Report: Organizational Change at Bow Valley Energy (Kotter's Model)

This report examines the organizational changes at Bow Valley Energy, a company in the Oil and Gas Service sector undergoing an acquisition and facing restructuring challenges. The analysis focuses on applying Kotter's 8-stage change model to address issues such as organizational structure changes and employee resistance. The report details each stage of Kotter's model, including creating urgency, building a guiding coalition, developing a vision, communicating the vision, removing obstacles, generating short-term wins, consolidating improvements, and anchoring the changes. It explores communication channels, specifically email and indoor meetings, justifying their advantages and disadvantages. Furthermore, the report identifies transformational leadership as the most suitable style for managing this change, providing a rationale based on research. Finally, it concludes with an assessment of the challenges and proposed solutions to facilitate a successful organizational transformation.

Organizational behavior

Introduction
 Bow Valley Energy is belonged to the Oil and Gas
Service and is going to acquire the competitor
Elbow River Energy.
 There are some challenges that Bow Valley Energy
is facing
 Organisational structure change
 Resistance from some of the employees

KOTTER’S MODEL OF
CHANGE Create sense
of urgency
Create guiding
coalition
Create a vision
for change
Communica
te the vision
Remove
obstacles
Create short-
term wins
Consolidate
improvements
Anchor the
changes

Factors of Kotter’s change
management model
Create urgency: It is associated with the process of identifying the risks or change in needs and formulate a rationale
behind the process.
Powerful coalition: The second stage depends on the relationship between different actors of the organisation.
Vision for a change: The organisation requires to determine the values of the process and also create strategy to set a
vision.
Communicate the vision: The next part is to communicate with the stakeholders and help them understand the
importance of the change management.
Remove Obstacles: There can be some resistance to change from the stakeholders.
Short term goals: The short term goals will help the organisation to achieve the vision of the organisation.
Build on a change: This process is associated with the designing a plan that can foster the objectives and goals of the
organisation.
Anchor the change: This is the final stage of the change management plan where the implementation process will be
commenced.

Change in process (Create a sense of urgency)
 The sense of urgency is the first step of Kotter’s model that is identified
as the process of need recognition (Radwan, 2020).
 In case of Bow Valley Energy, the organisational culture and structure
needs to be refurbished with a top-down decision making practice.
 A meeting has to be conducted with the employees to inform them
about the change in organisation structure and the purpose of the
organisation to change it.

Change in process (Create guiding coalition)
 Bow Valley Energy management will also addresses the benefits of the
change in the organisational structure on the employees in order to
encourage them to accept the change and work accordingly.
 Facilitating a changed organisational aims and objectives is also
required where the employees can understand the real motive of the
organisation and cognate practices.

Change in process (Create a vision for change)
 Bow Valley Energy must prepare a vision for the organisation that is
suitable for both the employees and the organisational interests as well.
 The vision of the organisation will be to create a strong brand image in
the market by offering better service to the customers.
 This customer led approach of Bow Valley Energy will help to convince
the employees that the change is completely focused on attaining
strategic advantage.

Change in process (Communicate the vision)
 Initially a formal mail will be sent to the team leaders and they will
convey the organisation’s decision with the employees.
 A meeting will be conducted with each of the departments so that a
direct interaction can be commenced.

Change in process (Remove obstacles)
 Bow Valley Energy will find out the root cause of employee
dissatisfaction and mentions the benefits that the employees can get
through the change management process.
 The intention and participation of the employees are very crucial for the
organisation and Bow Valley Energy will value the concerns of the
employees through meetings.

Change in process (Create short-term wins)
 Bow Valley Energy is also set a goal for the benefit of the organisation.
 Encapsulating the market with increasing the number of customers is
the primary goal of the organisation.
 Bow Valley Energy requests its employees to support the decision of the
management.

Change in process (Consolidate improvements)
 The purpose of Bow Valley Energy is to follow the vision of the
organisation and initiates changes accordingly.
 It is important to note that the focus of Bow Valley Energy is set on the
shorty term goals so that it will help to make the change management
process effective.
 Henceforth, Bow Valley Energy follows a slow-going change
management process but steady enough to meet the vision step by step
practice.

Change in process (Anchor the changes)
 The plan is to set an effective organisational structure that is associated
with the decision of acquiring Elbow River Energy.
 It is also important to note that the interests of the employees are also
integrated into the plan and the management will take extra initiative to
incorporate the employees into the change management process.