What can you do as the leader of a successful business when you feel a stronger need for change than the rest of the organization? Consider the actions that you would take and provide your reasoning and examples for each. How can you establish a sense of urgency throughout the organization? Remember to incorporate terminology and concepts from the course reading into your essay. Consider referencing the British Airways case study in the textbook (Module 1).

Introduction

Change masters are defined as “the people who know how to conceive and lead productive and effective projects, initiatives, or ventures that bring new ideas into use are change masters” (Jick & Maury, 2011, p.475). What I learn from this definition is that to be a leader who is capable to bring change, I must be capable to bring and appreciate new ideas. Change does not always has to be brought in organizations or processes which have problems. Change can also be brought in successful organizations to make them more successful. After all the goal of any organization would be to grow and not just stay at a constant state be it a successful one. In this paper I would like to discuss some of the steps that I would take to create a sense of urgency and introducing change in a successful organization.

Creating a sense of urgency

A true sense of urgency is an action that is alert, fast and focused (Kotter, 2008). Before I create a sense of urgency, I would first try to identify different types of employees I my organization. These employees can be categorized differently. For example they can be already engaged employees, not engaged employees and actively disengaged employees. In my opinion, there should be different strategies to create a sense of urgency between the different types of employees. For the engaged employees I would tell them the benefits of the change process. It would elevate their motivation level. For the not engaged employees, I would tell them about what are the disastrous implications if the change process is not initiated. The actively disengaged employees are the most difficult to deal with. To them I would tell the disastrous consequences that can occur if change process not initiated plus what are the punishment for them if they do not actively participate in the change process.  Like in the example of British Airways, John King, the new CEO, created a sense of urgency by deciding letting go 20% of the work force (Jick & Maury, 2011) I can also decide to let some of the actively non engaged employees to create a sense of urgency.

Identifying the Required Change

Before a change process can be initiated, it is important to identify if there is actually an opportunity for change or not. If there is an opportunity, the change are would be identified. For example the organization could be doing well with its current Management Information System (MIS) but as a leader I would like to update to a latest MIS to make the information system more efficient.

Communicating the Change

As a leader I would visit the different departments of the organization and discuss why do we need a new MIS? People might want to stick with the old MIS as they might feel that they would have issues in adopting to the new MIS. I would clear their doubts and tell them that training would be arranged for them to take full advantage of the new system and effectively adopt to it.

Implementing the Change

Research suggests that it is important to encourage to make an effort among the workers by a leader when implementing a change, how much easy the change may be (Nanda, 1996).  As a leader, I would encourage my workers to adopt to the change process and help in implementing the change. For those who show necessary resistance, I would have place a system of accountability.

Conclusion

As a whole, I believe that managing the people who are directly or indirectly related to the change process. I would try my best to deal the employees effectively and efficiently to bring about the change for the growth of my organization. I would consider myself accountable and make other accountable for any undue mistakes.