Unit 17: Understanding and Leading Change

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Contents
Introduction.........................................................................................................................................3
Organizational Overview (Reckitt Benckiser)...................................................................................3
LO1 Impact of Changes on Organizational Strategies and Operations..........................................4
P1: Introduction...............................................................................................................................4
P2 and P3: Different Examples of Organisations Where Change has impacted and PESTLE. 4
Reckitt Benckiser.........................................................................................................................4
Microsoft......................................................................................................................................5
P4: Types of Organizational Change the Drivers Have Affected.................................................6
LO2: The influences that Drivers of Change Have on Organizational Behaviour.........................7
P1: The Ways in which Internal and External Drivers of Change Affect Leadership...............7
P2: Theories and Models of Change...............................................................................................8
P3: How to Minimise the Negative Impacts...................................................................................9
P4: Recommendations Regarding the Change..............................................................................9
LO3: Barriers for Change.................................................................................................................11
P1: Different Barriers to change..................................................................................................11
P2: Leadership Decision Making Influencing Barriers..............................................................11
P3: Forced Field Analysis to analyse the driving and resisting forces.......................................12
P4: evaluating the use of force field analysis...............................................................................13
LO4: Different Leadership Approaches and Model and Frames of Leadership..........................14
P2: Models and Frames to Evaluate which and how leadership...............................................14
Approaches can deliver effective organisational change............................................................14
P3: the effectiveness of leadership approaches...........................................................................16
Conclusion..........................................................................................................................................18
References..........................................................................................................................................19

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Introduction
Change is an inevitable part of life. Everything goes under change as the times passes. Be it
family structure, the government of a country, the development of a business, etc. change is
something which cannot be stooped. In one way or the other, change will occur. The question
is, whether the change is for better or for worse. In the present competitive world, businesses
have to go under changes very frequently. Some of the changes are massive, while the other
is not as big. However, the gradual change over time decides how a business will do in the
long run. Change can be observed in any sector of an organization starting from structural
change to cultural changes (CARNALL, 2018). The changes are sometimes implemented so
that the organization can get a competitive advantage. In some cases, the changes are just a
coping mechanism with the fast moving world while at other times, it is prompted with the
sole purpose of survival. The changes might be both positive and negative. Sometimes, the
change can bring in great profits and fortune for the company, while in other cases, it might
bring eternal doom. In this report, we will be talking about organizational changes in the
context of Reckitt Benckiser.

Organizational Overview (Reckitt Benckiser)

There are two FMCG giants that started their journey in the UK, one of them is the Unilever,
while the other one is Reckitt Benckiser or (RB). RB is a multinational FMCG leader which
has been operating successfully since 1999. RB has a comparatively lower age than Unilever
as it was made after a merger between British company Reckitt and Coleman plc and the
Dutch company Benckiser NV. Before that, both the companies worked independently and
had their own product lines, which were either adopted or modified after the merger. The
annual revenue of RB was 15.7 billion US Dollars in 2018. The present CEO of RB is
Laxman Narasimhan. Currently, there are 42,000 employees working for RB all around the
world. Brands like Dettol, Strepsils, Harpic, Veet, Lizol, etc. are under the banner of RB
(Rb.com, 2019).

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LO1 Impact of Changes on Organizational Strategies and
Operations

P1: Introduction
Organizations have to go through constant changes if they want to keep doing well or
survive. Especially for small companies, who have their works centred in fewer aspects? As
for big companies, changes are also important. For a sound comparison, we will be using two
companies from two different industries. The first company that will be assessed is definitely
RB as the whole report is being made based on it and the second organizations is Microsoft.
RB belongs to the FMCG industry while Microsoft belongs to the tech industry. The reason
behind the changes, the driving forces, and the impact of the change on strategies as well as
operations of the organizations will be discussed.

