Managing and Leading Change - Essay on Management

In a vibrant market, there is a supposition that all business must relentlessly adjust to particular wants that customer can present anytime. It becomes necessary for any given company to have a vibrant policy of change management due to this continuous modification. The term "change management" is bandied freely. It can be defined as a structured method that is employed to ensure that there is a thorough and smooth implementation of alterations together with ensuring that long-term benefits of change are met (UKESSAYS, 2015). The spotlight lies on the broad effects of change, especially on individuals or teams and the way they transit from the current situation to the new one. Some of the concepts of change management include communication strategy and company culture (ITM, 2017). For any work plan to be successful, excellent communication is essential. For change to work out efficiently, it is necessary to make sure that there is efficient communication between personnel, departments and the various services. Just like living beings, a company possesses its own internal culture, personality. It constitutes of employees values and attitudes. A business culture is necessary since it establishes a sense of belonging (UKESSAYS, 2015). This paper provides a background information concerning Mercer Medical Center, looks into different types of organizational change and provides an analysis of the implementation of POE system in the organization.

Mercer Medical Center is a community hospital located in the Pacific Northwest. It consists of 450 beds, a residency program, and 650 medical staff. This health organization is ever growing and has been able to compete favorably with other two health centers in the metropolitan area. There is an increased penetration in the managed care which has prompted Mercer to buy small private clinics and develop a managed care insurance plan of its own. Mercer is pursuing contracts with high technology firms to remain competitive in the market.

Mercer Medical Center wants to implement a Physician Order Entry system. The main reason why this implementation needs to be done is that all the other competing medical centers in the region have a POE system but Mercer Medical Center (Mary E Morton, 2009). Mercer has informed Syntel about its need for a POE system. Syntel is a leading company in the manufacture of processing chips meant for the computer industry (Lyons, 2008). There are major concerns in the implementation of the POE system. In the past two years, Mercer tried to implement Physician-Manager which resulted in grave complications. The management did not seek the opinion of its staff before pursuing the implementation of the nursing program which had been despised by many physicians at first sight (Rouse, 2015). After two days, the program was marooned, leading to wastage of substantial amount of money.

The CEO of Mercer Medical Center is working gradually to ensure that the POE system is well implemented. She is quite aware of the significant challenges likely to present themselves given the history of the organization (Lyons, 2008). Reed is also aware that the staff is expected to resist the modification as it is accompanied by radical changes in the medical center. She is well educated and possesses the skills required to make the transition successful.

A company experiences different types of organizational change when it continually goes through a transition. There are five types of organizational change. To begin with is Organization-Wide Change (Walkme, 2017). It is a deep transformation that impacts the general structure. That kind of change mainly entails an approach to transform the nature of the company. For instance, it can be a transformation from a very hasty entrepreneurial organization to a more steady, company growth. Despite the type of change a company undergoes, Organization-Wide Change impacts the organizational culture (Walkme, 2017). Consequently, it ends up affecting the behavior patterns of individuals and the workers (ITM, 2017). This category of changes has long-lasting effects, and they may be extremely troublesome if not well designed.

The second type of change is the Transformational Change. It is crucial for a company to examine underlying strategies of the organization continuously. It is necessary for a syndicate always to be informed about the surrounding environment. In this type of change, a company should be well informed about cultural trends, technological updates and possess an understanding of the social climate (Rouse, 2015). Transformational change is difficult because of two different reasons. Firstly, when a business begins its operations the future is unpredictable, and it profoundly relies on trial and error while new information is collected. This type of change cannot be managed with pre-determined, linear, and time-bound plans (Rouse, 2015). The real modification must emerge as the business carries on. That is an implication that the employees and managers must operate in the unknown where the level of emotions and stress is exceptionally high. Secondly, since the future change is different from the current state, workers and the environment must transform for the alteration to be successfully implemented (Mary E Morton, 2009). Many implementations such as IT implementations fail due to the inability of the external environment and mindset of workers and managers to change.

