Application Paper on Change Management

Application Paper
Date
Application Paper
Businesses today face numerous challenges from the external environment that threaten to disrupt operations. The rapid advancement of technology, racial equality and justice, environmental sustainability, pandemics, and changes in customers’ tastes and preferences are some of the issues modern businesses have to solve. It means that change is inevitable, and companies must constantly adapt to new conditions or attain growth. The course has equipped me with valuable change management knowledge and skills that will be instrumental in my current and future life. The reading by Kotter and Cohen (2002) and cases by Bower et al. (2021), Isaacs and Chan (2020), and Hoffman (2021) have helped me understand deeply how change occurs in the business environment and how to manage it successfully. In addition, the StrenthsFinder exercise was valuable in helping me understand my strengths, which I intend to capitalize on at the moment and when I start my business in the future.
The reading by reading by Kotter and Cohen (2002) is one of the most valuable books that modern leaders can read. While originally published in 2002, the 8-step change framework shared in the book offers important lessons applicable to leaders of today and those of the future. In this regard, the most relevant concepts to me from the course came from the book, and I believe it will be a reference that I will keep close going into the future. The most relevant course concepts were increasing urgency, communicating change, and making change stick. While other steps in the model are also necessary, I found these three quite more relevant to me because I believe they are the most vital in the change process and because I think they’ll be instrumental in my future business. Increasing urgency is crucial in one's personal and professional life for those who want to make a significant change. In the Ted Watson story shared in Kotter and Cohen (2002), we see complacency, pessimistic attitude, and arrogance stand in the way of organizational change (Watson, 2002). But the change initiative did not increase urgency among key stakeholders in this situation. From the case, I learned the importance of a dramatic and attention-grabbing event to increase urgency among key organizational stakeholders. As a future business owner, whenever I would want to initiate a significant change, I would engage in an activity that would highlight the problem and, consequently, increase the urge to change. For example, to initiate a change regarding going green in my future real-estate company, I would prepare a presentation of the effects of climate change while highlighting the dangers that continued emission of greenhouse gases cause to the planet as well as what we can do to make it better. With such presentation, I believe employees would be prompted to participate in the change initiative.
I also found communicating change to be a vital part of the change process. I am confident that the concept is highly relevant in my personal life and future as a business owner in the real estate industry. Communicating change is the fourth step in the change process, and it involves sending clear and sincere messages regarding the direction of change (Kotter & Cohen, 2002). I believe communicating honestly and clearly about why change is needed contributes significantly to stakeholders understanding the need for change and consequently adopting the change process. I intend to start a real estate business in the future, and I anticipate many events that will necessitate change initiatives. I believe environmental sustainability significantly affects the mode of trades, and I think the impact will be more in the future, particularly for real-estate companies. With a real-estate business, I will have to initiate significant organizational changes to grow and respond to the future end. Starting these changes and managing them will require sending clear and sincere communications to key stakeholders regarding the change process. From Kotter and Cohen (2002), I have learned that using repetition and symbols is key to communicating change vision and strategies. I would apply them when managing my real-estate business. Apart from implementing the communication concept in my business, it will also come in handy when making key life changes. I have been planning to start a physical fitness journey for a while now, but I have not gotten it going. I think such a dramatic life change requires sincere and clear intrapersonal communication. After reading Kotter and Cohen (2002), I believe the steps are also applicable in making main life changes, such as starting a workout routine. In this regard, I think I will begin morning workouts such as running after repetitive, clear, and sincere intrapersonal communication.
Apart from increasing urgency and communicating change, I also found the last step, making change stick, quite relevant to me. I have gathered that abandoning a tradition is not an easy feat, and an organization may find itself back to previous practices if new ways do not have enough support (Kotter & Cohen, 2002). In their book, Kotter and Cohen (2002) share a story of how a division that had implemented change went into chaos after the leader left for Switzerland. The division did not have proper supports systems to make the change stick, and it quickly reverted to its old ways (Harris, 2002). After only three years, the performance of the division dropped dramatically and a result, the leader had to go back to the U.S. to correct things. However, he found that the organization had gone back to hierarchical organizational structure, which was quite perplexing given that he had left a flat organizational structure in place (Harris, 2002). In this case, there were not in place sufficient support systems to keep the initiated changes in place. As the owner and manager of my real-estate business, I would avoid going back to old habits after implementing a change initiative successfully. As I have learned from Kotter and Cohen (2002), I would make the change stick by creating a new culture that supports it. I will foster the creation of new behaviors that support the change strategy and make sure that I participate fully alongside other organizational members. I would also put in power individuals who have adopted new behaviors to set a stable foundation for the success of the new culture.
These concepts would have an immense impact on my professional and business life. Understanding the fundamental concepts that characterize the change in organizations is vital in today's turbulent business environment. Change cannot be avoided, and it is necessary to embrace them to make the organization better. I would apply the concepts learned directly to attain business growth and compete effectively. If change is needed to ensure the continuity of my real estate business, I would know the mechanisms to increase urgency that would start a successful change strategy. I would create a dramatic, memorable, and attention-grabbing event to make organizational members understand that an immediate change is necessary for the business to succeed going forward. The communication concept would also help me create heartfelt and explicit messages that I would use to get everyone on board for a successful change. One possible change is responding to regulations requiring only the construction of net-zero buildings. In this case, I would implement a change strategy that would transition the business to a sustainable one that deals primarily with the buying, selling, and managing net-zero buildings. I would communicate clearly and sincerely about the change strategy to get as many people on board as possible. To make change stick, I would foster a culture that promotes sustainable business practices and put mechanisms in the workplace that enhance green thinking. As noted by Kotter and Cohen (2002), when the change effort is large scale, the gravity that holds things together after a change initiative is organizational culture. Culture means the shared values and norms of behavior in a group of people (Kotter & Cohen, 2002). A good way to know whether culture is really embedded in organizational members is through peers, who push others back to the established norms in case of behavior deviation. I would thus use the power of cultu...