Chapter 13
The Management of Change
Areas of Change
1. Technology
- Products
- Production
- Communication
- Methods of selling
- Jobs
2. Competitors
- New products
- Inorganic growth
- Globalisation
3. Rules and Regulations
- National safety, tax and environment
- EU safety, tax and environment
- World trade
4. Workforce
- More educated
- Expectations
- More flexible conditions
5. Consumers
- Trends
- Choice
- Quality
- income
Rate of Change
It took 38 years for 30% of Americans to get the telephone. It took 7 for them to get the internet.
Management and Change
Why Employees are Resistant to Change
- Fear of losing job
- Fear of losing promotion prospects
- Fear of losing earnings (overtime)
- Fear of more work
- Fear of not being able
- Fear that it won’t work
- Nothing in it for them
Preparing Employees for Change
- Management skills
- Honesty
- Invite participation in decisions
- Negotiate
- Reward
- Training
Strategies for Managing Change
1. Changing from Controller to Facilitator manager
Controller = Theory X or Autocratic
- Staff never given responsibility and so not developed
- Staff afraid
- Staff feel unsupported
- Manager over-burdened already
Changing to Theory Y or team based style will remove these obstacles
Facilitator = Getting the most out of employees by encouragement, training, support and reward. Style is democratic or Theory Y.
- Better motivation
- Better able to handle change
- Manager’s time freed up.
- Job Rotation, Enlargement and Enrichment
Empowerment
Giving greater decision-making power to employees.
Features:
- Simply giving employees goals, resources and deadlines.
- Giving them authority to make changes
- Facilitator-style management.
Benefits:
- Unlocks hidden talents
- Greater morale
- Encourages intrepreneurship and innovation.
- Employees more willing to accept change in which they had a role in deciding upon.
- Lower turnover of staff
Problems
- Mistakes (Nick Leeson and Barings Bank)
- Reluctance to change
- Middle management not happy to lose power.
Quality Circles
A group of employees who meet regularly to discuss ways of improving and maintaining quality.
A Japanese idea
Teamwork
A group working together to achieve a common objective. Teams can be long term (sales team) or short term (to develop a new product)
Setting up a team
- Decide on objectives
- Set deadlines
- Supply resources
- Choose members
- Choose and rotate leader
Stages in development of teams
- forming
- Storming
- Norming
- Performing
Advantages of team work
- Motivation
- More intrepreneurship and innovation
- Better decisions
- Greater understanding of each other’s problems
TQM
What earned the Japanese a reputation for quality
Features
- Consistent focus on high quality
- Continuous improvement
- Right first time
- Constant review
- Benchmarking
- Everyone’s responsibility
- Recognition and reward
Benefits
- Reputation (new customers and repeat orders)
- Less waste
- Customer willing to pay more
- Morale
Problems
- Difficult to change culture
- Involves Teamwork which may be difficult to introduce (delayering)
Changes in Technology and the Role of Management
Benefits of ICT to management
- Instant access to internal and external information
- Spreadsheets save time
- Desk research
- Advertise on Web (Ecommerce to sell to consumers, Ebusiness to sell to other businesses, Mcommerce using mobile phones to sell )
- Ework (teleworking) allows retention of valuable staff who can work at home.
- Saves cost and supervision of staff
Challenges
- Cost
- Breakdowns and viruses
- Security
- Data Protection Act
- Redundancies
- Re-training
Benefits of Production technology to management
- CAD
- CAM (robotics)
- CIM (computer integrated manufacturing) process controlled and managed by computer, including quality control.