One of the examples of the organizational change that I have experienced was a restructuring of the company X and its transition from a divisional to a matrix structure. The goal of the change was to enhance product orientation and to facilitate information exchange across organizational functions (Galbraith, 2009). However, the benefits of the new structure were not fully realized due to a significant resistance of the people within the company. The new structure created numerous coordination problems and demanded an adjustment period for all employees. However, since personnel and managers usually have different assessment of the change results, most of the staff could not understand the benefits of the reorganization, but could clearly see its problems.
While the change was gradually accepted within the organization, its implementation could have been significantly improved by addressing some minor issues. Firstly, managers did not provide employees with sufficient information about the new structure . Communicating the basic logic and the benefits of the change could have prepared people much better (Kotter & Schlesinger, 2008). Secondly, additional facilitation and support should have been provided during the first implementation phase (Kotter & Schlesinger, 2008). Thus, it could have been beneficial to provide training and to organize socialization events in order to create better working atmosphere and to prepare employees for working in their new teams.
Comment 1: You have rightly identified the lack of communication as the main issue in the presented company. It is indeed distressing to see people being fired in such an unprofessional and a non-transparent way. In this case, the problem was not only in the lack of employee involvement in the decision-making, but also in the limited explanation of the “restructuring” process and of its rationale. However, it could be great if in your post you could share your own suggestions about the way the situation should have been handled by the managers.
Comment 2: You have provided a great example of a successful organizational change. Your commentary has included both a detailed description of the new initiative and the impact it had on the company. However, it could be great if you elaborated more on the process of the change implementation. Additionally, you could discuss what the company’s managers could have done differently in order to make the transition to the new appraisal system smoother.
References
Galbraith, J. (2009). Designing matrix organizations that actually work. (1st ed.).
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Kotter, J. P. & Schlesinger, L. A. (2008, July-August). Harvard business review. Harvard
Business Review, 130-138.
