Change Management
Tom Powell
OMM 625
Dr. Tyron Woodard
March 18, 2013
Change Management
My organization has been going through some sort of organizational change since the last five years. The changes have been a large part of our learning organization, but the toughest cultural change we had to face is learning how to manage these changes under new management. Using Newton’s laws to relate to how we as a coop managed our changes which were happening at our coop, and being that our coop fits the Academy Culture status (Pearson), employees that are highly skilled and tends to stay in the organization while working their way up through the ranks. According to Newton’s First Law, “once a force is put in motion what are the forces that keep it moving” (Pushkin, 1969). The force was applied to the people that will bring about the change in our coop. My example is where our linemen are in the process of having to climb with a fall restraint device called the buck-Squeeze. This fall restraint device will soon become mandatory ideal for all linemen to use when climbing wooden poles. By issuing only a few of them out for the men to try, this could give them enough time to test out the new device. Giving them the option to test the device is how we will keep the force applied to start regulating the change. While testing the fall restraint device our board passed a ruling stating that “our linemen will and shall wear a fall restraint device while climbing wooden poles. Now it is the management and supervisors to manage the change (Baskas, 2011), and the employee’s responsibility was to abide by the ruling at the best of their ability.
Second Law of Change To implement this climbing device, every lineman had to have the fall restraint device in their possession while on duty. According to Newton, the greater the inertia or resistance to change the greater the required force for change (Pushkin, 1969). This change was about taking linemen out of their old way of climbing and introducing a safer way to climb. The company had to buy this device for every lineman because it is considered a Personal Protection Equipment (PPE). By now some were against the device because they thought they had to purchase it themselves. We purchased these devices and quickly turn to resisters to accepting the change. This had given the company a quick win in getting the linemen to accept the change.
Third Law of Change By now every lineman was using the fall restraint device, and we were giving them the support to help them with the transition. In Newton final law, he stated “every action is met with an equal and opposite reaction” (Pushkin, 1969). Management has been truthful with the linemen in this transition, and we have given them everything they needed for the change. This helped us win their confidence in believing we are doing the right thing when it comes to making the fall restraint device mandatory. By now the men
