I chose to analyze the case study, Tug Of War that was written by Yossi Sheffi and is found in the Harvard Business Review. Jack Emmons, CEO of Voici Brands realizes that his company is in trouble and a change needs to take place before it is too late in order for the company to succeed and not go out of business. Jack has to address the issues at hand. Jack needs to take a thorough look at the company before deciding what changes need to be implemented. He needs to get his unit managers and board members involved in the process.
Before doing this, Jack must approach the unit managers that are suffering the most, review the situation, the impacts that it is having on the unit and then figure out how to deal with the problem. He must also get the support of the unit managers and the board members before going any further with his plan of action. Jack then needs to call a meeting amongst the board members and the unit managers to come up with a strategy on how to approach the change getting ready to be put into action.
Jack, along with the board members and the unit managers needs to discuss and come to an agreement on the problem that is facing the company, how they are going to approach the problem to solve it, and how each group will contribute to solving the problem. The results that they expect, away to monitor the progress and when follow-up meetings will occur to discuss how the project is coming along. Each will have a part to play in helping the company to succeed. Jack needs to have this meeting so that everyone in the company will be aware of his proposed plan.
Everyone will be involve and voice their opinions, gain interest and share views as to whether they agree to what Jack is about to do. After the meeting, Jack then needs to draw up an organizational chart. He needs to select a leader to help him execute this plan of action. In the case study of The Tug of War, Jack thought about bringing Ravi and Tony on board. I disagree with this. Jack should bring neither Tony nor Ravi on board. Reason being, Tony was an employee of the company for years, served in every department, so he knows the ins and outs of the company.
Tony can be bias. Ravi, on the other hand, is an outsider. Ravi has no knowledge on Voici Brands. All Ravi knows is what Jack is telling him. This can prove to be very risky to the company. Ravi can either break or make the company. If there is anyone that Jack should consider leading the project, it should be Margie. Margie knows how to get things done but Jacks needs to take control of the situation himself, seeing that he is the CEO of the company. He should be the one in control, making the decisions and only seeking minimal help from his employees.
Yes, it is good decision to get his employees involve in the effort and make them aware of the proposed plan, although the employees input is very important to the success of Voici Brands. The image concept that I would suggest for this company to follow is, The Change Manager as Interpreter. I chose this image because in the text, it states that, “the interpreter image to managing change places the change manager in the position of creating meaning for other organizational members, helping them to make sense of various organizational events and actions.
It is these events and actions that, in and of themselves, constitute a changed organization. It is up to change managers to represent their staff (and others) what these changes actually mean. ”(Palmer, Dunford, Akin, 2nd Edition, 2009) This concept applies very much to the situation that is taking place in the Voici Brands Company. It focuses on how the CEO of the company should approach the change and the steps that should be taken to be successful. It always shows the ways on how to go about accomplishing the change. If the CEO of Voici Brands would follow this image step by step, no doubt the company will be successful.
Yes, each unit head will not agree to the entire changes taken place and might not quite understand why a change has to take place, but if the CEO can provide good arguments and reasons why he is implementing this change, then there should be no issues within the company. “Two years earlier, Marquise had consolidated its supply chain operations by outsourcing all its product lines to the supply chain city. ”(Harvard Business Review, September 2005) This statements supports the strategic change initiative that Voici Brands is about to go through.
If Voici Brands were to take this same approach as the Marquise company, this could help cut cost, save time on marketing the product and the arrival of the product, therefore producing more sales when the customers called for it most. Because the Marquise Company was able to deliver faster and more efficiently, business unit leaders became willing to partners in consolidating supply chain services. The image concepts will be very helpful to a practicing manager. Based on what I have learnt from the text and the case study material, if a practicing manager were to put these steps into place, he or she will be successful in managing change.
All the practicing manager has to do is follow the initial steps that need to take place before implementing change. Once the practice manager reviews the problem that needs to be solved, get the employees and the departments who are suffering the most involved in the process, everything should smoothly within the company. The practice manager should then call a meeting and bring the proposed plan forward and lend a listening ear to all that are concerned about what would happen to the company if a change were to take place.
The practice manage should then execute the plan once he or she has everyone’s go ahead of starting the project, follow-up meetings to take place to find out how the project is running and this should bring about success in the company. No employee will be shocked when a change is taking place because they would be made aware and would be involved. The only mistake that I saw that I would have changed when using the change concept is that, Jack should have informed his employees about the change before talking to Ravi about what he was planning to do with his company. This is the only thing that I would have changed.
If it were me, I would have spoken to my employees first before actually involving an outsider in my plans. It was good to see though, that in the long run, Jack thought not bring Ravi on board and to tackle the change himself along with the help of his employees and board members. In concluding, I think that if Jack were to use the Change Manager as Interpreter, there is no way his company can’t be successful. If Jack follows each step carefully and implement it probably, his company can and will be successful in the long run, helping them to cut back on cost and be able to market products easier and in a timely manner.
