Problems in Organization Changes

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John Smithers was assigned to instruct others within the organization on total quality. He and another instructor, about whom he initially had reservations, taught all employees at Sigtek in a quality program mandated by the parent corporation; the program was being introduced throughout the parent company's holdings. What Smithers did not realize until well into the assignment was that the change being implemented was not specific to Sigtek, but was instead a generic change program which the parent company was trying to "shoehorn" into all of its organizations. Lacking the customization necessary for true effectiveness, and without a strong mandate from Sigtek's own top management, the program may well have been doomed to failure from the time it was begun.

Smithers and his co-instructor, Murphy, were designated the champions of the new program, but they found themselves raising employees' expectations too high relative to what employees (and the instructors) could actually accomplish. Murphy and Smithers were, in essence, trying to bring change from the middle of the organization to the top and bottom, and that clearly was ineffective. Given that Murphy's boss found many of the ideas being presented as part of the quality program new, where Smithers was acquainted with them from his outside readings, it is not surprising that other managers would also find the concepts new and that resistance to change would be encountered at upper levels

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on which his speech left on the audience. Xerox Corporation: Leadership Through Quality The first commandment identified is that of analyzing the organization and determining the need for change. Without this analysis and the determination that change is indeed necessary, organizations are likely to implement change for no reason and with little success. Xerox determined that it needed to change because of external benchmarking it undertook with regard to the products of the competition, and because of the internal focus which it had maintained throughout the years when it enjoyed a monopoly on its products and marketing. The move toward implementing change was driven by the recognition that the company no longer operated in the same environment that it did ten years previous, but that the organization itself had not changed in response to the new environment. The company sought to create a shared vision and common direction with regard to its change process, but this was not communicated to the organization as a whole until well into the change itself. Senior managers were aware that change was being undertaken, and some new business entities had been created to help organize the change, but there was no shared vision a
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Some common words found in the essay are:
David Kearns, Nigel Andrews, Motorola Galvin, Human Resources, Leadership Quality, Weaver Dubinsky, Plastics Credibility, Long-term Andrews, Jobs Scully, John Smithers, change process, steering committee, quality program, parent company, levels organization, change organization, total quality, sense urgency, implement change, organization change, industries motorola competes, andrews steering committee, vision common direction, commitment change process, sigtek parent company,
Approximate Word count = 5270
Approximate Pages = 21 (250 words per page)

Problems in Organization Changes

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