Question

Consider the leadership dynamics of the several types of change illustrated in Chapter 9 (Leadership, Enhancing the Lessons ofExperience), then answer the following questions:

Share your own experience with one of the types of change—anticipatory, reactive, or crisis—from either a leader or follower perspective.

What can you learn from this experience and the lessons acquired from the Chapter 9 reading on how to initiate positive change in an organization?

Answer 1

Based on the impact of urgency on the change, changes can be divided into 3 categories, namely crisis change, where problems have reached an acute state; reactive change, where a situation which is prompting the change may be positive or problematic, and, anticipatory change (logical incrementalism), where the change takes place with the longest perspective, it is perused in incremental and careful steps.

My experience relates to reactive change. In a garment manufacturing facility, I headed the industrial engineering department, and the production floor plagued with stagnant efficiencies, which did indicate consistency, but also highlighted no growth in operator performance. To overcome this situation, we moved from standard wage rate system to piece rate system on the production floor. As a leader, the change was meant to address decline in performance, but we also got an opportunity to exploit a new system on the floor, which not only helped us improve overall employee efficiency, but also affected employee morale as their earning capability grew. This also developed a feeling of ownership in the operators, which encouraged team behavior in the lines, where operators tried to fasten bottleneck operations to ensure the flow in the line is consistent, and in long term the overall quality from the lines also improved.

The lessons I learned as a leader through this change process, was involving the operators (every level of employees affected by change) is crucial for successful implementation of reactive change. Why the change is needed, how the change will happen, and how will the operators be affected has to be communicated transparently and it has to be ensured that the management and the operators are on the same page to make the change a success.