Discussion: Anchoring Change The end result of a successful change process should include a change in an organization’s culture

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Discussion: Anchoring Change

The end result of a successful change process should include a change in an organization’s culture. This change in culture ensures that the vision is permanently entrenched in the organization. Kotter warns against change visions that begin with a cultural change—he maintains that the roots have not been established to sustain the long and often exhausting change process. Rather, Kotter suggests, if you adhere to his eight-stage process, cultural change will occur naturally, creating a culture that encourages future opportunities, empowerment, and continual renewal.

To prepare for this Discussion:

· Review this week’s Learning Resources, especially:

· Step 7: Consolidating gains and producing – See attachment

· Step 8: Anchoring new approaches – See attachment

· The hard side of change management. Harvard Business Review, 83(10), 108–118.

· Kotter, J. P. (2012). Leading change. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.

· Chapter 9, “Consolidating Gains and Producing More Change”

· Chapter 10, “Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture”

 

Assignment:

 

Read a selection of your peers' postings.

 

Respond to at least two of your peers' postings in one or more of the following ways:

· Provide your peers with some additional ideas on how to overcome returning to the status quo and how to ensure they are not moving forward too rapidly.

· Identify any ideas you may have on the importance of anchoring change within culture and how these ideas might benefit their change plan.

· Compare the levels of culture discussed in the Learning Resources to the levels of culture your peers will use to shape their change plan. Is there any additional ideas you can offer to ensure they are successfully anchoring change within the culture?

· 3 – 4 paragraphs

· No plagiarism

· APA citing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1st Colleagues – Natasha Mills  

Natasha Mills

Anchoring Change

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One of the primary factors that makes change difficult to achieve within an organization is culture. As a result, many change leaders would think that changing the organization’s culture first before implementing the proposed change vision is the best idea (Kotter, 2012). On the contrary, changing an organization's culture should be the last step and should occur naturally. This is because cultural change, particularly in mature organizations, requires unlearning and replacing existing values and assumptions with new ones, which proves difficult and uncomfortable for many (Schein, 2009). This can pose as an obstacle in the implementation of the change vision even before the process begins. This aspect validates Kotter’s argument that culture change should come last after altering people’s actions, realizing some benefits as a result, and establishing the connection between the new action and performance improvement.

Before implementing the proposed change, my organization is one where the various departments work independently that it is difficult to determine their interdependence even though they are. After successfully implementing the change, the organization should be one where teams from the different departments collaborate and trust each other that it would be difficult to blame a single department when a customer raises an issue, as well as difficult to accord praise to one team when the feedback is positive. Achieving this change will be the first step towards a successful transformation because it will encourage a change in behavior and values, and eventually lead to a change in the organization’s culture. The next and most critical step would be to maintain this change (Kotter, 2012). Therefore, other than having more collaborative departments, my organization will be characterized by consistent, if not increased performance of the same actions that led us to that success after successfully implementing the change.

The force that has the most significant potential to slide my organization back toward the former status quo is the celebration of the small wins in a way that gives the employees the impression that the most challenging part of the change is over. This will lead to complacency, stall the change process, and revert the organization back to its initial state before introducing the change. At the same time, celebrating victory too soon signifies moving rapidly, which could lead to re-resistance or the missing of critical aspects of change, such as the incompatibility between the organization’s culture and the implemented change. Thus, it will be essential to celebrate the short-term wins more appropriately and in a way that pushes up the urgency level even more (Laureate Education Producer, 2012g).

Culture has been established as a powerful force during the implementation of change. Some of the reasons for this phenomenon are that culture exerts itself into people’s actions and that this occurs unconsciously, making it difficult to alter (Kotter, 2012). Therefore, failing to anchor the proposed change within the culture may lead the organization to revert back to its old ways and the various departments to slide back into their subcultures (Laureate Education Producer, 2012i). This is highly fueled by culture’s characteristic of being invisible, making it crucial to ensure that the proposed change is anchored on it. One way to achieve this is to select and socialize employees responsible for reinforcing the change, promote people into leadership positions that fuel the change, keep change stories alive, and retain, as well as promote employees that are part of the change culture (Laureate Education Producer, 2012i).

