Overcoming Barriers to Change

Each week, you will be asked to respond to the prompt or prompts in the discussion forum. Your initial post should be 75-150 words in length, and is due on Sunday. By Tuesday, you should respond to two additional posts from your peers. 

This week you’ve explored several topics including innovation, diversity, human resources, and several elements of change.  Innovation and diversity both require change. Change, however, isn’t an easy area to manage for yourself, the organization as a whole, or for each employee individually.  It takes skill and planning to successfully navigate the change process.

Research the company you have chosen for your final project, finding something in recent news (less than 8 weeks old) that pertains to a significant change effort that has happened recently, is currently happening, or if you can’t find a change effort under way, then choose something currently going on that really needs to change. Briefly explain the change itself, then explain what the company did (is doing, or should do) to be successful in the change process, why the change was necessary, and what roadblocks or resistance they met (or would likely meet). Did they handle the change process successfully?  What would you have done differently if you were leading their change effort?

Review a minimum of two of your classmate’s posts and respond with additional insights, information, questions, or links to more information on the company changes they shared. Would their approach to managing change work for your organization?  Why or why not? Your responses should be academic in nature and linked to research and management topics discussed this week rather than personal stories of shopping with the company they chose for example.

 Jeffrey Dufrene Week 4 DiscussionCOLLAPSE

I couldn’t find anything within the last 8 weeks regarding a change that Delta has implemented.  However, after some reading and some thought, I came up with something that I believe should change:  the boarding and deplaning process…

The process to board the plane is cumbersome and usually results in a single file line which moves at a snails pace. This is frustrating to most customers.  Further, the line moves slow because people have to find their seat, put bags in the overhead compartment, gather their pillow, etc… I find this process to be illogical and inefficient.  Instead of having multiple boarding groups, why not board from the back to the front?  That way, the line won’t be held up because the back of the plane is filling up first vice the front which holds people up.  On the de-planing side, I wish the crew could open up more than one door to exit, why not open an emergency exit in the rear to ease the flow of traffic?

This change would not only increase efficiency for the company but also make customers happy because they will have to wait less to get on and off the plane.  Further, this change would also be easy to implement and would require no additional funding or material.  This increase in efficiency could result in, at a minimum, cost savings from fuel usage while sitting idle on the tarmac.  Saving 15-20 minutes per boarding, per plane across the corporation could yield a significantly large savings.

The resistance to this change, I believe, would come mostly from some consumers.  While I personally, like to board near the end, I find most people like to board early so they can get there baggage situated and get comfortable early.  As a result, this proposed change should be researched and approached more thoughtfully with inputs from the customer.  I, however, would be all for it.

 Christopher Greene W4 DIscussionCOLLAPSE

General Electric has been busy implementing change from the top down by restructuring their leadership positions and reorganizing divisions within the company for the last six months.  The goal is to reduce debt and sell off portions of the company that have been struggling over the last few years.  During this sell off, its power business is the focus due to slumping sales and the return on investment has not met expectations and the future does not appear to be much brighter.  Currently GE is exploring options to sell portions of the power division including steam, nuclear and power conversion, but will continue to manufacture gas turbine equipment and technology that applies to other divisions under the GE umbrella (Sheetz, 2019).  GE may have trouble finding a company that is willing to pay for the business because they are obviously not producing a profit.  Hindsight being what it is, I would have introduced this change years ago and sold that division before wasting all of the money and resources that were expended on trying to save it because it became “too big to fail”.

Sheetz, M. (2019, March 27). GE CEO Culp Likely to Break up and Sell Pieces of the struggling Power Business, RBC says. Retrieved from CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/27/ge-likely-to-further-break-up-the-struggling-power-business-rbc-says.html