Leading and Managing Change Individual Assessed Essay   3500 words:   This is a strict limit not a guideline: any piece submitted with more words than the limit will result in the excess not being marked   Purpose and Description   The individual assignment gives you an opportunity to apply, test, and draw lessons from the module to develop your understanding of change management

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Leading and Managing Change Individual Assessed Essay

 

3500 words:

 

This is a strict limit not a guideline: any piece submitted with more words than the limit will result in the excess not being marked

 

Purpose and Description

 

The individual assignment gives you an opportunity to apply, test, and draw lessons from the module to develop your understanding of change management. It also assesses your ability to use the theories and cases from this module in a real-world setting.

 

Your assignment is to (1) find a person whom you believe to have valuable experience leading change in an organization; (2) interview this person about their experience; and (3) write a report about what you have learned focused on the following themes we studied: “discovering better goals,” “implementing change,” and “changing yourself.”

 

Requirements

 

Part one: Find a change agent

 

The person you interview should have a rich story about leading a change in their

organization. This doesn’t mean they need to be a big-time CEO/president like John Mack at

Morgan Stanley (“Becoming a ‘One-Firm firm’”)! Indeed, you might discover the best lessons

from someone who has led change just now, from a lower position, with limited resources,

experiencing resistance and even failure along the way. Perhaps you’d like to interview a

younger manager implementing a business idea they came up with (like “Thomas Green”) or

a professional championing their personal values in their organization (like Lewis from “The

discipline of building character” or Stephen Bolsin from our lecture on the politics of change).

| ask you to conduct the interview personally, in real-time, e.g., face-to-face or

phone/Zoom/Skype, etc. as the situation permits. Find someone willing to share their

successes, failures, and doubts openly with you. For this reason, you can offer to disguise the

interviewee’s name, personal details, and company details in the report.

It’s a good idea to contact (e.g., by email} potential interviewees as early as you can to ensure

they're willing and able to participate. However, | recommend doing the interview after we’ve

finished the classes, when you're familiar with the ideas from this module.

A final consideration for selection is what benefit it brings to your career. You can turn this

assignment into an opportunity to network with someone in your industry of interest. The

person you interview can be someone you already know, e.g., from a current or prior

workplace, or someone you don’t know but would find interesting to connect with.

Part two: interview the change agent

From interviews, you can learn about the experiences, worldviews, and assumptions of

participants in an organization. For the assignment, | ask you to conduct one interview with

your selected change agent, focusing on the following themes from our module:

e “Discovering better goals”

e “Implementing change”

e “Changing yourself”

You may choose to focus on one theme, two themes, or three themes.

You'll get better information and feel more satisfied with the interview if you think carefully

about the questions beforehand. | recommend a “semi-structured” format for the interview.

This means you write down an outline of the themes or topics you want to cover. Then, during

the interview, you branch off into follow-up questions based on the person’s responses. At

the bottom of these instructions | provided an outline to help you start designing your

interview.

Part three: Write a report on whot lessons you leamed about change

Write a report that tells the story of the participant’s change initiative and explains what we

can learn from it. The important thing is that you clearly answer the following questions:

1. What was the change process? (30 points)

© The first section should provide a description of the change process — including

the people involved, their motives, the challenges they faced and attempted

to overcome, how the change effort progressed, and the outcomes of the

change for the organization and the people involved.

2. What three lessons about change management can we draw? (60 points)

o The second section should explain how your case deepens, challenges, or

otherwise advances our understanding of the central themes of this module,

(1) “discovering better goals,” (2) “implementing change,” and/or (3)

“changing yourself.”

o Your analysis should make specific reference to module content, including

theories and other cases we've discussed.

Ifyou chose to focus on only one theme: provide three concrete lessons about

how your case deepens, challenges, or advances our understanding of that

theme. You'll be expected to go in greater depth into the theories/cases

associated with that theme when drawing lessons from the case.

 

© If you chose to focus on 2-3 themes: again, provide three concrete lessons in

total. How you distribute these across the themes you've selected is up to you.

For example, you can draw one lesson each for ‘better goals’, ‘implementing

change’ and ‘changing yourself.’ You'll be expected to use a greater variety of

theories/cases and explain how they relate to each other in the case.