There are three levels of culture, including artifacts, espoused values, and underlying assumptions (Schein, 2009). Artifacts refer to visible organizational processes and structures. Espoused values are the philosophies, goals, and strategies that drive the operations of an enterprise. Lastly, underlying assumptions are the thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and beliefs that are the ultimate source of action and values. Underlying assumptions are usually unconscious and taken for granted.

Underlying assumptions is the most important level of culture to shift during transformational change. The main reason behind this perception is that, as already mentioned, underlying assumptions are unconscious and invisible. This makes it easy for people to slide back into their old ways of doing things when this tenet is not addressed appropriately (Laureate Education Producer, 2012i). Hence, underlying assumptions shape my change plan because I will have to ensure that it includes strategies for pushing up the urgency level even after the short-term wins, as well as strategies that ensure that the new practices are compatible with the core culture of the organization or deeply rooted and strong enough to replace it. 

Kotter, J. P. (2012). Leading change. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.

Laureate Education (Producer). (2012g). Step 7: Consolidating gains and producing more change. Baltimore, MD: Author. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

Laureate Education (Producer). (2012i). Step 8: Anchoring new approaches in the culture. Baltimore, MD: Author. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

Schein, E. H. (2009). The corporate culture survival guide (Vol. 158). John Wiley & Sons.

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2nd Colleagues – Kristen Springer  

Kristen Springer

RE: Discussion - Week 7

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             When my organization implemented an upgraded software called Meditech EXPANSE for the physicians, we found once all of the dust settled, there has been an improvement in the overall satisfaction in the Electronic Health Record (EHR).  With that came the hiring of two new doctors and a positive change in the attitude towards the Information Technology Department, (I.T.).  It had the feeling that the culture was, in fact, shifting. I would agree with Kotter in that culture changes after the process changes (2012). “But only at the end of the change cycle does most of this become anchored in the culture” (Kotter, 2012, p. 165).  Now as I think about the implementation of the nursing piece, there will be much more preparation needed.  The small win of getting the Director of the E.D. free to work on the project with me would be excellent, but are the negative forces of the nurses too much to overcomes?  There must be clear steps to move slowly and even stronger reinforcement to win the hearts of the jaded E.D. nurses in my organization. I must be extremely careful to not over-celebrate the small wins and lose the momentum that I so desperately need to continue my path.

            “Even with all of these efforts, killing off the old culture and creating the new one was difficult to accomplish” (Kotter, 2012, p. 164). Therefore, anchoring comes last after the process and resource enhancement and it should come naturally.  Gone are the days of screaming at the I.T. department for a slow, clunky outdated system.  Here to stay are faster more innovative devices to make a clear difference in our patient care and outcomes as we know it.  Of course, this all depends on the wi-fi speed and the end results.   Never backing down on positive talk, education of what to click, will reduce the lack of acceptance.  Nurses could still insist on doing things manually, “because that’s how we always did it”.  Inevitably some people will leave to seek new employment because they liked the "old" ways.  They complained about the old, but they truly like to complain.  There also must be a change in how nurses move up the ladder.  When people feel stuck at a certain level, old complaining habits come back. (Kotter, 2017, p. 166).  I have seen success with our computer system along with positive feedback, but it only takes one tiny error from I.T. to see the old angry culture come back to life among the nurses.  This loss in momentum is detrimental to growth.

            With a transformational change will naturally come a culture change.  Having an old slow clunky hospital information system transformed into a speedy innovative high-tech system will inevitably free up more time for patient care and reduce frustration. “Culture refers to norms of behavior and shared values among a group of people” (Kotter, 2012, p. 156). A natural progression will be less disdain of the system, resulting in less hate of the I.T. department.  Schein describes culture as artifacts, or the visual structure; espoused values, or strategies, goals, and philosophies; and underlying assumptions or taken for granted perceptions. (Organizational Communication Channel, 2017).  The most important shift needed in my organization is the dynamics and the continued shift to a more positive belief or meaning in the department. To establish camaraderie and unite different departments in a new way, more with more resilience and patience. Each of Kotter’s eight stages is so important, clearly not one more than another.  By not losing the momentum when in the anchoring stage can be challenging, but pushing through will unite forces and create a natural shift of culture.