Change Management term paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Change Management - Term Paper Example The Aster Group provides homes and housing related services in England. For excellent leadership and performance, it secured the â€Å"Beacon Company† award in 2006. In fact, the company was forced to change and diversify due to a number of factors. First of all, as Green (2007) notes, the company wanted to shift from a local authority culture to an autonomous not-for-profit nature. Also, the Housing Corporation decided to reduce the number of approved organizations from 350 to 70. So, to retain business, the company had to go a long way from its 110th position. The way to achieve the same for Aster was to merge and seek new alliances. Starting at the Top However, one can observe slight differences in the way both of the companies introduced change. In the case of Biogen Idec, the company set up a project team, which looked into the various factors associated with the change. Various heads including â€Å"international business, commercial operations, human resources, and int ernational legal affairs were part of the project team, and every aspect of the change† was identified and analyzed (Green, 2007, p.90). Admittedly, the company was performing well in accordance with the Change Management guideline which indicates that it is necessary to understand the need for change through Diagnosing Change (Change Management, n. d.). On the other hand, in Aster, the change started from the new chief executive of the company, who tried to introduce a culture that just â€Å"keeps moving all the time†. In other words, observing the challenges ahead, the chief executive decided to move away from its local authority structure and develop a group structure. Thus, the company worked with Testway – and both chief executives considered open discussion as an important factor to ensure proper collaboration. As acquisition and merger were a part of the change strategy, a board was developed, which included important leaders of both the firms. And as the re were more mergers and acquisitions, more and more personnel were included in the board according to requirements. Anyway, as Gossas commented, the leadership led the change in both of the cases (Ahiberg & Naucler, 2007). Involving all the Layers In Aster Group, first of all, replacing the previous autocratic management style, the new chief executive introduced the culture of open communication and feedback. This resulted in better cooperation from the part of managers and other staff. Thus, at first, he managed to secure the belief and support of the managers and staff. Then, he encouraged the people to contribute their own opinions and suggestions for the future course of action. Here, as Jones, Aguirre, and Calderone (2004) point out, the leadership was giving adequate attention to the human factor, because, for making all the employees committed to the vision of change, the leadership role was effectively handed over to the managers. According to the writers, after allowing au tonomy in day to day operations, the board focused on long term strategic issues; and anyway, both the companies followed the golden rule that change should start at the top. Also, by enlightening and enabling all the layers, the leadership ensured the involvement of every layer. Increased Autonomy to Units and Affiliates In fact, both the companies changed their management styles to introduce various autonomous or semi-autonomous units. To illustrate, the board of Aster Group decided to hand over