organizational change 40

WEEK 5:

Discussion 1 Response 1: C.W.

Employee empowerment helps build partnerships between companies and their customers. Employees are the most interactive with customers in most organizations and therefore can determine the success or failure of a company based on how they react to customers. Empowering employees to build relationships with customers is essential in making the customer feel like the organization agrees with them and has the same concerns. Empowering employees makes them accountable for decisions they make and gives them confidence to complete tasks, it helps get problems resolved faster and helps companies provide better customer service. Empowering employees helps the customer feel as though they are talking to someone who can get the job done for them.

An agile organization is “one that can quickly react to changes in the market” (Wiess, 2016). Agile organizations are innovative and responsive to changes, they can see the trends that occur and react to stay ahead of competitors. Agile organizations have employees who are able to meet change demands and react by doing things differently if needed. Being an agile organization is essential if a company expects to meet the needs of its customers. Agile organizations meet the goal of empowerment and partnership because they have managers who are able to take their power and distribute to the team. The manager gives the team autonomy, trust and self-organization which helps each team member adapt and become agile. These organizations value communication, accountability, decision making, and modularity (Weiss, 2016).

A recent experience with AT&T is one that comes to mind. My spouse is an over the road driver, he recently dropped his phone while hundreds of miles from home. He has to have his phone for work and could not get it to work at all. He called AT&T who helped him connect with another store close to where he was. He got a phone quickly and they provided information about returning the other phone to the insurance company. The advice and the extra mile they went to help us in a time of need, very much tilted the scale in their favor. We were customers before, but now we are loyal customers and the employee in the store is the one who made the difference.

Reference

Weiss, J.W. (2016). Organizational Change (2nd ed.) [Electronic version]. Retrieved fromhttps://content.ashford.edu/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

What Are the Benefits of Employee Empowerment? (2010, June 24). Retrieved from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/benefits-employee-…

Discussion 1 Response 2: B.K.

Traditionally regular employees had very little if any say in changes in larger companies. They relied on top-down hierarchical decisions which were often big picture and resulted in changes that took a long time to implement which equaled missed opportunities. Often these changes were predictive rather than responsive to current market conditions. Empowering employees is a fairly new concept being used more and more. The idea is to encourage employees to come up with new and innovative ideas and then allow them to carry them out within their department. An empowered employee will be more invested and motivated to ensure the changes are implemented successfully. This is also known as a flat-hierarchy where departments have direct control over decisions made within their scope of responsibility. As employees are encouraged to work together on projects within their organization they gain more experience and there is less friction between management levels resulting in changes being produced quickly. Agile organizations are defined as organizations that can react to sudden market changes. (Weiss, 2016). These organizations often use employee empowerment to allow these quick turnovers. Lower level employees often have direct insight on issues or functions that can be changed that are out of the line of sight of higher level management. So instead of proposed solutions needing to climb the chain of command they can be routed up to department levels instead and the response time is quicker.

In terms of partnerships referring to the relationship between companies and consumers, I will use my wife’s company Ulta as an example. Ultra-currently relies heavily on a traditional hierarchy structure. My wife is a prestige manager who basically is running a brand new store. However, even though she is often the highest level manager at her store daily and has identified and come up with solutions for multiple issues she does not have the power to make small changes that could significantly improve the performance of her store. As a result their store barely makes sales goals and the employee turnover rate is outrageous. If she was allowed to make these changes the company would be able to hold onto its experienced employees as well as increase sales.

Reference

Weiss, J.W. (2016). Organizational Change (2nd ed.) [Electronic version]. Retrieved fromhttps://content.ashford.edu/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.Links to an external site.

WEEK 5:

Discussion 2 Response 1: J.M.

The four traits of organizational learning are constant readiness, continuous planning, improvised implementation, and action learning. At the heart of the learning organization is the idea that change and learning go hand in hand (Weiss, 2016). If an organization is always willing to learn then that organization will handle change better. That type of mentality will prevent the theory of “the way it has always been”.

In providing an example of how learning impacts change, I will refer to a military unit preparing for deployment. Continuous planning and training takes place long before any military unit deploys for an extended period of time. With continuous planning, leaders focus on strategies and flexible approaches rather than mapping every step of a process (Weiss, 2016). This theory is especially important when applied to a military deployment. Leaders train their troops for every scenario that could possibly be encountered on a deployment. Planning must take place in regards to the threat environment related to the area of operation such as enemy capabilities, troop numbers, warfare type, etc. Then the unit must train for all possible scenarios. A unit that learns about every type of scenario will be prepared for any change that comes there way in regards to the deployment. In this type of example learning directly impacts change.

Reference:

Weiss, J.W. (2016). Organizational Change (2nd ed.) [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/

Discussion 2 Response 2: C.M.

Evaluate the four traits of organizational learning. Provide examples of how learning and change can impact one another.

According to Wiess (2016), learning organizations can be recognized by four traits constant readiness, continuous planning improvised implementation, and action learning. Constant readiness is defined by the organizations ability to adapt and respond quickly to change. It also helps the staff to maintain a position of readiness to act and willingness to make adjustments if needed. Continuous planning leaders focus on strategy instead of step by step processes. Continuous planning allows organizations to focus on a shared goal and still remain structured enough to plan. Improvised implementation is organizations that have a culture that welcomes change, they encourage experimenting and reward successes. Improvised implementation means everyone in the company plays a role in the success of the company. Action learning is organizations that change and adjust as needed. Action learning is an atmosphere that promotes constant and continual reflection of what works and what doesn’t.

Learning and change impact one another because when things change there are new possibilities, different answers and new challenges. All of this gives everyone in the organization a chance to learn new things. When there is constant change there is continuous learning. Learning and change are an ongoing process in many organizations, together they promote team work, experimentation, flexibility, planning and success.

Reference

Weiss, J. (2016). Organizational Change (2nd ed.). San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

 
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