 

3. Based on your assignment, what is one thing you will do differently in your career?

{10 points)

 

© Inthis section, drawing on your analysis to explain one concrete action you can

start taking in your career now (or in the next 1-2 years} that will increase the

chances you'll create meaningful change and have a successful, satisfying

career.

© The action should originate from your analysis in part 2.

Style and Formatting

Your tone should be professional and straight to the point. While you should have sufficient

detail and use module content, avoid unnecessary jargon. Where possible, avoid passive

sentence construction, as it tends to obscure who is doing what to whom.

You do not need to define the concepts that come from module readings. But you do need to

make it clear how you are using them. Only include references for material from outside the

module.

Grading Rubric

Clarity, plausibility, specificity, and insight in your report will gain you points. Basically, after

reading your report | should be persuaded into adopting the lessons about change

management you have derived. What makes a plausible or convincing explanation? They tend

to:

 

1. Be supported by the facts of the case: Your claims should make detailed use of the

information from the interview and not be contradicted by them. Any assumptions

you make to help you interpret the case or draw lessons should be clearly stated.

While | will not mark the interview directly, the quality of your analysis will depend

heavily on the quality of the interview.

 

2. Bespecific: Your explanations should acknowledge the uniqueness of the case, paying

attention to the combination of particular people, events, and organizational factors

involved. Avoid trying to fit the situation into overly simple generalizations about how

organizations or change efforts are supposed to work.

3. Be internally consistent: The parts of your explanations should fit together, e.g., the

assumptions or explanations you use to discuss one lesson should support and not

contradict those you use in another lesson.

 

4. Fit our prior knowledge of the subject: Your argument will be stronger if it draws on

what we know about change management from this module. Draw on module

material (e.g., readings, theory, and cases) and class discussion to support your points

and to show how your lessons advance our understanding of change.

 

Finally, please use the forums (not email) for questions about how to interpret the

 

assignment. This includes questions like, “What did you mean by so-and-so in question

 

1?" or "Do I need a reference list?” I'll answer these questions publicly on the forum, so

 

all students get the same interpretation of the instructions. Note also that extensions

 

should be requested through the MIM program, not your module leader.

interview tips

Preparation

 

« Familiarize yourself with the person’s job, change effort, organization, and industry as

you can, prior to the interview, e.g., through sources like websites or books.

 

* Write up a guide for the questions you want to ask, perhaps 8-10 of them. Don’t

overload yourself because you'll ask follow-up questions in the interview.

 

*® Youcan share the interview guide with the participant ahead of time, so they can think

about the questions.

 

Opening the interview

 

* Your first questions should be simple and benign. The purpose is to get the person

talking and comfortable, e.g., biographical questions and open-ended questions that

give you a ‘grand tour’ of the person’s job, company, and change effort, e.g., “how did

you become a consultant?”, “what are your current job responsibilities?”, or “can you

describe how the change effort progressed?”

 

Specific topics

 

* After the grand tour, you can move on to the themes related to this module, i.e.,

“discovering better goals,” “implementing change,” and “changing yourself.” You can

try all three, then focus your follow-up questions on what’s most relevant to your

interviewee’s experiences.

 

* Design your questions to apply or test module content, including theories and analogous cases we discussed. For instance, the answer to a question like “with whom did you first discuss your change idea?” might tell you something about perceived competence, brokers, or politics in the organization, or give you something to compare with one of the cases we discussed in class.

 

* Follow-up questions dig deeper by helping you get concrete examples to compare and contrast incidents. Consider asking about typica/ incidents (e.g., “is that how people usually propose new ideas at your company?”) as well as exceptional incidents (e.g., “can you describe a part of the change process that went unexpectedly smoothly/faced unexpected resistance?”}

 

Closing the interview

 

*® Aim for an interview of about 1-1.5 hours. Shorter means you’re probably not going

in-depth. More than this, and the person may put less effort into answering your final

questions.

 

* End the interview on a positive note, leaving you both satisfied. While it is not necessary, you may also ask to keep in touch with them for additional questions that may arise as you write the report.

 

Some additional recommendations

 

* lencourage you to record the interview. You'll be less distracted taking notes, have an exact record of what was said, and be able to provide direct quotes in the report. A participant consent form for data use can be found in the MIM handbook.

 

*® Try to avoid “why” questions if possible, as these motivate the person to rationalize things and come up with a defensible explanation. Instead, ask for concrete examples of what they did, saw, or felt — these questions tend to provide more enlightening data.