Leadership and Change Management: A Reflective Analysis of QIAGEN

This report presents a reflective analysis of change management, focusing on a regional sales manager's experience at QIAGEN during a digital transformation. The report utilizes Gibb's reflective model to structure the experience and Lewin's change model to understand the change proc...Read More

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LEADERSHIP AND CHANGE
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1-8-2019

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Executive Summary
The report was to discuss the change management, for which personal experience of a leader
was considered, and presented through a structured reflection. QIAGEN regional senior
manager experienced a major change in the organization that is Digital Transformation. For
this, a change process model was experienced that was Lewin’s change model. For a better
presentation of experience, Gibb’s reflective model was used. Through this model, it was
observed that there were various issues faced by the manager for handling change
management. However, through the experience, the major learning included the importance
of pre-change communication, training and development, and delegation of change
management work.

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Contents
Executive Summary...................................................................................................................1
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Reflection...................................................................................................................................4
Stage 1: Description...............................................................................................................4
Stage 2: Feelings....................................................................................................................5
Stage 3: Evaluation................................................................................................................6
Stage 4: Analysis....................................................................................................................6
Stage 5: Conclusion................................................................................................................6
Stage 6: Action.......................................................................................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Change is an essential and crucial process in any organization, it is required at a different
stage of the corporation. In the report, a major change occurred at QIAGEN will be
discussed. Being a regional sales manager, I would be reflecting my experience with a major
change in the company, and for better presentation of my experience, Gibbs reflective model
would be used (corporate.qiagen, 2018).
QIAGEN is a company providing molecular testing applications to around 5 lakh customers
worldwide. The company delivers the samples to the insight solutions. With the 500 core
products, the company is helping doctors to view the solution to diagnose the diseases and
could take a better decision regarding the treatment. There are 4700 employees associated
with the company, who are to be managed while implementing the change process. One of
the major change in the company, that this report will be focused on is ‘digital
transformation’ (corporate.qiagen, 2018)

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Reflection
Gibbs reflective cycle is propounded in 1988 by Professor Graham Gibbs, which presents the
experience into a process of six stages. The six stages are as follows:
Figure 1: Source: (mindtools, 2018)
Stage 1: Description
Since the environment is changing rapidly, the company decided to transform the business
and enter into the digital world. The reason being most of the customers are working online,
and this would be a beneficial step for the company to increase the sale and sustain in the
market. Being a sales manager, there were many employees working under me, who could
replicate against the change, and to avoid this change I planned to follow a change process
provided by Lewin’s. Therefore, the Lewin’s change model was used to manage the change,
which was developed in the 1940s by Kurt Lewin. The theory explains three stages of change
(mindtools, 2018).

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1. Unfreeze – this is the initial stage, through which I start communicating with the
employees to make them mentally prepare about the change, and making them
understand the need and advantage of digital transformation. People at the
organization are habitual of working traditionally and need to unlearn that thing or
need to add various another skillset among the employees. At this stage, the training
was provided to the employees, which was known that it would be needed to
complete the further task when the change will occur (Brown & Cummings, 2016).
2. Change – this was the stage where the actual change was conducted. The employees
were asked to start working online and work digitally, provide the solutions online. At
this stage, furthermore extensive training is provided by the trainer, and I personally
use to help the employees to work further. This was the crucial stage experienced by
my team and me as well (Brfidgman & Brown, 2016).
3. Refreeze – this is the last step followed in the process of change, which is to make
employees habitual of the new work process. This is important to avoid resistance to
change. For this, various incentive plans were initiated, and moreover, the employees
were promoted and designated with a different position so that they feel their actual
job is changed permanently (Dawson & Andriopolous, 2014).
Stage 2: Feelings
When the change was about to occur, I was not sure if the change would be successful, and
the employees will support or will resist changing. I was confused and not sure how to handle
the resistance. Nevertheless, as I experience the process, and start to communicate with my
team, they were a bit conscious but with time, they tend to be adaptive to the situation and
tried hard to understand the process further. When I support them with their work, they also
support in return and learn the new process quickly (Brenner, 2015).

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Stage 3: Evaluation
The positive aspect of the experience was that the sales were increased to a large extent,
which is beneficial for the company, me, and my team, as it leads to a high incentive for me
and my team. However, one of the negative aspects was that there were many problems faced
by my team while adopting new work. Moreover, initially, at the learning or training age, the
time was consumed a lot (Dawson & Andriopolous, 2014).
Stage 4: Analysis
Through this experience, I learned that a personal relationship plays an important role while
change process. The relationship among the management and employees, make this process
more comfortable, reduce the employee’s anxiety, and avoid resistance to change.
Another thing that I learned is that effective and pre-change communication is very
necessary, it is important for the employees to understand the company’s point of view.
Moreover, the employees must understand their personal benefit and development
opportunity as well (Carnall, 2018).
Stage 5: Conclusion
From the experience, I can conclude that the readiness stage needs to be extended while
implementing the change process. The communication regarding the change must be initiated
well before the actual change occurs. And this communication must be slowly conveyed,
through this it is meant that step by step things must be explained and informed to the
employees. In case the whole change is explained to the employees, and without much time
the actual change gets into action, the level of resistance and consciousness among the
employees would be more (businessmapping, 2018).
Another thing which can be done for better change management is involving more and more
employees to the change management process. The people engaged in change management

