Change Management Images: Employee Turnover at Green Mountain Resort
This paper examines change management through the lens of a hospitality industry case study involving Green Mountain Resort. It identifies how three distinct change manager images—nurturer, navigator, and director—are embodied by the resort owner-manager Gunter, the hospitality literature, and an external consultant, respectively. The paper further proposes coaching as an additional change management image capable of reducing turnover by cultivating a team-oriented culture. Drawing on second-order change theory, the paper argues that reframing employee turnover as an industry reality rather than a solvable problem allowed management to reposition the resort as a premier hospitality training destination, ultimately converting a chronic liability into a competitive advantage.
- Introduction: Change Management at Green Mountain Resort: Overview of change management images in case
- Gunter as Nurturer: Owner-Manager Perspective: Gunter's dual role as nurturer-manager
- Hospitality Literature as Navigator: Managing Turnover Short-Term: Industry's short-term navigating approach to turnover
- The Consultant as Director: Second-Order Change: Consultant reframes turnover via second-order change
- Coaching as an Additional Change Management Image: Coaching proposed to build team culture
- Reframing Turnover: Perspective, Strategy, and Conclusion: Multi-frame perspective converts liability to advantage
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper systematically applies a multi-image framework of change management to a concrete case study, demonstrating conceptual fluency by matching each image (nurturer, navigator, director, coach) to a specific actor or source within the scenario.
- The argument builds logically from diagnosis to prescription: it first identifies why existing approaches fall short, then introduces second-order change as a reframing solution, and finally proposes coaching as an additional improvement.
- The paper uses direct textual evidence from the course material throughout, grounding analytical claims in cited definitions rather than unsupported assertion.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates applied framework analysis — taking an established theoretical taxonomy (the six images of change management) and systematically mapping each category onto real actors and behaviors in a case study. This technique shows conceptual command while keeping the analysis grounded in evidence, and it is especially effective in business and organizational behavior courses.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens by introducing Gunter's nurturer role, then moves through the hospitality literature (navigator) and the external consultant (director) before synthesizing how all three images worked together. It then proposes coaching as a fourth image and closes by connecting the multi-frame argument to the central insight: reframing turnover as a structural reality rather than a solvable problem. Each section is tightly focused on one change management image, making the structure easy to follow.
Introduction: Change Management at Green Mountain Resort
The Green Mountain Resort case illustrates how multiple images of change management can operate simultaneously within a single organization. Change management theory identifies several distinct roles a change manager may assume, each reflecting a different set of assumptions about control, organizational capacity, and the nature of problems. In this case, three primary images emerge: Gunter the owner-manager operates as a nurturer, the prevailing hospitality literature reflects a navigator orientation, and the external consultant functions as a director. Together, these images interact to produce a reframing of the resort's most persistent challenge — high employee turnover — from an unsolvable problem into a strategic asset. Understanding how each image shaped the response to turnover helps clarify why second-order change, rather than incremental adjustment, ultimately provided the most viable path forward for the resort.
Gunter as Nurturer: Owner-Manager Perspective
Looking at the six images of the change manager, Gunter's role as owner and manager of Green Mountain Resort led him to assume the role of nurturer. Gunter approaches the issue of employee turnover through two lenses simultaneously: as one of the resort's owners, and as its day-to-day manager. As an owner, he needed to keep the resort profitable even after Green Mountain vacation homes had been sold out, since the resort was part of the broader "package" that enticed buyers to purchase a vacation home in the development. As a manager, he had to address operational concerns, with employee turnover becoming his top priority in pursuit of the overarching goal of making the resort both profitable and a first-class destination in the state.
As a nurturer, Gunter was characterized as an owner-manager who helps "facilitate organizational qualities that enable positive self-organizing to occur" (32). However, this orientation worked against his ownership goals, since the nurturing culture of the resort's management did relatively little to reduce employee turnover in practice. Despite this tension, Gunter's predominant management style throughout the case aligns most closely with the nurturer image rather than any other model of change management.
Hospitality Literature as Navigator: Managing Turnover Short-Term
The hospitality literature pertaining to employee turnover is best characterized as reflecting a navigating change management orientation. The general attitude within the hospitality industry is that high rates of employee turnover are essentially inevitable, and the accepted remedy is to "streamline training, simplify jobs, reduce dependence on individuals, and make HR processes more efficient" (41). This seemingly unchanged and ultimately unsatisfying solution represents only an immediate response to a chronic structural problem in the industry.
This is why prevailing practice in the hospitality industry constitutes a form of "navigation" in change management terms: the goal is short-term, and the objective is to steer employees away from leaving or, when departure cannot be prevented, to manage turnover with the least possible disruption. Navigation, in this context, amounts to a quick fix — one that does not resolve the underlying problem of high turnover, but rather minimizes the losses management would otherwise suffer if turnover went entirely unaddressed. As the hospitality industry's structural conditions remain largely constant, this navigating approach persists as the default response despite its limited effectiveness.
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