I finally finished assignment 4 in MGT5016, Managing Change, and submitted it this morning. It has been tough now that I am back to grading papers and teaching. There is one paper more left to write. This has been a particularly stressful class because the assignments require that I write as if I were a CEO implementing change in my organization. I chose to be Bob Nardelli, new CEO of Chrysler, LLP. Through the course of the four assignments, Bob has had to deal with a number of challenges as outlined in Peter Senge’s The Dance of Change: The Challenges of Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations. Poor Bob!
I had already picked the “new” Chrysler as my company when I heard that Bob would be CEO. The company has also trudged through issues with the UAW, including negotiations and now agreement. Wow, could that have been more Twilight Zone? In one way, I was lucky to have picked a company that that has had a lot of change, but then most of the recent changes are appearing in periodicals, not peer-reviewed sources. It generally takes several months for authors to submit analytical papers to journals for publication. My peer-reviewed sources are “pre-LLC” so in some cases I had to hypothesize how Chrysler would manage some of the issues now. “Now” meaning as a privately-held firm managed by Cerberus and under the leadership of Bob Nardelli, ex-CEO of Home Depot.
I am working on the last assignment:
Final Paper: There is a final paper for the course.The paper should be written on some aspect of change the Learner would like to know more about or the paper could be on the selection of another company the Learner leads through a change process. onsider yourself the CEO if you are writing about another company.The normal length of this paper is 15 pages, excluding references, title page and table of contents.
Know how governance of change and diffusion of change are accomplished.
Be able to define the strategy and purpose of change for an organization.
Learn about the challenge of change and how to generate change.
Become aware of the importance of envisioning change.
Identification of change barriers such as lack of time, fear of change, etc.
Recognize ways to implement change.
Know how to assess and measure change.
Identify the recipients of change.
Understand the roles of change agents.
I am focusing on my own organization, MeadWestvaco. We have experienced a lot of changes, some of which have been effective and others have been mere window-dressing. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck, even if you call it a horse. It seems as though corporations have a peer group that they must keep up with….and “transformation” is the new mantra. If you don’t have a change initiative going on somewhere, you just aren’t in the “in” group. I want to explore what is truly change and what is not. I have some ideas and I sent a note to my Mentor, Dr. Arthur Smith, today for clarification. I am itching to get started on the writing part (and get it over with).
For the rest of the afternoon, I am planning to work on the basement getting it ready for company at Thanksgiving and putting together another file cabinet for my office. And of course, preparing the lesson plans for Monday’s class. That class is in week four of five.