Changemanagement

Running head: CHANGE MANAGEMENT PLAN

Change Management Plan Paper

University of Phoenix

Change Management Plan Paper

CrysTel is a telecommunications planning to implement a range of emerging telecommunications technologies in a bid to increase the products offering in the market. As an agile organization that keeps up with the volatile demands of the market, CrysTel is likely to change its products portfolio or offer new products on a regular basis. This may impact the entire organization.

CrysTel realizes that Companies that achieve long term success are those that are able to develop and maintain competitive advantage. The challenge is that today's competitive advantage becomes tomorrow's minimum level of acceptable performance. Unique products, decreased time to market, high quality, and excellent customer service each, at various times, provided competitive advantage and competitors quickly replicated each.

To secure these advantages CrysTel must implement major changes to its departments.

This paper will discuss how CrysTel could lead a successful change.

Implications of Organizational Change

Constant change is inevitable in the telecommunications business it is considered one of the most important keys in a successful organization. CrysTel main goal is to increase the products offering in the market by implementing a range of emerging telecommunications technologies. To determent the impact of this change on the organization we must evaluate and analyze the different departments in the company and whether they are ready to adopt this constant change.

CrysTel Departments:

* Technology development: this department develops the technology required for CrysTel's products.

* Technology operations: this department delivers, maintain, and manages the network, coordinating closely with teams from across the business to deliver on time service.

* Human Resources: The HR department focuses on identifying skill gap and creating proactive learning initiatives to close them generating future business leaders through successive planning and developing performance management system to harness the true potential of workforce

* Marketing: The marketing team communicates new technology to the customers. This department works with the technology development, technology operations and sales departments.

* sales and delivery: The sales and delivery team looks after sales tracking of CrysTel's products, distribution channels for wholesale and retail selling and products inventory.

In order to achieve the company's goals CrysTel has to align all these departments to function efficiently in order to manage this constant change.

While in most organizations the marketing and sales and delivery departments go hand-in-hand to serve the overall goal of the organization. At CrysTel each department is working separately resulting a lack of communication which is developing incompatible goals and measures.

To change this attitude and fix these issues CrysTel has to manage the human aspects within these departments.

A work environment is composed of two types of building blocks-those that are "inert" dealing with structures, policies, technology, strategies, capital, and tools and those that are "human" dealing with perceptions, assumptions, resistance, fears, aspirations, beliefs, and values. Each work environment has its own configuration of inert and human components that form a unique identity or landscape that distinguishes it from any other work setting. (Conner Partners 1998 Installation vs. Realization)

The inert aspects are isolated, independent features of the landscape that have no inherent connection to one another. A change does not by itself trigger a shift in the way employees are managed. It is the human component of a landscape that provides all the links, bonds, and affiliations that exist within work settings. Without the human component, meaningful integration of the various inert components wouldn't exist. At CrysTel each department must understand that they can't stand alone without being affected by other department's performance.

The survey indicated that the marketing department is weak in the areas of employee and senior communication, empowering the teams and does not initiate mentoring activities to train less experienced employees. The survey also indicated that the Sales and Delivery Department's is weak in the areas of risk-taking, resolving conflicts and leading by example.

Because of the powerful influence employees and their reactions have on the success of change initiatives, it is vitally important for leaders to ensure that the human landscapes encircling key business solutions are managed properly. Leadership today involves more than making the right decisions about what should be done. In addition to correctly determining the proper course of action, leaders must also know how to orchestrate the human infrastructure to ensure that there is enough support from the key employee involved to actually achieve the true purpose of the change.

When an organization undergoes a significant change a culture change often accompanies it. Change leads to uncertainty and study after study has suggested that uncertainty negatively affects production and performance. Because of this, major organizational changes must be carefully managed and monitored with the desired result of decreasing the amount of resistant in the minds of the employees

The real difficulty in changing courses of any enterprise lies not in developing new ideas but in escaping from old ones." John Maynard Keyes(2000)

Because change has become an everyday part of organizational dynamics, employees who resist change can actually hold back the organization from reaching success.

Resistance is an inevitable response to any major change. Individuals naturally rush to defend the status quo if they feel their security or status are threatened. Folger & Skarlicki (1999)

Human Variables of Change Implementation

Every organization has change resisters. Employees who are uncomfortable with change, who are threatened by it, or who would simply rather not have to deal with it.

As a change leader, it's important to pick your battles and