Change Model
The best change model for this particular scenario would be Lewin’s Change Model, which has three important stages to it that can help any organization implement an effective change (Shirey, 2013). The three steps in Lewin’s Change Model are: 1) unfreeze, 2) change, and 3) refreeze. The process begins first by creating in the minds of stakeholders (including employees) the idea that a change is needed. Then the workers can be moved to embrace the new, desired behavior. Next, the desired behavior is solidified, and finally the solidified behavior is the new norm. Lewin’s Change Model has been utilized by many professionals in many different fields, from business to nursing (Manchester, Gray-Miceli, Metcalf et al., 2014), and it would certainly work for Sea Treasures as the company attempts to shift its business to the Web.
The basic idea behind Lewin’s Change Model is that before a transformational change can be implemented, the old behaviors that are embraced as the norm among workers have to be unthawed—or unfrozen as Lewin’s model shows—and melted away. In most cases, resistance to change is natural: people get attached to doing things the old way because it is easy and they do not want to have to learn a new method of doing their work. They believe that the old method is just fine and that there is no reason for changing. This is where the first...
By appealing to workers’ reason and by also giving them a vision to help motivate them, leaders can help the unfreezing process to take effect (Sutherland, 2013). The effect of the unfreezing process, which is the first step of the change model, would be to liberate the workers from their old ways of approaching their work, and give them the chance to learn a new way and a new behavior. This can help the leaders of the organization to feel more confident that change is taking root and that there is a clear pathway to the desired behavior.
The second step is to implement the change itself—i.e., to teach the desired behavior. In this case, it would be to introduce the Web layout and the methods by which the organization’s products will be sold online. If the first step was enacted appropriately, the workers will already have a sense of what is to come; and having learned that the world is not digitalized, it will make sense to them that the business needs a web-based platform. In this stage, they will learn how to make that concept into a reality. Leaders within the organization will have to be supportive, patient, encouraging, and motivational all along the way of this step. If resistance rears its…
