Discussion topic for week six

Education Change Management

Strategy #1 for Building Organizational Leadership Capacity to Support Change

The first suggested strategy for building organizational leadership capacity to support organizational change is to appoint supervisors to receive advanced training in the areas of proposed change to enable them to facilitate effective change within their respective working units or groups. This particular strategy is helpful because unit supervisors can foresee potential difficulties and task-specific challenges potentially associated with change that are unique to or especially relevant to the responsibilities of their subordinates and their teams (MacDonald, 2007).

More specifically, the organizational layout of this strategy would consist of identifying the appropriate individuals within different operational components of the organization to ensure that every distinct working group receives the benefit of leadership from supervisors with intimate knowledge and understanding of the responsibilities of the group. Meanwhile, the informal elements of this approach might include impromptu solicitation of questions, concerns, and potential problems that individual employees might anticipate in connection with the proposed changes. Ideally, individual employees should be encouraged by supervisors to voice any questions or concerns so that supervisors can provide guidance as well as bring potential issues to the attention of management, such as where specialists recognize specific potential conflicts that might escape the attention of others outside of the working group.

One possible challenge in implementing this particular approach is that it presumes the pre-existence of a good, functional, and communicative relationship between supervisors and their subordinates. While it might be easily and effectively implemented in some groups, it could present difficulties in other groups in which there are strained relationships or trust issues between subordinates and their supervisors.

Strategy #2 for Building Organizational Leadership Capacity to Support Change

The second suggested strategy for building organizational leadership capacity to support organizational change is for management to schedule presentations well in advance of the implementation of the proposed changes designed to raise awareness about mental models and mindsets, particularly in relation to areas pertaining to the anticipated changes. This particular strategy is helpful because mental models and mindsets typically present barriers to effective change implementation by virtue of their tacit or unconscious nature and the degree to which they are responsible for biases and expectations that may conflict with the proposed changes (Duffy, 2009).