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would be trying other not to resist to change, and their own resistance would also not exist.
This means more delegation of this change management responsibility and authority must be
done in order to minimize the resistance (champlain.edu, 2018).
Stage 6: Action
This is the last stage of the reflective cycle, which presents the future action. Through this
stage, the mistakes, or learning from the experience must be used in future, in case of a
similar situation. In my case, an organization, in case of change is conducted again in the
future, the thing to include to the change management would be providing innovative culture.
Innovative culture will make the employees engaged in thinking new ideas and they would
come up to the change ide, which would eventually be helpful for the company to grow, and
while developing an individual in an organization. Moreover, various activities like
brainstorming must be included in the schedule for this purpose (peoriamagazines, 2018).
Another thing that I would adopt in future that I have learned from my previous experience
would be delegating the work. For instance, from my team, if I would have to give this
change management responsibility to some of the members, it would make the process easier
because they would also be working for their co-members to perceive the change positively
and adapt to the change. This is something, which would help in change management, and I
would be adopted in the future (creativechange, 2018).
Another recommendation for the future situation is a rewarding system, this is one of the
motivational factors that will be helpful in making the process going, and the employees
would also have the reason to work hard to learn the new process and do not resist to the
same. They would be motivated to see others seeing promoted and gaining rewards. The
reward could be monetary and non-monetary. A trip after a time span can be offered to the
employees so that there would be a motivation to sustain through the change. The monetary

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reward could be in form of incentive. They would be talking the training program willingly
so as to earn the incentive in future. Moreover, the management could motivate employees by
making them attend the workshops, seminars, and meeting with the top level management, so
as to make them feel important and asset for the company (Green & Cameron, 2015).
Moreover, training and development programs would be extended in the future, this is done
as I have learned the importance of training programs. They are very much helpful in making
people confident about their new work, and in long run, employees would also able to
enhance their competencies and skills required to apply in a competition of task in the future
(Doppell, 2017).

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Conclusion
From this piece of work, it can be concluded that change management is a process, where a
crucial step is taken within the organization to implement innovation and process change.
This process was experienced by me as a regional change manager of QIAGEN, where one of
the most crucial changes I experienced was the digital transformation that is changing the
traditional work to the digital one. To learn from the experience, Gibbs reflective model was
used to present the reflection in a most appropriate way. Through that, it can be said that I
was not sure if the change would result beneficially for the organization, managers and my
team. However, as I experience the change I realize that communication played an important
role in this situation. A change process was adopted while conducting change management
that is Kurt Lewin change model, where the change I took was unfrozen the existing work of
the employees and make them, ready for a change. Another stage was actual conduct and
implementation of change, and lastly refreeze, through which the employees got into the
changed work permanently.

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References
Brenner, S., 2015. Leadership style and the process of organizational change. Leadership &
Organization Development Journal, pp. 2-16.
Brfidgman, T. & Brown, K., 2016. Unfreezing change as three steps: Rethinking Kurt
Lewin’s legacy for change management. human relations, p. 33.
Brown, K. & Cummings, S., 2016. Unfreezing change as three steps: Rethinking Kurt
Lewin’s legacy for change management. human relations, p. 33.
businessmapping, 2018. 5 Effective Change Management Strategies. [Online]
Available at: https://www.businessmapping.com/blog/5-effective-change-management-
strategies/
Carnall, C., 2018. Managing change. 1st ed. oxon: Routledge.
champlain.edu, 2018. best-organizational-change-management-strategies. [Online]
Available at: https://www.champlain.edu/online/blog/best-organizational-change-
management-strategies
corporate.qiagen, 2018. about us. [Online]
Available at: https://corporate.qiagen.com/about-us
corporate.qiagen, 2018. at a glance. [Online]
Available at: https://corporate.qiagen.com/about-us/What-we-do/at-a-glance
creativechange, 2018. Leadership Development: tools for growth. [Online]
Available at: https://creativechange.biz/leadership-development/
Dawson, P. & Andriopolous, C., 2014. Managing Change, Creativity and Organisation.
London: Sage.

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Doppell, B., 2017. Leading change toward sustainability: A change-management guide for
business, government and civil society. London: Routledge.
Green, M. & Cameron, E., 2015. Making sense of change management: A complete guide to
the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. s.l.:Kogan Page Publishers.
mindtools, 2018. Gibbs' Reflective Cycle. [Online]
Available at: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/reflective-cycle.htm
peoriamagazines, 2018. six-steps-sustain-organizational-change. [Online]
Available at: https://peoriamagazines.com/ibi/2014/may/six-steps-sustain-organizational-
change