Change Management

Change and development management within a company is called Change Management. It can be argued that the successful management of change is crucial to any organisation in order to survive and succeed in the present highly competitive and continuously evolving business environment (Todnem By 2019).

In the United Kingdom the biggest change right now is BREXIT. There is a lot of conversations happening around it. How will it affect the country? How will it affect economy? How it will affect the Trade? BREXIT will be an immense impact to the country and the business inside that country. As off now the EU has given Britain until 31 October to make a deal.

Change management is a incredible tool that allows a company to adapt to change and take advantage of the transition. The most prominent theory about change management is Lewin’s change management template and ADKAR change model

ADKAR change model

The ADKAR model is one of the most important models to ensure efficient change. The model focuses on the element of change ‘ people, ‘ specifically how to support and believe in the change by the employees involved. The stages of ADKAR MODEL are

1. Awareness
2. Desire
3. Knowledge
4. Ability
5. Reinforcement

                                        Figure 1; Source: inspiregroup.co.nz

Lewin’s Change Management

By looking in figure 2, you can see change as a process with distinct stages, you can prepare yourself for what is to come and plan for managing the transition. All too often, people are blindly changing, causing a lot of unnecessary turmoil and chaos.

Leaders have a critical role to play in ensuring that the change is implemented and ways of strengthening it are formulated. Without proper leadership, the last phase of the transition, known as refreezing, is difficult to administer.

This first stage of change involves preparing the organization to accept the need for change, which involves breaking down the existing status quo before you can create a new way of operating

Following the uncertainty created in the unfreeze stage, the stage of change is where people start to solve their uncertainty and look for new ways of doing things. People start believing and acting in ways that support the new direction.

When the changes are taking shape and people have embraced the new ways of working, the organization is ready to refreeze

                                          Figure 2; Source: process.st

Automotive Industry

Brexit affects all the industries in operating in and around United Kingdom. One of the most impacted industries are the automotive industry. The UK’s automotive industry has been one of the ‘star performers’ of the UK economy in recent years – unlike most other manufacturing sectors. Output has increased by 60% since 2010 and there has been over £8bn worth of investment in the industry in the last four years. The industry supports some 800,000 jobs in the UK (Bailey and De Propris 2017).

The awareness stage can help educate staff about the need for change to help them adapt. Also, the ADKAR model suggests building the desire for change to help in the transition that can be essential if the automotive industry applies it.

The automotive industry can use Lewin’s model of change management to adapt and benefit from the change. The model considers three stages of change management which include unfreezing, changing, and refreezing (Cummings et al. 2016).

Automotive companies like Toyota, Nissan are feeling the pressure of the changes that BREXIT will bring to the economy. Earlier this month JLR confirmed it was cutting 4,500 jobs, blaming Brexit uncertainty, a slump in diesel sales, and China’s economic slowdown. The carmaker also said it would extend its annual April shutdown by an extra week because of worries that just-in-time deliveries could be disrupted if Britain leaves the EU without a deal.

                       Source: therecruitmentsolution.co.uk

Conclusion

The news of Brexit came like a red alert of the business involved. Nothing ln this scale has ever happened in the recent history. The companies should adapt and find a way to circumvent BREXIT or at least diminish the effect of it. The automotive industry can make use of the Lewin’s Change Model and make changes. The companies are already in the phase scaling down so that the process of change can be smooth. The environment or economy rarely stays the same, they always change, and the companies should be able to adapt with them

Reference

Todnem By, R. (2019) Organisational Change Management: A Critical Review [online] available from <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14697010500359250?scroll=top&needAccess=true&gt; [13 April 2019]

Bailey, D. and De Propris, L. (2017) “Brexit And the UK Automotive Industry”. National Institute Economic Review 242 (1), R51-R59

Cummings, S., Bridgman, T. and Brown, K.G., 2016. Unfreezing change as three steps: Rethinking Kurt Lewin’s legacy for change management. Human relations, 69(1), pp.33-60.