Organizational Change Implementation and Leadership at General Motors

This essay analyzes the implementation of organizational change within General Motors (GM), focusing on a case study involving cellular work arrangements in an Australian plant and the appointment of a new plant manager. The study examines the impact of these changes on employee adaptation, performance, and the overall organizational structure, while also comparing the change process to established models like Kotter's and Lewin's. The essay explores the effectiveness of the new manager's strategies, including workplace renovations and efforts to improve communication between management and the union. It highlights both positive outcomes, such as improved employee morale and performance, and potential drawbacks, such as the initial uncertainty and pressure faced by employees. The analysis delves into the application of change theories, the importance of employee engagement, and the challenges of adapting to evolving market demands. The study aims to assess whether the implemented changes ultimately benefited GM, considering both the successes and the negative consequences experienced by the workforce.

Running head: MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
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Organizational Change can be in various cases like those that changes according to
strategies chalked out; advanced technological changes, as well as change in organizational head
can instill a drastic change. The changes to an organization can be continuous or can be
periodical, in the recent times there has been rapid changes including market variations,
customer demands, technological advancement, cutthroat competition and urbanization.
Organizational change was first introduced in the late 1950 and 1960, which generally depended
on the concept of a company sustainability, which can be altered by factors like strategies
cultural changes and technological advancement, and adapting to organizational change. In this
study, the demonstration of a case study representing organizational change in General Motors
will be studied and aligned to various theories, concepts, and models to understand the effect of
change in performance and psychological acceptance of the change.
General Motors (GM) has its headquarters in Detroit Renaissance Centre developed by
William C. Durant in the year 1908(Gm.com. 2020). It is the largest automobile company in
America, ranking in 13 in Fortune 500 rankings in United States. In this context, the cellular
work arrangements of General Motors (GM), which will be introduced in the Elizabeth complex
situated in Australia. Therefore, to guide this change the company appointed a new manager, this
will be explored the way the employees adapt to the new managers, and the effectiveness and
flaws will be pointed out.
The thesis of this study, is analyzing the various kinds of changes, the necessity and the
process it effects the individual and organizational performance and productivity. The changes
within the organization can be both negative and positive, and they have variant implication as
well which will also be the basis of this study.

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Change can be most effective when innovative ideas and “agile management”, is
implemented in the working premises. The exchange of ideas, innovation helps in creating a
much more successful company, as there is increased collaboration and interaction that will
contribute in making the company reach its height and acquire competitive advantage (Burke
2017). In the recent times, technology implementation is much necessary, as advanced
technology has made the work much mire easier, with less time consumption, another factor that
plays an important role is developing an organization is the inclusion of ethical and
understanding work culture, where employees and hierarchical authorities are empathetic and
supportive. According to Aravopoulou (2015),the benefits of including all this factors is that this
type of environment helps in attracting new talent, and helps in retaining existing employees,
maintaining an attractive workplace with improved performance of every individual. In case of
GM, there is an appointed new manager to guide the new changes included in the work field, as
there will be cellular work arrangements that will give much more strategic approach to the
operations of the organization by managing costs and resources. A new manager can lead to
many drastic changes, and the employee’s adaptability, mental stability and desire will help in
accepting those changes imposed by the new manager, which can have positive as well adverse
effects.
According to Odor (2018), changes can be classified in understanding various
perspectives, and it depends on company and organization lead or higher authorities to
implement a type of change, which will be effective. Al-Haddad and Kotnour (2015) have
classified it, that changes are gradual or revolutionary; on the other hand, it can also be classified
in incremental or transformational. Nevertheless, in case of gradual, revolutionary, incremental
all tends in changing a particular unit of an enterprise, whereas, revolutionary and

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transformational involves big changes which involves strategic steps to be adapted. The case of
General Motors that will be discussed in this report will portray revolutionary changes that
involve big changes and strategic approach.
It has been observed that an improved leadership can increase employee engagement to
45%, increased interaction also helps in building interactive environment by 42%. In that case, it
has been seen that change included training and learning before the change is implemented
approximately by 69% of employers (Singh et al 2016). In reference to General Motors, newly
appointed Plant Manager (PM), decided to renovate the floor and paints the machineries in
various vibrant colors. The plant of General Motors was quite old, and built in the late 1960’s;
therefore, the machineries were quite old and poorly maintained. The PM also observed that
there is no communication among the Union members, which was referred as Vehicle Builders
Union (VBU), with the management, or the labor, which resulted in poor performance, distant
relations and decreased employee morale; he decided to make a room where, there will be
solving of the issues between the management and Union. The PM also asked the labors about
their inconveniences and grievances they have faced while working in the plant, which will be
solved and taken care. Changing the workplace structure, by coloring and renovating the floor
also acted as an motivational step which encouraged the employees considerably, as prior to the
changes the plant floor were greasy and dark which acted as a demotivating factor.
The Union members, management, enthusiastically accepted the entire changes and the
employees, as the changes were self-motivating. In an interview, two representatives from the
Union, interviewed, stated that there has been considerable changes seen in the employee attitude
and performance by implementing such innovation of renovating the coloring the workplace.
Therefore, the change theory adapted by the PM was very dependent on the initial changes,

