Mba7024 Change Management | Case Assessment Answers

In the Lakeland Wonders case, assess and explain the extent to which the change approach that has been adopted by Cheryl Hailstrom is appropriate to the organisational contexts in Lakeland Wonders? Are there gaps? What alternative approach would you suggest she could have taken?

Answer:

Introduction:

The organizations in the modern world are subjected to a sheer competition where they need to implement different sorts of strategic changes to survive. The organizations need to make sure that these changes are taken as constructive and progressive by the shareholders and the stakeholders to avoid any sort of organizational conflicts (Hornstein, 2015). The paper discusses the impact of the organizational changes in a chosen organization named Lakeland Wonders, a 94-year-old manufacturer of high quality wooden toys, strategized by their CEO. The paper analyses the adaptability of the changes proposed by the CEO and finds the gaps in the proposal and serves required recommendation for them.

Concept of Change:

The changes specified by Cheryl Hailstrom were conveniently internal as the CEO was thinking of introducing new employees like Pat Sampsen or Cecil to make sure that the products of Lakeland reach the desired level of quality and the business flourishes.

The changes which were specified by the CEO were following the constructive and continuous form of change (Carter et al., 2013). According to Van de Ven and Poole’s framework of change, Life, Evolution, Teleology and the Dialectic are the different change quadrants. The CEO thought of some of the new entries into the workforce as a plan to grow and the idea of introducing apt employees with the specified change from Upscale market to Midmarket in order to expand the business, were satisfying the clause of multiple entities forming the change (Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2015). So the changes had a dialectic form of approach as it follows a multiple entity and internally driven approach related to it. The second best approach was Barnes’s speed and scale approach following the quadrant of structural change as the Lakeland wonders was going to observe a major shift in their business with the midmarket business planning and the minor changes in the workforce to make sure that the functionality of the organization increases. Sheryl recommended the changes to implement in an emergency manner to catch the bull’s eye deal. Hence the changes were large scale and rapid. 

The CEO who had the reputation of a rapid growth of her previous company under her leadership, wanted Lakeland to catch a significantly profitable project of Bull’s Eye and wanted to start Offshore Manufacturing in order to catch the developing markets. The CEO felt the need to develop their products from the target market as she knew it well and clear that the products manufactured in the base country of Lakeland will incur a huge selling price in the new market which will not be affordable for the new market (Christopher, 2016). It was justified to introduce Offshore Manufacturing to enter a developing market (Ellram, Tate & Petersen, 2013). One of the members of the meeting Elaine Spenser felt the same concept as Cheryl has mentioned regarding the offshore manufacturing. The concern of Mark regarding relocating to a new market and executing the daily proceedings of the organization was met by the Sheryl’s idea of outsourcing.

Cheryl Hailstrom felt that there is a considerable amount of vulnerability related to the operations of the particular organization in the manufacturing and design department where the respective departments were pulling the growth of the company down. The manufacturing section was not ready to stretch their productivity and the design section was more interested in the unethical protection of the ordinary design firms. The quality and design of the product was in deep trouble with the added concern of not being able to expand the business in a sufficient manner to reach the desired growth.

Gap:

The organizational changes recommended by Sheryl Hailstrom were hitting the absolute portions of concern but with the probable end of the contract between the labour union and the organization coming close, there was a major concern related to the organizational change due its timing. The CEO wanted to introduce some of her preferred choices into the parts of the organization which were not performing sufficiently for the growth. The new faces with new concepts were a spot of bother for the existing employees as they would have needed the proper assessment of their fault. This generated a state of confusion between the employees and created a scope of union unrest (Cameron & Green, 2015). However Sheryl clarified Mark about the increment of the workforce rather than job cuts for the offshore manufacturing but it was not clear for the employees and there was a chance of miscommunication resulting in an interruption in the smooth conduct of the present organization (Castellani & Pieri, 2013). Along with these the concept of outsourcing to manage the new market was confusing as well as the aim of providing comparatively good quality products was not fitting well (Plugge, Bouwman & Molina-Castillo, 2013).

Adjustments for the Gap:

As mentioned above, Sheryl missed an important trick in making sure that the respective parts of the organization which were not functioning in a desired speed or quality, understand the points of concern by themselves. However it is controversial to call that Sheryl would have given them the proof of their incapability right on their hand but a disguised approach with some pleasant sense should have been employed by Sheryl to ensure that the employees have the required knowledge of their faults. A well defined strategy to maintain the quality of the product in case of the outsourcing must be introduced so that the organization does not lack the required quality. Sheryl was not able clarify the above mentioned topic in her proposal considering the scope of mismatch in quality resulting from the work of employees of the other organization in case of outsourcing. These alternative adjustments could have been done as that would have ensured the proper recovery of the faults in the employee’s part and would have been vital in maintaining the goodwill of the company in terms of quality in the midmarket business.

Conclusion:

It is evident that the strategic changes for the organization which were mentioned by Sheryl in the meeting are significantly effective in making Lakeland a premier company in the industry with the lucrative Bull’s Eye deal. The paper gives a clear assessment of Sheryl’s understanding regarding the not so effective parts of the organization with the proper evaluation of offshore manufacturing in Lakeland Wonders. The analysis of the scene whether offshore manufacturing is applicable for Lakeland or not is delicately expressed in the discussion. The required needs for the organizational changes along with the difficulty related to it regarding the implementation plan are discussed above.

References:

Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, S. (2015). Changing organizational culture: Cultural change work in progress. Routledge.

Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2015). Making sense of change management: A complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.

Carter, M. Z., Armenakis, A. A., Feild, H. S., & Mossholder, K. W. (2013). Transformational leadership, relationship quality, and employee performance during continuous incremental organizational change. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34(7), 942-958.

Castellani, D., & Pieri, F. (2013). R&D offshoring and the productivity growth of European regions. Research Policy, 42(9), 1581-1594.

Christopher, M. (2016). Logistics & supply chain management. Pearson UK.

Ellram, L. M., Tate, W. L., & Petersen, K. J. (2013). Offshoring and reshoring: an update on the manufacturing location decision. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 49(2), 14-22.

Hornstein, H. A. (2015). The integration of project management and organizational change management is now a necessity. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2), 291-298.

Plugge, A., Bouwman, H., & Molina-Castillo, F. J. (2013). Outsourcing capabilities, organizational structure and performance quality monitoring: Toward a fit model. Information & Management, 50(6), 275-284