Personnel change serves as the third type of organizational modification. This kind of transformation takes place when a company goes through layoffs or hiring (Heathfield, 2016). As a result, it becomes necessary for the company to change its processes and culture. The rapid expansion of a company via hiring en masse creates a necessity for the given organization to absorb the initial shock of employing new workers while it integrates the employees into their new positions and in some cases, the new jobs may not be known. Mismanagement of this change may result in inadequacy and anarchy (Healthfield, 2016). Layoffs, on the other hand, tend to influence the morale of the remaining employees negatively. The workload should be fairly dispatched and management. Giving an employee more workload that may result in ineffectiveness and an unsteady intermediary duration.

In addition, there is the unexpected modification. It is possible for an organization to go through unplanned change amidst the premeditated policies and continuous statistics scrutiny. Some of the unanticipated changes are more severe than the premeditated ones. Unscheduled change may occur to respond to an alteration in the demographic composition of an organization such as social inequality (UKESSAYS, 2015). The changes are usually internal and unplanned. External factors such as changes in government regulations and natural disasters compel an organization to change. These instances are unpredictable. Consequently, the changes are costly, chaotic and prompt a company to take action at an inadequate time.

The last type of change is Remedial. It occurs in as a situation where poor company's performance or a general sense of deficiency needs to be responded to. As a result of financial distress, performance levels tend to drop (UKESSAYS, 2015). The objective of remedial changes is to increase functionality. The changes are also made to review strategies which were initially profitable but currently seem detrimental to the organizational structure (UKESSAYS, 2015). For instance, if the working environment of a business becomes contaminated as an outcome of the business's actions, the contamination must be cleaned to ascertain wellbeing and security. In another instance, a company's product may be thought to be redundant by the public or the company itself. To address that issue, the company will have to implement another plan of action.

The CEO of Mercer Medical Center wants to put transformational change in place. As earlier described, an organization should be well informed of the cultural trends and technological updates around its operating environment in implementing such a modification (ITM, 2017). Mercer Medical Center lacks a Physician Order Entry (POE) system, but its competitors have already integrated PEO system in their operations. PEO system is a form of technological advancement in the medical facilities. The core driver of this change is market rivalry since the Mercer Medical Center intends to implement the PEO system as a way of acquiring a competitive advantage over other care providers. Another aim of this change implementation is to promote contract negotiations (Heathfield, 2016). The problem is that the change requires a hasty application; consequently, it may give room for the commission of many errors and cause resistance among members of the staff.

Expectancy Theory is useful in helping workers accept change in the workplace. The PEO system will be hastily implemented which is likely to bring about more distrust from the physicians. Research indicates that the physicians are already upset because they were not adequately consulted in the previous implementation. There is a high possibility of the rushed implementation of POE system to elevate staff resistance. Expectancy Theory is a form of motivational approach. It postulates that "people are more motivated when they project a positive result from their work" (Kokemuller, 2017). For the change to be successful, the CEO should get the staff to buy in and go along with the difference.

For Reed to cope with workers resistance to change, she needs to implement a leadership theory. John M. Fisher's Change Model that outlines the eight steps to follow in change management can work best in this situation (Project-Management.com, 2017). This eight-step procedure includes anxiety and denial, happiness, fear, threat, guilt and disillusionment, depression and hostility, gradual acceptance, and moving forward (UKESSAYS, 2015). Reed should be aware that people tend to react badly to change for the first time. That is followed by expression of relief or happiness about the situation. Afterwards, fears set in because people are afraid of what the change holds in the future and the negative impacts it may have on them. As a result, they may end up resisting the change. Reed should accept the resistance to change because it is a normal response from the employees. It is pointless to persist with the benefits of change while the workers are still in the stage of fear. It is the responsibility of the project manager to understand the step the workers are going through. Timing is a crucial aspect of managing change and Reed should not force the move before the majority of the staff are ready. Instilling change before everyone involved is prepared for it may make the transition less efficient than it had been presumed.

Communication Management Plan

Information to be communicated The information should be about the implementation of the Physician Order Entry system.

Communication objectives To ensure that every member of Mercer Medical Center is well informed about the change.

To whom the information will be communicated Executives, managers, and employees.

Format and delivery mechanism for the communication The information will be communicated in web portal, meetings and through emails.

When to communicate the information Both formal and informal information will be communicated after every two weeks.

Responsible for communicating the information Departmental managers will deliver the information.

Who will authorize to communicate the information The CEO, Kathryn Reed will authorize the communication of information.

How change in the communication process be managed The managers should discuss with the employees on the best approach to d...