Implementing Change of Leeds City Council - Case Study Example

RUNNING HEAD: IMPLEMENTING CHANGE Implementing Change School Implementing Change Leeds Council – A Case Study in Organisational Change In 1990 Beer, Eisentat and Spector put forth the theory that organisational change must encompass three main components to ensure the success of the planned change. The three major criteria they regard as fundamental are coordination, commitment and competencies. In order to analyse if these components are indeed necessary research into the successful transformation of Leeds City Council will be discussed and evidence will be presented to demonstrate how the successful organisational change in the second largest metropolitan council in England was made possible. Introduction In 1999 with major changes taking place at the national level of government in the form of devolution, local councils were scrambling to ‘keep their heads above water’. During this time period, it was evident that each department was focused crisis after crisis within their own department and there was no vision for propelling the city into a cohesively run organisation (Leeds City, 2006, screen 1). Seeing the need for organisational change the leadership of Leeds City Council set about creating a culture of unified strategic direction and bring together all employees to focus on meeting the strategic needs of the city. In order to achieve this, the Chief Executive and his staff focused on development of the Council’s Core Values as a first step in the process of organisational change. Once the core values had been identified council’s next step was to begin to create the atmosphere conducive to change. In the following paragraphs we will examine how Leeds City Council was able to successful launch a sweeping organisational change and a shift to continuous process improvement. Upon arriving at the council core values the Chief Executive understood that without the support of employees the core values established would be nothing more that words on paper. The next step the executive undertook was to educate and gain acceptance for this move towards organisational change. A meeting was organised for all key management personnel, a total of 150 managers, in order to instil the “Vision for Leeds” into the culture of the council and ensure management understood ‘the councils objectives and the cultural change needed to bring them about’ (Leeds City, 2006, screen 1). The Road to Change Before an organisation can effectively make a change they have to understand what change is and what it is not. “The creation of healthy change is about living comfortably with conditions of constant change, and finding ways to create, within those conditions, pathways for accomplishing desired objectives through continuous adaptation.” (Discussion, 2005) Understanding and redefining the complexity of this requires a three-fold approach. First, change does not mean we throw away the old, rather we build upon where we are; secondly, change is not finite, we can not view change as something we are finally doing or somewhere we will be – Change is constant; and thirdly, with change there is no return to normalcy. The continual process of evolving, of change, if you will, becomes the constant with the organisation. How we once did things as an organisation is in the past. Kotter and Cohen point out the biggest hurdle an organisation faces when initiating change is not dealing with processes or systems, but rather, changing the behaviour of the members of the organisation itself. Once that is accomplished the rest falls neatly into place. (2002) This requires a new way of thinking within the organization, a shifting from old preconceived ideas and notions and a movement towards envisioning and creating the means for this change to occur. The organization transforms itself based on the shifting thought processes brought on by the change. An organization is not the outward façade of the building and internally the hierarchy of management. An organization is people. Each person determines what the organization is and can be. Moving beyond traditional roles of management is necessary to accomplish this transformation. Transformation is a group process and requires each member of the organizational team to work together towards the change. Coordination This group process is, in essence, coordination. Miriam-Webster dictionary defines coordination as ‘the harmonious functioning of parts for effective results’ (2006, screen1). In order to examine Beer, Eisentat and Sector’s theory we need to examine the successful transformation of Leeds City Council and discover the method by which their coordinated effort helped ensure the successful organisational change. One of the first initiatives undertaken during the change process was the development of a partnership with local community and business organisations to develop a Council Corporate Plan to meet the objectives set out in the government devolution. This coordinated effort has been successful in improving the city’s economic competitiveness. Several examples of the progress made through successful partnership include: Hosting a Regional Economic Summit during November of 2004 to seek consensus on city region collaboration and to propose the need for a strategic partnership’ (‘Looking back’, 2005, 64) Through partnership working on the regeneration of employment development. Leeds is currently the leading city in the UK for job creation. (‘Business’, 2006, screen 1) Opened in February of 2005 the City Centre Jobshop to help workless people find employment In the government’s audit CPA there was particular notice of the significant cooperation within various departments to improve the overall climate of the city. In particular was noted the council’s improved coordination with the local police to ensure ‘sustainable solution to the local community’ (CAP, 2005, 15). Development of a strategic partnership group, the Leeds Initiative to coordinate services throughout the city; it is comprised of members from the public, corporate, community, council and voluntary sectors of the city In