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which was unlike the Lewin Model of Change, which has a phase of freezing and unfreezing.
There were no freezing of work or on the activities of the employees, and no unfreezing as well,
which made the operations more productive.
The correct guidance in implementing John Cutter was the first person who developed a
change model to be implemented in real organizations going through change, to represent the
steps of changes seen in the working environment, and which can be implemented to alter
positive changes by fooling the step of the steps (Pollack and Pollack 2015). The model
represented eight steps included in the model, they are “Creating an Urgency”, “developing a
guided team”, “developing vision”, “communicate buy-in”, “empower action”, “create short term
wins”, “don’t let up”, “sustaining change”. In creating an urgency, the understanding of the
threats and shortcomings are pointed out, so that insight of the company is provided to explore
the opportunities and create necessary interventions. This phase is implemented by initiating
interactive sessions and discussion to exchange ideas and innovations to implement in the
company operations to make it a sustainable company. The next step is to form a coalition
among all the members of the company, which includes the identification of proficient leaders
and key stakeholders involving with the lower employee enabling a cross functional team which
is must more efficient in adjusting change in an environment(Bertram and Fixsen 2015).
Developing strategic goals and objectives, also helps in chalking out the initiative that must be
taken to achieve targeted goals, and make the organization gain competitive advantage. The
chalking out of the goals and objectives also involves decreasing the discrepancies involved
among the employees or authorities as it has been observed in case of General Motors. The
change can only be effective, if the process is continuous, and another important factor that must
be included by every employer while implementing change in an organization is that training and

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acknowledging the employees in adapting the change must be involved. This type of step will
help in further motivation and employee engagement decreasing the retention (McMichael
2016). This model completely aligns with the General Motors, and can be implemented further to
develop their functionalities and adapt to changes to create future scopes for the development of
individual as well as the companies.
On the other hand, “Kurt Lewin”, included three steps in his created change model, they
are, “unfreezing, changing, and refreezing”. The steps involves implementing the change in the
organization as the operations of the organizations were frozen and stagnant, the unfreezing will
help in the company people to adjust to the new changes, create adaptability and understand the
necessity of changes(Hussain et al 2018). According to Lewin, the transitional phase of the
company helps individual understand their self and their capability to understand the necessity of
the change. Individual learn new behaviors, attitudes to adjust to the new environment, which
can take a considerable amount of time. The next step is the “refreezing phase”, where the
changes are actually implemented in the organization. There will be a newly developed status
quo within the organization, by bringing the changes in the infrastructure, processes, goals and
objectives.
The difference between the Kotter Model and Lewin’s Model, is that Kotter model is
much more detailed and helps in developing the change without creating any pause in the
process. Therefore, in this case there will be training of employees, along with the ongoing
process of changes involved in bringing development within the company (Dawson 2019). On
the other hand, Lewin’s Model includes three steps, which is much more concise and brief in
case of Kotter Model. The steps involving is unfreeze, change, and refreeze, which involves
giving time to the employees to adjust to the changes, this can be time consuming and in case of

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ever-changing market demands many companies have lacked behind, and covering the time can
be costly. As there will new entrants in the market, and they will acquire quite market share by
the time this company adapt to the changes.
The main argument of the study is that, whether the changes brought about by the PM, in
General Motors was eventually beneficial without any negative consequences faced by the
employees. In exploring the incidents, it was noticed that, during the initial phases of renovation
and changes brought in the floor to make work cell arrangements, he imposed tight scrutiny on
the employees, which portrayed an uncertainty in the jobs of the employees who have been
working there for years (Hornstein 2015). The plant manager was focusing more on creating
more alliances, removing people, which threaten in his way of achievement, and he only
involved in his team who he thought to be could team players. This went on for five years, and
some people were allowed to retire with pension. According to the Kotter Change Model, any
type of pressure is not implemented, this can cause irrelevant stress, burnout, sense of neglect
which can lead to employee turnover (Cawsey and Ingols 2015). Many representative pointed
out that the PM was quite conservative and he was more focused on creating relation with the
union members and create alliances so that he can prove himself an example before retirement to
bring a revolutionary change in the company.
Kotter model represents that innovation and ideas must be exchanged, as this involves
employee engagement and interactive working environment, but in case of General Motors
(GM), the cellular arrangements in the plant was implemented by collaborating with CSIRO. The
meetings to plan the restructuring and deciding the design constraints of the plant were quite
prolonged and continued for 12 months. This is very unlike of Kotter’s Model of Change, as
Kotter divides the work in various sections, to improvise the services and increase the efficiency

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in adapting changes. The whole process and changes took a prolonged process of ten years, and
it was observed that though all the goals and objectives were achieved, and employee
commitment along with the alliance and joint support of trade union, management team, was
time consuming. The changes were also tight according to the resources that were available, and
the investment were not enough to make the changes in a limited period (Park and Koh 2015).
From the above discussion, it was exemplified that change implemented in a company
can be variant and needs a lot of transformation and alteration. In reference to the case study of
General Motors, it was seen that PM had a goal, but there was lack of resources, support of
external stakeholders, as well as a strategic approach to reduce the time of change implemented.
The time taken in implementing the change is quite time consuming and wasted lot of resources.
Therefore, a change should be applied with prior planning and adapting strategic approach.

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