Homework Question on A Change Effort
- In his book, Leading Change, Kotter identifies eight errors that contribute to failed change efforts.
- Describe a change effort with which you are familiar and briefly discuss the errors made that led to its failure.
- Note: The change effort you describe may or may not have encountered all eight errors discussed by Kotter. You only need to describe the change errors which in your opinion, were actually experienced and contributed to the failure.
Homework Answer on A Change Effort
Scenario
A government owned bank in East Asia wanted to computerize its entire system after the government sold 80 percent of the shares to the members of the public. Prior to this period, the bank had computerized only 30 percent of its system; thus, majority of the workers in the bank were computer illiterate. Although the bank had tried to organize several trainings after becoming a public entity, majority of the workers had been sidelined.
In addition, the operations director neither shared his vision with bank’s operation managers nor did he communicate his transformation strategy to other directors (Kotter, 1996). By the end of the year, the bank had not computerized most of the system because majority of the workers did not embrace the change. Additionally, some of the workers had left the bank the same year because they could not withstand the change.
Change effort failures
The operation director did not establish a sense of urgency even if he understood the working conditions that had been in the bank for a long period. Accordingly, majority of the workers were resistant to change because they did not want to come out of their comfort zones. In addition, the director in question did not have a good relationship with other leaders in the bank. This meant that he did not have a powerful guiding coalition to transform the bank.