P2 and P3: Different Examples of Organisations Where Change

has impacted and PESTLE
Reckitt Benckiser
In 2008, RB faced quite a few allegations from different Medias regarding their ‘Anti-
competitive’ behaviour. Anti-competitive behaviour is when an organization does unethical
or immoral settlements with relevant parties to eliminate competition. The natural method is
to make better products or to place the price of the products lower. However, in anti-
competitive approach, the companies spend a lot of money behind the counters by bribing or
influencing the intermediaries to endorse their products. The allegation was against a specific
product named ‘Gaviscon’, which is a heartburn and gas related problem medicine. RB was
accused of endorsing Gavisocon heavily as if it was the only solution to relevant problems
and it was much superior whereas, in reality, it was not the case. When the top authorities
looked in the matter, they found out that the marketing division of the medical brand of RB
products did the work and the top level management had no clue about it. Change was
inevitable in this regard.

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It is very clear that the change was instigated due to the Legal factor. The change that RB
brought was they immediately fired or suspended the officials related to the incident. Before
this incident, the different divisions of the central headquarters had the right to maintain
secrecy or had lower level of reporting responsibilities. After the incident, the organization
decided to make the recruitment process of the sensitive sectors more rigorous and each
division had to give a clear statement of all the activities going on in their respective divisions
to the CEO himself (Marmol, Feys and Probert, 2015).

The change has affected the strategies of RB. RB had to adopt a much more rigorous
recruitment strategy that would ensure the integrity of the workers. They also introduced a
very versatile performance tracking strategy which would keep the employees on their toes.
A much more thorough background checking was ensured for RB. In the short run, the
existing employees did feel a bit stressed and the recruitment process seemed rather rigorous.
However, in the long run, it worked well as no such incident has been reported again.

There were also changes in the operations of RB. The top management appointed new
intelligence agents for different wings of RB so that they can keep track of whatever is
happening and can report to the CEO is somethings is wrong. The recruiters had to ensure a
much more rigorous recruitment process.

If the driving force for the whole change has to be stated, it is the external pressure from the
international media. The reports from different Medias has brought the incident in limelight,
which has forced the RB to investigate the matter. This has ensured a safer environment for
the consumers of the products. The change in RB was basically a Reactive and Unplanned
change

Microsoft
Microsoft has been ruling the tech industry since its inception and it has revolutionized how
the technology industry works. In the field of operating systems, no company can come close
to Microsoft as it has captured its customer very early in the game. Most people around the
world use Microsoft. However, back in 2014, Microsoft realized that they were not at par
with other tech giants when it came to personal computing, cloud computing and computing
related to services. But the focus of Microsoft was to be at the top of their game in every
field. That is when CEO Satya Nadella stepped in. Satya Nadella took the helm from Steve

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Ballmer in 2014. He instantly realized the problem and knew it was time to bring some
change. That is when he started emphasizing on developing the sides that needed the
attention. He started to work on the development of cloud computing, computing services and
personal computing. Before Nadella, the innovation work of Microsoft was very centralized.
The programmers had to work under very strict rule sets. Nadella decentralized the
innovation process and gave freedom to the programmers and innovators. By 2016, Microsoft
was back on track on all fields.

Undoubtedly, the macro factor that influenced the change of Microsoft was Technological
factor. Microsoft had a very good situation in the market, yet they wanted to develop more to
do better. So, it is clear that the organizational change was a proactive and planned change
(Hanley and Spash, 2015).

There was a huge impact on both the strategies and operations of Microsoft due to the
change. The strategy was to focus on all technological sides of the company so that the
company can retain its leadership on all sides. As for the operational changes, the
programmers and other employees were offered freedom to a certain degree to innovate and
work with new concepts. For a tech company, it is very important that the employees enjoy
freedom as creativity is what breeds the best ideas and technology is derived from creativity
and relevant knowledge. The operations became much more flexible than before.

P4: Types of Organizational Change the Drivers Have Affected

The driving force, in this case, was simply the external competitors. In a very fast paced
industry, the competitors were doing great. If Microsoft did not carry on with the same pace,
they could have fallen in to trouble 5 years down the line. The competitors made Microsoft
make the changes.

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LO2: The influences that Drivers of Change Have on
Organizational Behaviour
Though change is must in this fiercely competitive market, sometimes it can be dangerous in
terms of riskiness and the level of uncertainty. There are examples in the business world that
changes affect adversely as well as favourably. Companies like: Google, British Airways and
Microsoft show us how change in organization can favourably affect the whole system of an
organization. Reckitt Benckiser (RB), my selected organization change its views, goals and
organizational structure such a way which pave the way to for the organization to reach its
peak.

