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Managing Change Chapter 10 Exercise 10.3

The organization announced a change to expand their golf course from 18 holes to 27 holes. The owner/manager informed his two manager sons first about the plans and how it would impact operations. He then held a meeting to announce the change to all employees, explaining the reasons for it and that additional training and hiring would occur. The communication strategy was to provide a wide variety of information to keep employees informed, and employees felt comfortable knowing they could get questions answered. On a scale of 1-5, the strategy scored a 5. In hindsight, communicating with customers could be improved by sending a letter to members about the changes.

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Karen Smith Lautzenheiser
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116 views3 pages

Managing Change Chapter 10 Exercise 10.3

The organization announced a change to expand their golf course from 18 holes to 27 holes. The owner/manager informed his two manager sons first about the plans and how it would impact operations. He then held a meeting to announce the change to all employees, explaining the reasons for it and that additional training and hiring would occur. The communication strategy was to provide a wide variety of information to keep employees informed, and employees felt comfortable knowing they could get questions answered. On a scale of 1-5, the strategy scored a 5. In hindsight, communicating with customers could be improved by sending a letter to members about the changes.

Uploaded by

Karen Smith Lautzenheiser
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Managing Organizational Change Chapter 10 Exercise 10.

3 Karen Lautzenheiser March 1, 2013

Did your organization have a strategy for announcing the change? My past employer was a small family business with 22 employees so our change process was not as significant as a bigger organization would be. The biggest change we went through was adding an additional nine holes to the golf course which gave us a competitive advantage since we would be the only 27 hole golf course in a 50 mile radius. In announcing the change my boss (also my father) told my brother and I his plans first. My brother (Kent) and I were considered managers. Kent was in charge of the outside operations and I was in charge of the pro-shop operations. Dad explained his plan, how it was going to affect the golf course, the employees as well as the customers. The most important part of this change would be maintaining the traffic of golfers. The process could be very confusing so dad stressed how imperative it was for Kent and I to understand so we could be around to make sure our employees did not make mistakes. After explaining the change with Kent and I as well as ensuring we were on board and understood how the operations would work dad called a meeting with all employees. Dad started off explaining why he was planning for this change, who it affects, and that he needed everyone to be on board with this change. He explained that I would be training pro-shop employees and Kent would be training outside employees. He also ensured our outside employees that he would be hiring one, possibly two more employees to take on the extra work that would be involved on their end. To answer the question, yes he had a very well thought out strategy which entailed being very informative towards his employees, ensuring them that he or his managers would answer any questions or concerns as well as we would welcome any thoughts and suggestions on their end (Palmer, Dunford, Akin, 2009, pg.s 304-305, 311). What information strategy did it use for conveying information during the change? Did it adopt on or more of the strategies outlined by Clampitt, DeKoch, and Cushman? Was the same strategy adopted consistently and for all members of the organization? The strategy my father used would be spray and pray. He showered employees with a wide variety of information. His intentions of this were to keep the employees up to date and informed as to what the future held for the business as well as themselves. My father felt that communicating with employees was crucial. His reasoning was he wanted his employees to trust him and feel like they were an important part of the organization. Thankfully, we did not experience the downside in this type of

communication strategy. Our staff knew what parts of the change were significant versus the insignificant parts. They were overloaded with information but they felt comfortable because they were ensured that Kent, I, or my father would always be available to help with any problems that would arise or answer any question. They had our phone numbers and knew that they could call any of us at any time. I feel that this was the only strategy that we used. The reason is because we were such a small organization with basically two divisions being affected by the change, pro-shop operations and golf course operations. Yes, the same strategy was successful for all members of the organization (Palmer, Dunford, Akin, 2009 pg. 306). . On a scale of 1-5, how would you rate the overall communication strategy? I feel that my father did an excellent job of communicating with our employees. Kent and I were very well informed as well which made us very successful in our parts of the change as well. My score for my father would definitely be a 5 (Palmer, Dunford, Akin, 2009). . With 20/20 hindsight vision, what changes would you make? My father scored a 5 in communicating with employees but he only scored a 3 in communicating with customers. I feel that my father should have sent a letter out to our members explaining his changes. I also feel that he should have posted a letter on a public bulletin board in our pro-shop area. Our employees were bombarded with questions and concerns involving the addition (change.) If my father would have sent a letter with a picture of the architects plans of the addition, explaining the layout, yardage, grass type, and his intentions with this addition. By doing this our employees would have been able to implement better customer service, as well as outside operations, instead of being distracted by customers asking about the new addition. I also feel strongly that a letter to our members would have made them feel like a big part of the organization as well. They spend a lot of money at our establishment; they should be well informed of upcoming changes (Palmer, Dunford, Akin, 2009). . How appropriate are your recommendations likely to be for future organizational changes? Will they depend upon the changes themselves? My father sent Christmas cards to our members every year. After I suggested to him that the members should be informed about our upcoming changes he started including a letter with the Christmas cards. Our members appreciated this gesture. I feel that my idea was very appropriate for our organization.

Yes, I feel that the type of change depends on how the change will be communicated. This type of change affected our customers therefore I feel that they needed to be informed. If our change was a procedural change that would not affect customers then they do not need to be informed (Palmer, Dunford, Akin, 2009). .

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