Lakeland Wonders: Using Transactional Analysis to Communicate Change

This report analyzes the change management strategies employed by Cheryl Hailstrom, the CEO of Lakeland Wonders, focusing on the application of transactional analysis to improve communication during a period of significant organizational change. The report addresses the challenges Cheryl faces, particularly resistance from key personnel like Mark, as she attempts to implement a new vision involving offshore manufacturing to launch a lower-priced product line. It emphasizes the importance of understanding individual psyches and interpersonal transactions within the organization, recommending that Cheryl validate her ideas and foster a shared vision with her team. The analysis draws upon Berne's transactional analysis theory, highlighting the need for clear and articulate communication, a shift towards a more democratic leadership style, and the involvement of team members in the change process to overcome resistance and ensure successful implementation of the new strategies. The report also references Van de Ven and Poole's theoretical framework to anticipate change logically and adapt to competitive pressures, advocating for inspiration, persuasion, and negotiation to facilitate change within Lakeland Wonders.

Running head: MANAGEMENT OF CHANGE
Management of Change
Student’s name:
Name of the university:
Author’s note:

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To: Cheryl Hailstrom, CEO, Lakeland Wonders
From: _____, Change Consultant
Date: 2nd December, 2018
Subject: Transactional analysis to communicate change in Lakeland Wonders
Lakeland Wonders is well-known for manufacturing high-quality wooden toys. Cheryl, you have
been appointed as CEO and you want to expand and achieve new growth targets set by the
Board. Your vision is to launch a lower-priced line through outsourcing offshore manufacturing
products. Cheryl, you were the first person from outside the Swensen family to hold the top level
post and in the previous time, you were general merchandise manager and later you were the
COO of Kids&Company. The organisation with intention of market expansion is generally
observed to restructure the strategies to focus on the organisational culture and showing the
effectiveness of the employees in gaining the change. The purpose of the memo is to show the
transactional analysis to analyse the communication of change. In this memo, I am to make
recommendations to you on how you could apply the change technique to improve the way you
have communicated the change in Lakeland Wonders case.
Lakeland Wonders made their toy products traditionally in the US and the cost of manufacturing
the products in the US is higher than in the cheap countries. In order to achieve the target of
selling products, Cheryl, you want to make a contract with Bulls-eye to sell the products at lower
price. Cheryl, you are facing the issue when Mark does not support your vision and the

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organisation is going to go through major changes to advance which may not be done without
commitment and support of the team.
As stated by Berne (2016), the transactional analysis is a theory of psychoanalytic concept
where the social transactions are described and analysed to conceptualise the ego state of the
patient in order to understand the behaviour. Eric Berne mainly described how the individuals
are structured psychologically (Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2015). There are mainly four life
positions which an individual can hold. Cheryl, you need to understand among the four positions
of communication, Lakeland Wonders belongs to which position. Transactional analysis is a
theory of communication which can be extended to an understanding of systems and
organisations. Berne theory can be used in Lakeland Wonders to help you to remain in clear
communication at a perfect level in consulting with other members. I personally think that
Cheryl, you need to understand the individual psyche and you need to do the analysis of
interpersonal transactions based on structural analysis of the person in the transaction. Cheryl,
you have undergone several external events and you have also undergone through recordings of
internal events associated with the external psyche. Therefore, before making any decision, you
need to validate your ideas before stating it to others.
I personally would like to aver that failure to share the common vision with employees and
members of Lakeland Wonders and managerial lines created the change problems. It is quite
ascertained that employees would be uncomfortable with sudden alterations and disagreements
would also ensue among the employees. As explained by (Carnall, 2018), the organisations
generally do not share the options as these are not being recognised as the lack of co-operation
and communication along with trust and support play important role in the change process.
Cheryl, you have overconfidence with support and trust which she has received from her past

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experiences. Cheryl, you might think that you already got and earned support from investors and
colleagues regarding the change process; however, I would like to add that you need to earn the
support from your team each day. In work culture or change process, you are actions on plans
too fast. Outsourcing of the products from China needs time and it cannot be done in fast and
your driving style is not aligned with Lakeland’s work culture. Therefore, you need to
understand employee resistance is common in change and you can also face commitment and
engagement issue. According to (Beech et al., 2018), managing resistance to change is overt and
covert for the management as this can be very disruptive for the organisation.
Van de Ven and Poole's theoretical framework tries to attempt to develop all-encompassing
change framework to develop a conceivable process of human organisational set-up. In Life-
cycle theory, the core concept is to focus on event progress in sequential along with linear
manner. Cheryl, you need to anticipate the change in a logical way with logical constructs.
According to Van de Ven & Poole (2017), the core concept of evolution is bringing the change is
the best way to make wider backdrop to create the competitive survival to provide the natural
selection of events (Cameron & Green, 2015). Core concept of dialectic is to explain that all
exist within the organisational change is to shape by conflict and opposition where the
contradiction is in a natural state. Finally, teleology shares change which is enacted for the goal-
setting mechanism.
Therefore, you want to focus on mid-market, not just to the upscale market to decrease the
manufacturing cost and to increase the revenue of the organisation. This particular framework of
Van de Ven and Poole framework shares the actions where the future adaptations of Lakeland
share the scenario founded on deterministic laws.

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I think that you need to involve the team members in the change process so that the team
members can get a chance to perform. It is required to involve the team members in the planning
process as it would help the organisation to bring the change in a speedy way. In addition,
Cheryl, you should enhance the communication with team members as your communication
should be clear and articulate. You should have a composed body language and it is required to
communicate with major stakeholders and senior managers.
I also think that Cheryl, you can change your leadership style as your team handling style is
more of autocratic. You always told that ‘my' vision, I would request you to come up with ‘our'
vision. Change your leadership style to be democratic and it will help you to establish the rules
of engagement of the working process.
Lakeland Wonders has been going through in the process of change and Cheryl needs to provide
an emphasis on inspiration, persuasion and negotiation which would help the organisation to
operate with full disclosure along with mutual respect. The desirable course of action for Cheryl
to bring change is to communicate, engage and demonstrate.

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Reference List
Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, S. (2015). Changing organizational culture: Cultural change
work in progress. Abingdon: Routledge.
Beech, N., MacIntosh, R., Krust, P., Kannan, S. & Dadich, A. (2018). Managing change:
enquiry and action. Australasian Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Berne, E. (2016). Transactional analysis in psychotherapy: A systematic individual and social
psychiatry. Pickle Partners Publishing.
Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2015). Making sense of change management: A complete guide to
the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. London: Kogan Page
Publishers.
Carnall, C. (2018). Managing change. Abingdon: Routledge.
Van de Ven, A. H., & Poole, M. S. (2017). Field research methods. The Blackwell companion to
organizations, 867-888.