Case Study-Reducing Twenty Five Pages to Two

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Case Study-Reducing Twenty Five Pages to Two

In this scenario, undertaking a change process seemed to work well, but the feedback received told a different tale. The feedback was that the change process was creating pressure on people in terms of workload. As a result, people started carrying work home from the weekends. They began complaining to Ken that their wives were complaining and they could barely keep up. The pressure was coming from the need to meet a monthly deadline. Each month, every department was expected to develop a 25-page report to be distributed to around 60 people. The report highlighted everything, including status updates on specific initiatives and new product developmental goals. While much effort went into developing the report, even employees stopped reading it. If they wanted to know whether they were leading in marketing sales, they would have an assistant run the twenty-five report. They would also reach out to the VP of marketing to find out how the marketing launch of a new product was going. The employees found it difficult to read the 25-page report to access the information they needed. As a result, they decided to transform the monthly report from a 25-page report to a two-page report which was less complicated to read.

Undoubtedly, the first six steps of a successful change were not demonstrated in making a change in this scenario. The six steps for a successful change effort entail; identifying goals and having a strategy, determining how change will affect the organization, putting together a change management team, developing a strategy, implementing a plan, and performing a post-transition review. None of the six steps were successfully observed in deciding to change the monthly report from twenty-five to two pages. They did not identify a goal and come up with a strategy. Instead, they just woke up one day and decided that the monthly report would be two pages long moving forward. Additionally, they did not pause to think about the negative and positive effects the change would have on the entire organization. They just concentrated on the fact that the 25-page report was not working as it took too long to develop and information was buried in detail. Additionally, there is no mention of a change management team, as they did not select a team to handle the issue and neither did they have a strategy for making the change. Additionally, no implementation plan was followed in making the change. Notably, even after making the change, no post-transition review took place. They did not take a moment to review whether having a two-page monthly report was more beneficial than having a 25-page report. They only made the decision based on the fact that having a two-page report would save time and reduce the pressure of people carrying work home with them during the weekends.

There is no denying that this organization took some critical actions to ensure the change effort became successful. For instance, they looked at the day-to-day activities and asked questions such as, “does this really add value? Do I absolutely need this?”. Asking such questions plays a significant role in deciding to do away with the twenty-five-page report and remain with a two-page report. Another critical action they undertook was the email they sent to people noting it was not incremental work. In the email, they made it clear that they were working as a team and that if there was more work to be done, they would reallocate it further down the hierarchy or not at all. This action went a long way in pointing out that reducing the length of the monthly report would go a long way in attaining work-life balance as employees would no longer have the need to carry work home just to meet deadlines.