please respond to the two peers:

Changing the Culture

In Chapter 10 of Leading Change, John Kotter explains that he now believes that cultural changes must take place after a major change initiative, to support the changes that have been made.

• Do you agree or disagree with Kotter’s view as described above?
• Share an example from your own professional life where you have seen cultural norms support or impede progress
• What actions must leaders take to foster a culture that sustains changes that have been made?
• 1.Dora Green COLLAPSE
  

  Do you agree or disagree with Kotter’s view as described above?

I totally agree with the views of Kotter’s that in order to facilitate change that has been initiated, changes must be brought in the culture. For example if an organization has initiated a technological change where all the manual work has now been computerize, exchange must be planned and brought in the organizational culture in order to facilitate employees in getting used to the new way of working in the organization. If the culture of the organization does not support change, the changes being brought in the workplace might not be successful. During the covid-19 pandemic many organizations around the globe failed to survive because they did not have a culture that could handle major changes within the workplace for example work from home. Various small businesses left the required infrastructure to facilitate online work because the culture of these businesses were not prepared to deal with any changes. Yeah, but you’ve got to work hard to effectively reform an organization. When you prepare carefully and build the right framework, it will be much smoother to incorporate change. Your plans for improvement are more likely to fail if you’re too impatient, and if you expect too much too quickly. Create a sense of urgency, recruit strong leaders of change, build a vision and communicate it effectively, remove barriers, create quick wins, and build on your momentum. If you do these things, you can help to make your organizational culture part of the change. That is when a true victory can be declared. Then sit back and take pleasure in the change you envisioned so long ago.

• Share an example from your own professional life where you have seen cultural norms support or impede progress

This is based on my experience. I work as a Concierge in a reputable hotel in the Durham, NC. I originally came from SC and it was really new for me to adopt to a different style of living. Also, here in the Durham, languages may vary depending on the regions where you’re at because there so many different cultures in because of the hospital and the surrounding universities. So basically communicating to foreign or domestic guests effectively, somehow my subordinates are not fond of how I communicate to them during a non-working hour. Language discrimination is an issue and it is also needed to be looked at by high position leaders. This discrimination have an impact on me that’s why I really practiced and keep up with communicating with my co-workers from other backgrounds.

• What actions must leaders take to foster a culture that sustains changes that have been made?

To be successful in a culture program, it is important that the team not only represents the various roles and functions within an organization, but also the various personalities and points of view within it. To this end, in order to ensure that all viewpoints are taken into account, cognitive diversity is crucial for people with different styles, experiences and perspectives. Here’s a list that is very important to leaders:

*Lead from the front

*Create a culture of innovation

*Build effective teams

*Reward failure

*Take ownership of client problems

*Benchmark against the best

*Flat management structure

Reference:

1. https://www.entrepreneur.com/amphtml/282664

2. Week 9 Lecture Notes: Culture and Systems that Support Change Click for more options

3. Kotter, Chapter 10: Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture

4. Walker & Soule, “Changing Company Culture Requires a Movement, Not a Mandate

2 .Silvia Sanabria COLLAPSE

Dr. Bodam and Classmates,This week’s chapter ironically happens at the same time as my team at work are trying to find ways to deal with changes and how to help the team take in the new vision leadership is promoting.So to answer this question – Do you agree or disagree with Kotter’s view as described above? I would have to say, absolutely yes. The reason I agree with culture change coming last and not first, is because of the plain reason of, we can’t change the unknown. So if you are unaware of the culture and how things are worked or how things should be approached, it will be challenging to gain the votes of the people or welcome change easily. As Kotter described in Chapter 10 – “The better you understand the existing culture, the more easily you can figure out how to push the urgency level up, how to create the guiding coalition, how to create the shape of the vision….” (Kotter 165)Share an example from your own professional life where you have seen cultural norms support or impede progressOnly one? Haha I can share a few I have witnessed in the past and I am witnessing now. Years ago, I had a new manager move from the east coast from working in an HQ environment, to the West Coast where the market, for lack of better words, ran things their way. The west was more of a Territory market than a Headquarters “culture” and was more flexible. Long story short, the new manager was so used to runnin things the “Headquarters way” and so his approach to change things was not received lightly by other managers. Don’t get me wrong, the manager meant well, but failed to understand how things were approached or presented to this new set of people.. Needless to say, the manager decided to move back east to what he was used to and in his own words, he said “the culture is different here and makes it hard to promote change” I personally think his ideas were good and the changes he was promoting were great for the entire team, but the complacency of the rest of the team (managers) impeded the new changes to be welcomed. What actions must leaders take to foster a culture that sustains changes that have been made?I believe, first leaders should understand how their people work. Take the time to get to know them and find the best way to communicate the change and what leadership want to convey with the message. Second, the reason for the change needs to be communicated and how it will benefit the team, individuals or organization so it can be seen from a different perspective rather than just accepting something needs to change. As we have learned throughout the chapters, overcommunication does not hurt and most importantly the WHY needs to be understood. I just finished reading this book our management team decided to share with every employee in the department – “Who Moved My Cheese?” by Spencer Johnson (Definitely recommend it) in which he tells the story of two mice and two little people who hunt for the same things every day – Cheese. Not to kill the fascinating way Spencer tells the story, I am just going to say that it helped me see that everyone deals with change differently. Some people let their fears of not knowing what or how change will affect them and so they prefer to stay in their comfort zone, other people prefer to wait and see for something major to happen to then take action, while others do not overthink or analyze the reason WHY things change and they just keep moving.I believe all of these scenarios can be avoided if leadership was to find ways to get to people in ways that can help them accept the change. One of my favorite quotes from the book – “Movement in a new direction helps you find new cheese” (Johnson 54)Thanks,Silvia Sanabria

References:Johnson, Spencer. Who Moved My Cheese. New York, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1998.Kotter, John P. “Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture.” Leading Change, HRB, 2012, p. 165.