December of 2005, Leeds City Council received a four star award during their annual CPA. A portion of the report read: Leeds has been judged as one of highest performing authorities in the country and is considered to be improving well. With budgets of around £2billion, serving a population of approximately three quarters of a million people, the council is the largest single tier authority in the country to be awarded four stars in this year’s Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA), the highest rating available. (CAP, 2005, 18) As evidenced in the above examples, in just over five years Leeds City Council has developed from a fragmented group of independent departments into a cohesive entity which has successful transformed itself into a visionary council working for tomorrow. Commitment The second area identified that is necessary for successful change by Beer, Eisentat and Spector was commitment. According to Senge (1994) this internalization process of the organization’s desire to move towards continuous process improvement becomes the driving force for lasting changing. Without this shift of focus and cultural rebirth change is nothing more than modifying behaviour to eliminate a specifically identified problem or occurrence. As there is no real cultural change, once the problem is perceived to be ‘under control’ the organization tends to slip back into its old patterns of behaviour which, in effect, it never really left behind to begin with, it merely temporarily shifted its actions. According to the CAP report issued in 2005: During a period of major organisational and political change there has been a sustained focus on priority issues and the council continues to display effective community leadership. Through the well established approach to strategic partnership a new ‘Vision For Leeds’ has been agreed which raises the ambitions for the city in terms of both its economic and social regeneration over the medium to long term. The council is able to balance local and national priorities and has mechanisms in place to ensure resources are directed towards priority issues. (CAP, 2005, 4) Competency The final area to discuss is competency. One of the major driving forces in the success of the organisational change found within the Leeds City Council has stemmed from the Leadership Development Planning. All employees are highly invested in these series of training programs and the council has further adopted a 360 feedback program. The major focus of this Leadership Development Plan revolves around identifying and measuring three tiers of management on key competencies. In order to develop these competencies, council set up a series of focus groups to identify what the core levels that must be achieved and the behaviours which are required to be displayed. Seven major areas of accountability were developed for management personnel each of which contain competencies which must be displayed in order to meet them. The seven areas of accountability include: Leading People Service Co-ordination and Management Corporate Focus Managing Resources Managing Information Democratic Support Community Leadership. Underpinning these areas of accountability is the behavioural traits or competencies need to accomplish this. These include: Managing, Developing and Understanding Others Impact and Influence Collective Responsibility Communication Leadership for Change Political Awareness Managing for Results Motivation and Drive. City council has been committed to ensuring that all employees are given the knowledge and skill necessary to excel and achieve success. The Leadership Development Programme is a method to achieve that. In 2002 core competencies were expanded to third tier management personnel and there are plans to further identify competencies within all levels of the council. Many activities contribute to a favourable ‘climate’ for progress. A clear sense of direction, strong leadership and a focus on people management issues including the management of performance and the promotion of learning, creativity and innovation are essential. Feedback, sharing ideas across the organisation and the community and evaluating progress are also key. (Making sense, 2002, 1) Leeds has made great progress in this area. Conclusion It must be pointed however, that each of these three requirements for successful organizational change must not be taken in isolation which means that the coordination needs to be bounded by commitment and such coordination and commitments must be coupled with the required competencies. Each is actually co-dependent with the other. Leeds City Council has evolved into one of the premier councils in the UK. Although there has been a concerted effort by management to achieve this, it needs to be emphasised that change does not come from management alone. It requires a commitment and a change from the old way of doing things to a fresh, new perspective that, instead of fearing change, embraces it. That is accomplished by all members of the organisation, not just management. Leeds City Council identified this as ‘Collective Responsibility’ (Leeds, 2006, screen 1) Which can be defined as ‘Working collaboratively across the organisation to help achieve corporate objectives and foster an atmosphere of mutual support. Encouraging team effort and building cohesive teams to achieve results. Building and maintaining team motivation. Working as an effective team member in service and organisation wide teams. Putting organisational above service interests and demonstrating the adoption of collective responsibility for corporate decisions’ (screen 1) Bibliography Beer, M., R. A. Eisenstat, and R. Spector. The Critical Path to Corporate Renewal. