Managing Organizational Change: Lessons and Reflections

The biggest and most challenging task in business today is the dealing with demands of change. This ever happening change not only confronts us but also challenges our skills in order to create value to our customers and also to be relevant.

This reflective journal has been prepared over the course of my study for the subject Leading and Managing Organisational Change- LB5234. While leading and managing change, the managers and supervisors are bound to not just deal with technical, process and operational aspects of change but also to understand the human side. All these led me to ponder upon my previous work experiences as well as look into my future career options. Majority of this reflective journal has been applied with my past 6 plus years in the hospital industry in the Middle Eastern countries and now in Australia.

Examples of wherever change was carried out or must have been, Leadership culture of my previous managers as well as the overall work style of the countries worked in has been applied to my evaluation.

In the past few decades, technology has created a huge impact and has revolutionized beyond our imaginations of how business is done. It has completely changed the face and pace of the business world today.

As Henry Ford famously said, “If you always do what you’ve done, you always get what you’ve always got”. In today’s time business has to face competition in a global level competing with various changes and barriers that arises over the time, overall structure have to be flexible with better connections with the other elements of a business and operations based more on innovations rather than the old ways which has been in practice.

Today operating a business has diverted more on to gaining knowledge where learning is quite imperative with the core element happens to be professional skills and working. A number of questions have been answered here with the perspective of a change in a organization.

1. What changes can be conveyed on a later stage with what’s happening around the globe?
2. What is the most ideal approach in order to oversee change happening?
3. Appropriate implementation techniques to tackle change?
4. Protection strategies during occurrence of change?

Our lecture on ‘Individual Change’ was quite enjoyable and informative as it gave an explanation to how I understand the change in myself at work. This was clearly visible to me when I was promoted up in to the hierarchy and had been assigned managerial duties and responsibilities. This happened in Kuwait; I worked for an up-market Italian restaurant called Nino’s. With the group rapidly expanding across various other countries due to its popularity and increasing demand, and after an intense 18 months of management trainee program and numerous evaluations of my skills and knowledge was promoted as the Sous chef. With my promotion came duties and responsibilities associated with it and was more involved in managing the whole place with a proper and continuous communication among all the aspects that are involved in running up of a restaurant.

The whole transition from being a management trainee to a sous chef was quite challenging and at many occasions I was missing out on many deadlines. But with time and proper guidance from my head chef and also the entire team I was able to slowly understand the operations much better and slowly started showing improvement and was able to work without any supervision from my head chef. I found much more confidence in my professional life and also a practical control over myself which made me choose the best for myself and the operations in the restaurant. I became more goal oriented and due to which I can easily place myself in the Self Actualization phase in the Maslov’s hierarchy of phases.

All that hard work paid off and towards the end of my contract with Nino’s I was offered the position of Head Chef for an American concept restaurant in the Muscat, Sultanate of Oman. It was a great jump in my career as I was given the responsibility of running an entire restaurant by myslef and I was able to implement all the things I had learned from my head chef in the previous restaurant but the way I want it to. Being directly responsible for 20+ plus staff was quite overwhelming but with time I grew more and more confident. Over the two years I worked with there I was able to bring about a learning culture where people were trained in different sections which created interest among the employees and added more value to their professional skills too. And hard work was well paid with proper hikes to their pay checks and few being promoted.

This gave others a reason to strive for excellence and now I had a team which was much more confident and skilled and also motivated for what they do compared to what it was when I first arrived to the restaurant.

Talking next about our session on ‘Resistance to change’ which too was an eye opener to me as I was able to understand clearly the changes that came in me with the change in the work environment at our workplace. With the recruitment of a new Operations Manager who had really different ways and means to run a restaurant. We were introduced to plenty of Standard operating procedures which were not followed prior to his arrival. Initially it was difficult for all of us in the team to cope up with the new implementations but after some time we understood the reasoning behind us doing all that better. Since then it became a integral part of our operations. Proper communication would have eased the whole process in a much better fashion though. Any friction in the operation hampers the entire experience for the customer who are the reason why and how we are paid. Better communication can ease the whole process and also with the help of training and development.

I realised that the various methods of leaderships had also been responsible towards this as the new chef was more dominating over the Wait staffs and their superiors. It’s a proper balance among both departments which enhances the overall experience for the customers.

One thing that I was clear now was that resistance is a standard response globally when it comes to change. No management desires this but change will always have some sort of resistance from people who are directly or indirectly involved with it. Many feel that change is a threat and would affect their workings. Many people who consider this a shift from their comfort zone and believe a shift would cause them in losing their jobs in the future.

A better communication platform is an effective method to bring upon change and also ensuring that everyone is a part of it from the inception of that change as it brings upon better productivity and higher levels of satisfaction among the team compared to employees being introduced at a later stage after the change has been implemented. Over the 7+ years of my work life I was blessed with some amazing managers who showcased different leaderships qualities. Qualities that I hope to have it in me some day. There were many leaders who had a way things had to be undertaken and led by great examples and then there were some leaders who spoke more and did little, these were the people who were not confident about their skills and were scared of failures. But the best manager till date has to be Mr. Vilas Varghese who had the most colourful way of doing things and getting things done. He was the guest relations manager for the whole company and a huge hit among employees as well as the customers. Always open to help and guide employees and a great inspiration.

The whole subject made me understand a lot of things and helped me to understand that I need to open up tp change and devise appropriate measures in order to grow in life and become a much effective and new age leader.

I showcase virtues of thinking independently and being mindful but not as to the expected level where I want to see myself one day. I look myself as an autocratic leader working towards becoming into a modern democratic leader one day.

Conclusion

This subject LB5234- Leading and Managing Organisational Change has been extremely useful and helpful in order to self evaluate my own self and my past experiences at work place. It has broadened myself to become a new age leader who understands how things change and how things needs to be dealt accordingly.

This subject also gave me a clear picture of how I should be able to achieve my deadlines in my professional career and adapt to changes in a more effective and efficient manner.
I would effectively use my strengths and keep working on areas where I lack so that I am ready to face on any challenges that may come my way in the future and be better able to tackle any issues.

Prior to this the 2 assignments which were a part of this subject gave me a real world case in order to portray the theories which were taught to us during this trimester.

1. In the occurrence of a problem or a change how things need to be taken forward.
2. Overlooking the happening change and making it practical at any workplace

Works Cited

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