P1: The Ways in which Internal and External Drivers of Change

Affect Leadership
There are both internal and external drivers which ultimately help Reckitt Benckiser to reach
its goal. External forces mainly include overall economic condition of that particular country
as well as sudden worldwide demand or supply shock, technological rapid advancement,
political and social changes which affect the company from outside the organization. On the
other hand, internal drivers, alteration in the strategic planning of the organization, change in
human asset and its nature of specialization through intensive training and skill development,
innovative disruptive machine to compete and change in perception of the employees are
some of the prominent examples of internal drivers for change in an organization. Reckitt
Benckisher had a challenge a few years back which was a major impediment for the company
to overcome. Back then though six teams within their global medical affairs function

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renowned for superior expertise and delivery but the department’s other department could not
illustrate their true potential due to lack of grit and high sensitivity to risk. Then, the company
decided to change its way of doing things to motivate employees along with maintaining long
sustainable growth. Then they started the change by changing internal factors like
motivating managers to build a leadership team which collaborate together and fully own the
direction of department despite past history. Individual as well as team along with other
parties behavioural improvement had possible by focusing on these factors. By focusing on
other stakeholders and their certain needs the company align and remodify the whole process
which raising awareness among employees to serve the customers by understanding their
needs and requirements. The company also ensures cross department coordination and
collaboration to attain some specific goals which goals identified as the most complex and
hard to achieve by empirical study and research analysis (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2019).
The company also make sure an environment of teamwork, innovation, future expansion and
flexibility which reassure the company to achieve their certain goals. There are no external
factors in case of RB Company to works as a catalyst of change in the organization.

P2: Theories and Models of Change

There are so many theories related to change management every one of these has its own
advantage and disadvantage. RB company faces these types of problems when deploying
certain theory related to change: McKinsey 7S model (strategy, structure, systems shared
values, style, staff and skills) has some serious disadvantages which affect adversely the
whole organization despite of having change at the right time. Since all the major relevant
criteria are interrelated and interdependent on one another if one part fails then other parts
will fail no matter what and this is the greatest disadvantage of this model. This model is
complex and lengthy comparatively to the others and differences are not focused upon in it.
There are many organizations that have used this model and failed; so the probability of
failure has become large nowadays and this too can be considered as one disadvantage of it.
Kotler’s change management theories have some disadvantages; as it is a consequential
model where the previous part dependent to other parts, no step can be skipped to reach at the
centre or end of the procedure. The process is time consuming along with cost sensitive
characteristics (Managing change, 2013). Other than specific theory there are other
limitations of change such as every change has opportunity cost; spending RB’s new machine
finance on new high powered computers means the company has to wait to improve its
decoration. There are also intangible costs like customer satisfaction during the adjustment

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period. People always anxious about the unknown. So any change in any organization would
anxious most of the stakeholders.

P3: How to Minimise the Negative Impacts

To reduce these uncertainties RB Company can do certain things:

1. Reducing uncertainties by giving incentives.

2. Explaining RB Company’s decisions motive to all stakeholders if possible (simplest
explanation).
3. Reducing the fear by giving proper guidelines (Review, 2014).
4. Motivate employees to welcome the change.
5. Giving continuous reward to those who innovate effective changes.
6. Help managers to be the idol of the company by giving them freedom.
7. Choose the right theories of change according to the company’s structure and goals.
8. Encouraging marketing campaign regarding changes not only the organization; but
also the whole society in which the company belongs to, as a whole.

P4: Recommendations Regarding the Change

RB can do certain specific things to make sure the whole organization works coherently.
Some are given: Leadership of managers needs to be monitored by a committee, they only
focus on how creative and new things are on the way in RB Company. They will rate
managers on the basis of efficiency ratio. Behavioural change can be done in all sectors if RB
is able to convince its every stakeholders that change is not a mere way of surviving rather it
is inevitable in today’s business. Lewin’s change model can be a proper way to illustrate the
process of changing.