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press, 1990. Business (2006) [online] Leeds City Council Website. Available from http://www.leeds.gov.uk/business/menu.aspx?style= [accessed 26 Feb. 2006] Comprehensive performance assessment, corporate assessment Leeds City Council (Apr. 2005) Audit Commission. Local Government, Performance and Improvement Directorate. London: Crown Publishing. A discussion paper on healthy organizational change. (2005). [online] Ontario Prevention Clearinghouse. Available from http://www.opc.on.ca/english/our_programs/hlth_promo/resources/healthy/healthy_chng.htm [accessed 27 Feb. 2006] Kotter, J. and Cohen, D. Changing management culture: literature review and annotated bibliography.” The Heart of Change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002. Leeds City Council case study (2006) [online] Employers’ organisation for local government. Available from http://www.lg-employers.gov.uk/leadership/competencies/lcleeds.html [accessed 26 Feb. 2006] Looking back – what did we achieve. (2005). Leeds City Council. Leeds UK. Making sense of change – saying goodbye of initiative fatigue (Nov. 2002) Employer’s Organization for Local Government, London. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. (26 Feb. 2006) [online] Available from http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/coordination [accessed 26 Feb. 2006] Senge, P.M. The Fifth Discipline - The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, (2nd Ed.). New York: Doubleday, 1994. Topic: The need for the controlling aspect of business and the creative aspect of entrepreneurship could be seen as being diametrically opposed. With reference to an organisation with which you are familiar describe and discuss how you would manage the two so that they may peaceably co-exist. Introduction This paper seeks to examine the relationship between the needs for controlling aspect of business and the creative aspect of entrepreneurship that they could be seen as diametrically opposed. Since these concepts are business realities in an organisation, there must be a way of handling the same in terms of an existing organisation. I have therefore chosen the examination and application of the concepts to General Motors. Definition of controlling aspect of business The controlling aspect of business involves setting corporate objectives and trying to attain these corporate targets. It is one of the most popular management functions. Another definition is given by Business Process Reference Models, 2005, p.48, which talks about the control aspect as follows: The control aspect defines the order in which the tasks of a business process are instantiated and in which the corresponding activities are executed. Note that the order of the execution does not need to be sequential; it can be a partial order representing the causal dependencies among the activities. For defining this order, the formalism refers to the tasks defined in the integral part of the business process. (Business Process Reference Models, 2005, p.48) It is clear there is a process that must be followed. Definition of creative aspect of entrepreneurship Knowing what is the meaning of words creativity and entrepreneurship would lead us to a clearer understanding. Definition of Entrepreneurship Today, n.d., discusses the concept of entrepreneurship as follows: In almost all of the definitions of entrepreneurship, there is agreement that we are talking about a kind of behaviour that includes: (1) initiative taking, (2) the organizing and reorganizing of social and economic mechanisms to turn resources and situations to practical account, (3) the acceptance of risk or failure. Entrepreneurship is the dynamic process of creating incremental wealth. The wealth is created by individuals who assume the major risks in terms of equity, time and/or career commitment or provide value for some product or service. The product or service may or may not be new or unique, but value must somehow be infused by the entrepreneur by receiving and locating the necessary skills and resources. By the concept of entrepreneurship is the concept of creativity. In other words, an entrepreneur must be creative. Why the concepts are diametrically opposed? After introducing the concepts of the two we can now analyze and posit that in controlling aspect there is an order in which the tasks of a business processes are instantiated and in which the corresponding activities are executed but in creativity, what is important is that there must be a value added. In trying to be creative there need not be order or the order of tasks might limit or control the generation of value. Another characteristic of an entrepreneur is that of being visionary that is inherent in new and emerging business. In relation to this, Di-Masi, n.d. says: The visionary who starts a business with a fresh idea -- to make something better or less expensively, to make it in a new way or to satisfy a unique need -- is often not primarily interested in making money. The visionary wants to do something that no one else has done because they can, because it is interesting and exciting, and because it may be meeting a need. Once the business begins to have some success, then the nature of the processes needed change. Di-Masi, n.d., explains that at this stage, the infant business experiences its first set of challenges: How does the visionary entrepreneur transfer the skills and the inspiration that made the little enterprise a success into something larger? How does the business deal with cash flow constraints? How does it obtain the legitimacy necessary to enable it to borrow? The author resolves these questions saying: Often, the visionary is not interested in these issues. Visionaries are notoriously poor at supervising staff, negotiating with investors, or training successors. The business now needs a professional management focus, which calls on a different set of skills, to manage and sustain growth, that are distinct from the skills necessary to start an enterprise and promote a vision. Comments: Based on the above article it could mean that being a visionary would not fit the idea of control in management which includes supervising staff, negotiating with investors, or training successors. It is therefore in this case that one area of the two aspects maybe diametrically opposed. To manage is to control with preset objectives but to be creative is to look at the future with too much possibilities. How would the two concepts be applied and in the life of a business