The simulation wasn’t as intuitive as I thought at first; it took three tries and 20 steps in order to get the 61% buy in order to complete the simulation. There was one steps taken that gave a 0 or neutral buy, basically a waste of money and time. I quickly evaluated that in order to start a change process and achieve the buy in and support, activities need to be done in a certain order.
I think the simulation does take into account the perceived human emotions surrounding change, however, it only takes into account the desired reaction to the change, obviously real life is a little more complex to determine. The same approach can be taken nonetheless, in using the Mckinsey 7-S model on the Global Tech simulation, the plan according to the strategy, structure, systems, skills and shared values and beliefs helped in the organizational change.
First, concerning the strategy, the leader has been reactive and changed the strategy by adding the commercial sector to the company’s market focus beside the military sector. Second, concerning the structure, hiring new employees to the organization in different departments to be responsible of the new market segments has modified the company structure, but the organization continued to be only hierarchical. Therefore, during the implementation to have a cross-functional team with diversified experiences on the same table for adding value to the new strategy.
Third, regarding the systems, the new strategy has required the core change team to work on different systems for enhancing the company’s performance, such as cost analysis for offering a competitive price product, employees training and development, restructuring the compensation system and improving the communication across the departments as they were not aligned. Fourth, as for the skills, the company was competent in terms of its R&D department, which provides the high-technological GPS.
According to the new strategy, the cross-functional team purpose was to make use of their high technical skills in producing more commercially oriented products. Fifth, concerning the shared values and beliefs, all the stakeholders were not agreeing on the cause of the change although they have practiced the downsizing in the company through laying off employees and reducing budget. The three main things that enhanced my learning are proper understanding and analyzing before performing the change, communicating and handling feedbacks. Although the act step may include more tactics than others steps, most of them may not work perfectly
if the organization has not been prepared through understanding the problem, analyzing the stakeholders, developing the vision and strategy, motivating the employees, and communicating the vision to be stated clearly for all levels in the organization. And the most important part was clearly publicizing the success to all involved people, letting them now that they personally made a difference. This I have learned is a strong motivator, people want to be made useful and feel useful in what they do. Publish and celebrate success should never be left out.
