JWI 555 Leading Change Discussion Essay
Please respond to the two following peers:
Leading Change
As you make your final preparations for your Board Presentation, what operational and organizational changes will you make to ensure the successful implementation of your plan? Comment specifically on the following:
The timelines and costs for these changes.
Using Kotter’s 8-Stage Process for Leading Change, pick the 3 or 4 stages that are most critical to the successful implementation of your plan. Explain why you identified these.
How do your proposed changes align with your organization’s culture and where do you anticipate the greatest resistance?
How will you measure the success of the changes you plan to make?
1.Mark DetwilerThe number one most critical process of Kotter’s 8-Stage process is ‘Communicating the Change Vision’ (1). Most of the employees in our organization do not know what Lean (2) is. Bringing change in the way that we do things will not be easy. Our vision is “We believe in a vision of homeownership for everyone, a home for every stage in life.” (3) With a vision like that, our culture is all-inclusive. If we push for change and differentiate ourselves from the competition, we need to make certain that our employees know that we are not excluding them from our organization. Instead, we are building the employee’s value in each step of the process by giving them a voice (4). So, as we communicate the change, it must be one that draws the teams and individuals in – it cannot push them out. The second most important process is the ‘Guiding Coalition’ (1). The change brings a process from other sectors of business. To do this, we must have people that can guide us through what we do not know. But, they must also be sympathetic to our lag in grasping Lean. What may come second nature to some from the manufacturing sector, will come hard and slow for tradesmen in the construction industry for 20 years.The third will be ‘Celebrating the Short-Term Wins’ (1, & 4). This will not be easy. But, when we see one neighborhood build more efficiently, or a subcontractor embrace the new Lean approach and reap the benefits, we must brag about it. We will put it in the monthly newsletter. We will shout it loud for the whole organization to hear. We will fly managers from one region to see, firsthand, the other region’s victory. We will let the successful ones brag on their success. And, we will reward them. The way we measure success will be three-fold:
Percentage of use. How many visits to each site are logged into LiHT?
Reduction in punchlist and call-backs to fix errors.
Homeowner perception on how we handle quality (warranty claims, punchlist, overall perception of home acceptance and turnover)
Lean works in construction as well as it lends itself to manufacturing. If the car manufacturing was initiated by a high-end car brand like Mercedes, we might struggle to build homes in this fashion and expect the process to yield affordable homes. But, many of the lean methods were built by Toyota (5). Toyota builds vehicles for every walk of life, similar to DR Horton’s vision (3). However, despite Toyota’s success, US Manufacturer’s were slow to accept the new methods of manufacturing. DR Horton can expect similar resistance to the change from US tradesmen as was seen in the NUMMI plant at GM (6). To support the decision to move forward with the changes, early victories must be celebrating with great fanfare. Sincerely,Mark Detwiler
Kotter, Jon P. Leading Change. 2012 Harvard Business Review Press.
George Rowlands, Price, Maxey. McGraw Hill, 2005. The Lean Six Sigma Pocket Toolbook.
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2.Tina Farmer
The timelines and costs for these changes.
For the timelines and the cost for the changes that will be done for the proposal will be as follows:
Propose the amount of employees that will be needed for the center in order for it to run efficiently and the time line will be fist three months into the program knowing the data will be available.
The second will be to run data analysis for the program and other centers on their success rates will be calculated on 3 months as well to determine if changes need to be made.
Lastly will be to analyze the production of the resources that are available to us to know how well the children are doing and to get an idea of what is working and what is not this will be done in three month increments as well to see the data changes.
Using Kotter’s 8-Stage Process for Leading Change, pick the 3 or 4 stages that are most critical to the successful implementation of your plan. Explain why you identified these.
Step 1 will be to create a sense of urgency
Step 2 communication the change vision for the center
Step 3 will be to create short term wins for the children and the center
So for step one to create a sense of urgency will be to make sure that they have the resources that are needed in order to be successful by allowing them the tools that are needed in order to make sound decisions in their lives.
For step two the vision will be the clear way in order to do business that every child will have a change and no child left behind. That all children are welcome in the center to excel on their needs with the resources that are needed.
The last step for creating short term wins will be to reward the children when they have reached a goal and get rewarded for this to show them that they can do anything that they accomplish. This is a great way to build self esteem for the children as well as their parents to see the progress that their children are making.
How do your proposed changes align with your organization’s culture and where do you anticipate the greatest resistance?
The proposed changes will align with the vision statement for the program culture that all children are welcome with any type of disability and knowing that they can be successful in anything that they do. When the changes are done it will be for the well being of the children and I believe that the greatest resistance will be the children not being sure of us at first, and trying to see what they can get away with so this will be to learn the children and their needs so that they do not get frustrated and not want to come to the center to learn. At first this will be challenging to get the children to trust us and feel comfortable around us to want to learn an to come back.
How will you measure the success of the changes you plan to make?
The success will be measure on the amount of data collected when the children are tested and to see their progress within the first three months and to see what needs to be worked/changed in the process. To see if their abilities grow in learning and trusting, their will be challenges as any new program will be but we will work through them to the best of our ability to ensure that they are getting what they need for their skills to succeed.
Kotter, J. P. (2012). Leading Change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
JWI555 Week 2 Lecture Notes. Creating an Urgency for Change