BUS 210 Module 7 Project Two Leading Change Plan example

Project Two: Leading a Regional Pet Supply Chain Through Its First Restructuring

[Student Name]

Southern New Hampshire University

BUS 210: Managing and Leading in Business

Module Seven Project Two

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The organization, setting and figures below are a composite written as a model document. No real employer, client, colleague or patient is described.

Project Two: Leading a Regional Pet Supply Chain Through Its First Restructuring

The Change and Why It Is Needed

Maple and Mutt Pet Supply, the composite 18-store chain analyzed in this course, has decided to move its grooming salons out of the merchandising department into a new services department with two regional grooming leads, and to give store managers authority over grooming hours and local promotions. The structural analysis in Module 6 showed why: grooming decisions took seven weeks, groomers received conflicting instructions from two bosses, and store managers could not respond to new competitors. A structure can be redrawn in an afternoon, but people's habits, relationships and sense of their own roles cannot. This plan addresses the harder part, leading about 200 employees through a change that will alter who they report to and what they are allowed to decide.

Who Is Affected and What They Fear

Table 1 maps the main stakeholder groups.

Table 1

Stakeholder Map for the Restructuring

Note. Composite organization.

Understanding Resistance

Resistance to change is not simply stubbornness. Research finds that it grows when employees fear losing power or prestige, when they distrust management and when they expect the change to bring them more costs than benefits, and that it shrinks when people receive timely information and have a chance to participate (Oreg, 2006). The map above predicts where resistance will come from. The merchandising staff lose responsibility and budget and have the most obvious reason to resist. Some groomers will worry about losing a coordinator they trust. Resistance in this change will come mainly from people who lose something, so the plan must be honest about losses rather than describing the change only as an opportunity. Treating concerns as information rather than disloyalty will also surface practical problems, such as equipment budgets that were never documented outside merchandising.

Phase One: Unfreezing (Weeks 1 to 4)

Lewin (1947) treated change as a sequence: loosen the old equilibrium, shift behavior, then stabilize the new state. Unfreezing requires people to understand why the current way must change. The chief executive will visit each district to share the data on seven-week grooming decisions and conflicting price messages, using real examples from stores. Groomers and store managers will be invited to small listening sessions, and their questions and concerns will be recorded and answered in writing. The merchandising director will be briefed privately first and given a visible role in announcing the change, which reduces the risk that the group losing responsibility becomes its opponent.

Phase Two: Moving (Weeks 5 to 12)

The director of services will be appointed, and two regional grooming leads will be chosen from current lead groomers through a process in which groomers nominate candidates. Store managers will receive written decision rights, a one-page list of what they may now decide alone, and a half-day workshop on setting grooming hours and running promotions within the approved ranges. The change will begin in six pilot stores, two per district, for four weeks before extending to the rest, so that problems appear in a few places rather than everywhere. Weekly calls between the director of services and pilot store managers will capture issues quickly.

Phase Three: Refreezing (Months 4 to 6)

Refreezing makes the new way normal. Store manager performance reviews will include grooming results and use of their new authority. The regional grooming leads will run quarterly training days that build their credibility with groomers. Success stories, such as a store that filled evening appointments within a month of gaining authority to open them, will be shared across the chain. Old habits will be retired visibly: the merchandising grooming approval form will be discontinued, and requests sent through the old route will be redirected politely but consistently.

The Leader's Personal Role

The chief executive's own behavior will signal whether the change is real. That means appearing in stores during the transition, answering hard questions without defensiveness, and resisting the temptation to overrule store managers' early decisions unless they break the agreed ranges. Leaders who communicate a clear purpose and pay individual attention to followers tend to earn more commitment than those who rely only on rewards and rules (Judge & Piccolo, 2004). If the chief executive continues to approve grooming prices personally out of habit, employees will conclude that nothing has changed.

Communication Throughout

Communication runs across all three phases rather than happening once at the start. Each phase has a message, a messenger and a channel. In unfreezing, the message is the problem, the messenger is the chief executive and the channel is face-to-face visits, because a reason for change is more credible from the top in person than in an email. In moving, the message is what changes this week, the messengers are the director of services and district managers, and the channels are weekly pilot calls and short written updates posted in every break room. In refreezing, the message is what is working, the messengers are store managers and regional leads, and the channels are staff meetings and the company newsletter. Every update will answer the three questions employees ask most during change: what is different for me, who do I go to now, and what happens if I get it wrong. A shared question-and-answer page will be updated as new questions arrive, so that the same answer reaches all 18 stores rather than varying by who happened to ask.

How the Change Will Be Judged

Four measures will show whether the change has taken hold after six months: grooming decision time under two weeks, groomer turnover no higher than before the change, a quarterly pulse survey in which at least 80 percent of groomers say they know who decides what, and grooming revenue growth in the pilot stores exceeding that in other stores during the pilot period. If the measures fall short, the plan calls for asking employees why before adjusting the structure again.

References

Judge, T. A., & Piccolo, R. F. (2004). Transformational and transactional leadership: A meta-analytic test of their relative validity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(5), 755-768. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.89.5.755

Lewin, K. (1947). Frontiers in group dynamics: Concept, method and reality in social science; social equilibria and social change. Human Relations, 1(1), 5-41. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872674700100103

Oreg, S. (2006). Personality, context, and resistance to organizational change. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 15(1), 73-101. https://doi.org/10.1080/13594320500451247