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Figure 1: Lewin's Change Model
Source: Pinterest.com

To change the plan of RB Company they have to unfreeze the situation at first. By saying
‘unfreezing’ we mean break the traditional system for good and prepare the organization’s
employees to embrace the change. After that take necessary steps to make the change happen,
to make this happen to involve people who are welcoming the change and discourage the
ones who are not welcoming the change. Finally when change is done RB Company has to
make sure that it stays that way so they have to refreeze the situation to permanent the
change. If RB Company doesn’t do that then there will always be some groups who try to
alter the changes to go back to the previous changes prior to the event of change (Kotler et
al., n.d.).

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LO3: Barriers for Change

P1: Different Barriers to change

Lack of employee involvement is one of the crucial barriers to change in any organization; in
the case of RB Company, it is a major issue as their early problem was lack of employee’s
enthusiasm. Most of the employees including the ones who are in the top position resist the
change so after the change sometimes they form as team to alter change as well. Lack of
effective communication strategy is another major barrier which indicates people with less
skills of communication cannot communicate the message of changing with others otherwise
they don’t get it at all. Organization’s structural complexity makes it harder; in the case of
RB Company the whole structure of the organization is quite large as well complex as webs.
So it is another alarming hindrance for RB Company.

P2: Leadership Decision Making Influencing Barriers

Making Decision effective it takes accumulation of correct sequential chain of thoughts. But
informational, contextual, lack of feedback, cultural barrier and decision maker’s own
limitations are some of the barriers which hinder decision maker to take informed decision. In
this age of globalization, a multinational company like RB Company’s mangers has to deal
with a diversified group of employees. People’s perspective, values, etiquette and cultures
differ from others significantly which is sometimes a challenging job for a manager to deal
with (Peters, 2005).

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P3: Forced Field Analysis to analyse the driving and resisting
forces

According to the force field, at every time and in every place situations are in equilibrium
where driving forces of change equal to the resisting forces of change as long as no external
force appears. But to make a change, a manager has to strengthen the driving forces to grow
strong compared to resisting force as well as weakening the resist force to be less dominant
than driving force (LEADERSHIP MANAGEMENT, 2017). Here driving forces are the
ones who welcome the change and resisting forces are basically do not want the change.

Figure 2: Forced Field Analysis

Source: edrawsoft.com

As we can see in this force field analysis driving force is greater than restraining or resisting
force. That means the current situation needed to be changed. Point to be noted if force field
is equal then nothing will happen (the situation will be as it is), if resisting force is greater
than driving force then the outcome will be same as equal ( as no change will occur). The

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situation will be changed only and only if the driving force is greater than the restraining
force.

P4: evaluating the use of force field analysis

Lewin's force field analysis is used to differentiate which factors within a company or
organisation influence an employee towards or away from a desired state, and which oppose
the driving forces. These can be analysed in order to inform decisions that will make change
more acceptable. 'Forces' are not restricted within a defined boundary of behaviour. Lewin
knew that there is a lot of emotion underlying people's attitude to change. To understand what
makes people resist or accept change we need to understand the values and experiences of
that person or group. Developing self-awareness and emotional intelligence can help to
understand these forces that work within us and others. It’s the behaviour of others that will
alert you to the presence of driving and restraining forces at work (Forsyth, 2018). For
example, RB Company can use the force field analysis to run short market research on their
own industry. Decisions of its current employee regarding a new product ensure the company
the mass psychology about innovation too. In case of implementing corporate strategy along
with pinpointing the exact amount of demand for a certain kind of product force field analysis
can be a major weapon to focus on.

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LO4: Different Leadership Approaches and Model and Frames of
Leadership

P1: Different Leadership Approaches in RB Company

There are some prominent leadership approaches that RB Company can follow to initiate
change in the organization. First of all, when the driving force is stronger than the resisting
force then it is appropriate to follow democratic leadership. Because if RB Company follows
democratic leadership then eventually the greater number of driving forces outweigh the
resisting force as the leadership follows democracy. When the resisting force is stronger, RB
Company’s leadership needs to be charismatic enough to influence at least a few employees
in order to increase the force of driving. Charismatic behaviour can be a key catalyst to
change in organization (Armstrong, Kotler and Opresnik, 2016). When the situation is
unfreezing then the leader can keep silence for some moment to keep the momentum going
for a change. When finally the change is fixed and freezing state starts the leadership nature
can be autocratic to restrict the resisting force so that they wouldn’t alter the change.