entity then? I will use General Motors to find out the interplay of the two concepts. The application is just focus on one segment or division of said company, that is, in its management program for GM’s intranet needs which we call Socrates. General Motors is a manufacturer of cars in the US and is described by the writer as $161 billion corporation, hence we could just imagine how big the company also in terms of employees which is estimated to be about 600,000. (Kalin, n.d,) Kalin, n.d. said that GM’s communication Director Wiley pictured the intranet as a central directory site that would link to locally controlled divisional and departmental sites. She also said that the central site would become a virtual shuttle to GM and that it would let users browse and search through all internal GM sites, adding links as new sites went online. The project would also become GM employees primary home page, offering news, information and services related to GM as a whole and their divisions in particular. Balancing Creativity and Control Kalin, n.d, said that back in 1996, GMs communications group explored building an intranet to distribute press releases and other materials among its worldwide staff. She also mentioned about GMs finance and HR groups also getting the intranet bug. Hence, she said that departments formed a team to brainstorm about building a GM-wide intranet for all employees. The author reported about the hurdles of of putting up the intranet and one of which was the cumbersome process of getting browsers onto 100,000 employees desktops.  She then discussed the other hurdle saying: Another hurdle was balancing the need for creativity against the need for control. The intranet team feared that if it didnt soon establish companywide standards and structure, GMs intranet would become as chaotic as the Web itself; indeed, several GM engineering groups had already developed numerous intranet sites. But the team knew that it would be impossible-even undesirable-to have iron-fisted control over every intranet site. "On the Web, you want to be fast to market, and you dont want to put up a lot of impediments," says Mark Bougeaud, GMs director of Internet technology, who was involved in Socrates from the early stages. "But you have to have some level of process around it, otherwise you have the Wild West." Comment: Creative aspect of enterprenurship is best illustratedbu by the fact that several GM engineering groups had already developed numerous intranet sites. These were accomplished under an environement of freedom on the part of the engineering groups. By their creativity they were able to develop the sites. However, they could not be left alone continously, for as feared, there must be a process around. It could not be that there are no rules. This must be very logical for otherwise, excessive or unncessary intranet sites would be a waste of resources and time and resoureces if they they will not serve the need for which General Motors have on them. Corporations have limited resources through their annual budgets. Every project costs money and each project must be evaluated in terms of financial feasibility. What happened next? GM would need to make it easy for departments and divisions to develop and maintain their own sites. With this practice, creativy is allowed to flourished and in response, Kalin, n.d., says that many guidelines were made in response to the limits of the client environment at the time (until 1998, Navigator 2.0 was standard, as were 13-inch monitors). What happened however was the intranet team acted with liberality by not making the constraints too rigid, since team members wanted to make it as easy as possible for departments and divisions to launch sites and add them to Socrates, the name of GM’s intranet. (Kalin,.n.d) (Pharaphrasing made) Conclusion: We have found that although the controlling aspect of business and creative aspect of entrepreneurship could be seen as diametrically opposed, they could be of a way of making one the complementary of the other. This means there is need to balance the two. General Motors allowed freedom for its engineers It is just like the left brain and right brain. Each has its own purpose and in fact the beauty of two may not consist of having one having to shine too much over the other but a healthy respect of the function of one over the other and finding a way of making them complementary to each other would put the concepts in proper perspective. Recommendation Balancing controlling and creativity concepts in business is attainable through allowable means. Companywide standards and structure needs not be restrictive; they should allow the allow the accomplishment of the purpose The intranet team feared that if it didnt soon establish companywide standards and structure, GMs intranet would become as chaotic as the Web itself; indeed, several GM engineering groups had already developed numerous intranet sites. It is very apt to quote one again what Mark Bougeaud, GMs director of Internet technology said: "On the Web, you want to be fast to market, and you dont want to put up a lot of impediments," Bibliography: 1. Business Process Reference Models, 2005, Satellite workshop of the Third International Conference on Business Process Management (BPM) Nancy, France, September 5, 2005 , {www document} URL http://wwwcs.uni-paderborn.de/cs/kindler/events/BPRM05/PDF/BPRM05_Proceedings.pdf>, Accessed February 22,2006 2. Definition of Entrepreneurship Today, n.d. , {www document} URL http://www.sbaer.uca.edu/publications/entrepreneurship/pdf/11.pdf, Accessed February 22,2006 3. Di-Masi, P., n.d., Defining Entrepreneurship, {www document} URL http://www.gdrc.org/icm/micro/define-micro.html , Accessed February 22,2006 4. Kalin, Sari, n.d. Overdrive GM revs up its intranet portal to transport information to 100,000 employees worldwide,{www document} URL , http://www.chips.navy.mil/archives/00_nmci/Overdrive.htm, Accessed February 22,2006 5. Sgamrnato, J., 1997, Matching Play Style with GM Style, , {www document} URL www.sjgames.com/gurps/Roleplayer/ Roleplayer22/SameGame.html Accessed February 23,2006 Read More