Good Essay On Organizational Change Case Study: Sambian Partners

Introduction

Organizational change results in varied responses by the entities’ stakeholders. There are varieties of incidences that may affect an organizational negatively, especially when no counteractive action is taken to prevent their occurrence. Sambian Partners is an architectural firm that is undergoing Human Resource Management problems in the last few years. The organization has been losing talent to rival organizations, majorly J&N, a fellow architectural firm. The loss of skill to rival companies is a major blow to an organization since the latter acquires a major competitive advantage over the organization, in this case, Sambian Partners (Lawler 2008). The strategic business is issue is crucial to the organization's success and demands urgent resolution.

Thesis Statement

The movement of Sambian employees is coincidental, and they all have their personal reasons. From the information depicted from the interviews with Tom and Adrienne, they feel that the movement to the other organization has a promising future in their careers. Tom points out that the opportunity is one of a lifetime, and that he believes his movement will result in more happiness and better his opportunity of climaxing his architectural career. Despite Mary’s thought of information concealing by Tom, it is evident that Tom prefers to work in the rival’s organization rather than in Sambian Partners. He has many privileges in Sambian, and he is willing to risk them all for J&N.
Most of the employees who are opting to move to J&N disclose little (if not none) information regarding their reasons for transfer. In turn, Sambian remains in the dark, and not much counteractive measures are taken to prevent future happenings of the devastating event. The company has therefore experienced the event recurrently, and it has still not developed any counteractive measures. The cause of the problem remains a mystery to the organization, and the company has not yet developed any strategies aimed at cooling the situation. It is evident that the rival organization, J&N, has developed a strategy to bring its competitor down, by attracting the top-notch managerial staff of Sambian through presenting irresistible offers. The competitive approach has so far been quite successful, and Sambian has no idea of J&N’s intent or the timeline for the malicious attack (Lawler 2008).
In relation to the “word on the street,” three of the organization’s workers are conversing about the issue of increased transfers in the organization. An engineer, Savannah, argues that the major reason for Tom’s movement is the loss of Marko bid, to which he had put plenty of efforts. The two, Hal and Savannah agree that Paul Bonney, head of architecture, had demoralized Tom by not seeing the designs success and putting enough effort to win the bid. Adrienne overhears the conversation and offers a different line of thought. She believes that the major reason behind Tom’s movement was the need to better his life, by joining an organization where he has the potential to climb the ladder into executive positions. In regards to Sambian Partners, there is hardly an old person in the organization’s management, minimizing any chances of ever receiving a promotion (Lawler 2008).

Antithesis Statement

Therefore, it is possible that J&N are capitalizing on the weaknesses of Sambian Partners in regards to project management, planning, promotional strategies, and overall management. The reason for movement owes to these failures, and employees are seeking greener pastures where they can receive promotions and climb the ladder to their personal success goals. As depicted by the conversers, Sambian has weak support for the architects and engineers who design incredible projects and yet receive no backing. Tom, for example, is a first class architect who presents magnificent designs, and yet fails to receive his bids (Lawler 2008).
The organization has a poor sales and marketing team, and their major focus is cutting deals, rather than appreciating the quality work and making the best out of every engineer. The team does not seem to appreciate the good work presented by the organization’s designers, which is the major cause for lack of satisfaction. Another proof of this reason is that the organization offers its workers very high standards of working conditions, as portrayed by the survey. It is, therefore, evident that the company is experiencing these problems owing to its management system, and the lack of integration of its department has sprouted the need to transfer into the better rival organization. The lack of an elaborate organizational promotional strategy has also amounted to the transfers, where employees seek organizations that have a variety of promotional offers.

Synthesis

The two contradicting theories for the numerous transfers from Sambian Partners to J&N have proof, making both of them possible reasons. Integrating the two can result in a more vivid and certain answer to these movements. Personal reasons are a crucial factor in the strategic business issue. Tom may have been influenced by both factors, creating the need to transfer. The conversers at the kitchen, Hal, Savannah, and Adrienne, point out that Tom has recently had another kid, amounting to two, and he, therefore, has to worry about college funds. Such is enough evidence, which proves some of the transfers may be incited by personal needs. The survey proves that the employees are happy, and, therefore, the need to transfer may be exclusively personal, with the aspiration to get promotions from the new company.
The failure of the company to better its management system is also a major cause of the loss of talent to J&N. The company has failed in terms of offering the required backing to its employees, through appreciation of their hard work and designs. It is also possible that Tom moved out of the fact that he received little recognition by the marketing and sales team. He expected his designs and projects to win all bids through the support of these subsequent teams. The company focuses on cutting deals, rather than pioneering its projects, which would consequently make the designers, architects and engineers feel that their role receives appreciation. The organization has embarked on offering good working conditions to its employees, rather than supporting them with their projects and working hard to win all bids. It has led to the increased transfers, which can only cease with the consolidation of Sambian Partners into correcting these mistakes.

Change Models

An article by Brisson-Banks embarks on depicting a variety of change models, which are applicable to organizations during the reconstruction of the organizational structure. Sambian Partners need such models to correct the ongoing issue of transfers. The company requires restoring order through eliminating the current threats and challenges as depicted by the employees. Beckhard, Lewin, Thurley, and Kotter are the major pioneers of the change models, which they developed to help organizations enact change without causing major disruptions to the activities of the company (Brisson-Banks 2010).
The best applicable model to Sambian Partners is the Kotter’s model. The model provides a detailed methodology of enacting change, which has almost a 100% success rate. The model encompasses eight major stages whose application results in ultimate organizational success (Brisson-Banks 2010).

Establishing a sense of urgency

Forming a powerful guiding coalition
Creating a vision
Communicating the vision
Empowering others to act on the vision
Planning for and creating short-term wins
Consolidating improvements and producing still more change
Institutionalizing new approaches
With the adoption of this model, Sambian Partners can restore order in the organization, and enable workers to feel more appreciated and thus increase their productivity. The company can eliminate these threats and improve its performance over rival organizations by obtaining information from the employees. The model will help the company include all the necessities of the workers, creating an environment conducive to working. Using this approach, Sambian Partners will eliminate competition threats and gain a competitive advantage over its rivals, which is a motivated workforce.

References

Brisson-Banks, C. V. (2010). Managing change and transitions: a comparison of different models and their commonalities. Library Management, 31(4/5), 241-252.
Lawler III, E. (2008). Why Are We Losing All Our Good People? Harvard Business Review Case Study, 0-5. Retrieved April 2, 2015, from https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0zQqWXwtbciUWJELU96MzlTa00/view