P2: Models and Frames to Evaluate which and how leadership

Approaches can deliver effective organisational change
There are some theories and approaches which are known as leadership theories. Like:

Leadership traits, behavioural styles theory, contingency theory of leadership and situational
approach.

Leadership traits can be effective when the organization needs a face. Face of the
organization sometimes help the company’s employees to motivate. Face of the organization

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or leader needs to have specific traits (intelligence, dominance, self-confidence, level of
energy and activity and task relevant knowledge) so that employees influence by his words of
mouth. Though there are two types of findings historical and contemporary it can be said with
certainty if a leader has these traits mentioned above along with credibility to the employees
then the leader would able to direct his/her troops onto a certain direction, which leads to
organizational efficiency (Anderson, 2015)

Behavioural Theory has several studies. We will discuss University of Michigan Studies and
Blake and Mutton’s managerial grid. First study revealed that there can be two types of
leadership employee centered and job centered on the other hand second study (managerial
grid) suggest leadership can be concern for people (where employees have much more
importance than that of production) or concern for production ( where production has much
more importance than that of people).

Figure 3: The Blake Mouton Managerial Grid

Source: Mindtools.com

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In this figure, we can see a company which needs efficiency has to identify what type of
resource it has. If it has more quality and superior human asset and the company’s ideology is
cater its employees properly then the company should go for country club management
(Schein and Schein, 2017).

Fiedler model has some characteristics by which a company can attain optimum efficiency by
collaborating perfect combination of leader-member relations, task structure and position
power.

Situational approach combines tasks and relationship behaviour. For example, if a company
wants to succeed it should give M4 (able and willing to do as asked employees) selling tasks
(high task high relationship).

P3: the effectiveness of leadership approaches

In the case of RB, Company management is already up to the mark and able to direct
employees onto a certain goal. So, leadership traits approach not so appropriate for this
company. After the structural change of RB Company mentioned in LO 2, the company is
employee oriented

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Figure 4: Situational Leadership Approach
Source: successforeverychild.com
So it is also done by this company. But to do better in future RB Company should focus more
on employees not the managers. That is why situational approach might be the best approach
for the company. It should divide its employee base on the basis of efficiency and marked
them as S1, S2, S3 or S4 illustrates above.

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Conclusion
Changes are needed for any organization to keep up with the flow of the world. In this report,
we have selected a company and shows how change in organization affect favourably and
what would affect in future due to change. But there are so many companies which are
marked as failure in case of changing its way of doing things (Sadler, 2008). So every
company should do thorough research as well as it should use relevant theories of managing
change in order to do well in this ever-changing world.

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References

Armstrong, G., Kotler, P. and Opresnik, M. (2016). Marketing. Pearson Education UK.

Buchanan, D. and Huczynski, A. (2019). Organizational behaviour. Harlow, United

Kingdom: Pearson Education Limited.

CARNALL, C. (2018). MANAGING CHANGE. [Place of publication not identified]:

ROUTLEDGE.

Forsyth, P. (2018). Managing change. London: Kogan Page.

Hanley, N. and Spash, C. (2015). Cost-benefit analysis and the environment. Cheltenham:
Elgar.

Kotler, P., Kotler, P., Keller, K., Goodman, M., Brady, M. and Hansen, T. (n.d.). Marketing
management.

LEADERSHIP MANAGEMENT. (2017). [Place of publication not identified]: CLANRYE

INTL.

Managing change. (2013). Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Pub.

Marmol, T., Feys, B. and Probert, C. (2015). PESTLE analysis. [Place of publication not
identified]: 50Minutes.

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Peters, T. (2005). Leadership. London: DK.

Rb.com. (2019). RB – Healthier Lives, Happier Homes. [online] Available at:

https://www.rb.com/ [Accessed 28 Oct. 2019].

Review, H. (2014). Managing Change. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.

Sadler, P. (2008). Managing change. London: Kogan Page.

Schein, E. and Schein, P. (2017). Organizational culture and leadership.

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