in John
Good Shipping and changes on non-acceptance was more that may result in un-fulfillment of
business goals and objective.
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