Things are really moving along well now. You have the problem identified, you know what change you want, the people around you are fired up and ready to work, and you have a solid team assembled. Are

BUILDING THE TEAM

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Strategies for Change

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2 April 2019

Building the Team Strategies for Change

According to Kotter and Cohen, the second stage of change; an organization should build a guiding team to bring the right mastermind people with desired characters on board to effect change within an organization (Hughes, 2016). All employers working in a given organization have different characters with different perception and ideas about change about a specific issue. This stage allows leaders to integrate the minds of all workers and create a team that will foster change and leads it within the organization.

Building a team to address change

There are some ways through which leaders can build their teams in preparation for a change in an organization. First, employers should ensure that there is clarity of issues to the team members team will readily embrace a change when they all understand why, how, when, what and where the change is expected. Also clarifying to the members that the change is likely to affect the organization, employees, chains as well as the customers will make them desire to work in line to effect the change as expected by the management (Harrison, 2017). Clarity is very critical in building teamwork as it addresses “what if” situations enabling the team to plan well as act effectively towards a change. Also, it allows team members to analyze the risks and potential outcomes form a clear line of thoughts and take a perfect path in making the anticipated change a reality. Secondly, in building teams, leaders should embrace thoughts from different members to cultivate the diversity of thinking and acting through innovation. The collaboration of ideas creates an environment where people can connect, share and analyze situations concerning the desired and anticipated change with an entity. Thirdly, the management should encourage critical and strategic thinking in the run to achieving or effecting change. Critical thinking builds strategies since ideas are embraced (Hughes, 2016). The courageous aspect of thinking allows team members to see opportunities in various fields critically, anticipate for the unexpected risks, unleash the hidden excellence pursuit, and work with the motive of charitable purposes thus bringing the managerial change desired by many(Harrison, 2017). Additionally, employers should know the right composition of a team and the aggressiveness of the members of the coalition team.

Showing enthusiasm and commitment to team members

Building a guiding coalition in bringing change to an organization requires a high degree of enthusiasm and commitment. To show enthusiasm and commitment leaders should first consider the level of an organization and the weight if the change anticipated. Through this, leaders may decide to choose a group of 10, 20, or more members to a guiding coalition. The team is called a guiding coalition since the members are selected from various department and ideas are embraced form each member with the aim of effecting the desired change. A larger team with the right people in it acts as a working engine as skills and ideas are collaborated to make change happen in an organization. Skills such as leadership skills among the team members stimulate high levels of urgency to make things right in line with the coming change. Also choosing guiding coalition members with different levels of expertise from different fields or departments within an organization will bring competitively and diversity of ideas thus bringing moving power in bringing and adopting new change ( Hughes,2016)... Commitment will also enable an employer to bring the right people together by identifying their passion, desire, commitment as well as their experience in a specific area at the workplace which is a very critical step in bringing change.

Modeling trust and teamwork

Modeling trust and teamwork in fostering change in organizations call for leaders to lead as an example by demonstrating that they can trust other employees or their boss. Team members learn cues from their leaders if there is no trust they will also not cultivate trust to you and other employees (Ryan, 2018). Also, as a leader, you need to communicate openly and with clarity in an honest and meaningful way. Find strategies to influence your team members also, to be honest, and open when communicating change with other colleagues. Leaders should consider building a working charter that defines the role of each team members present it to the team and allow them to ask questions and comment on their expectations. Thirdly, organize and strategically plan for team building events which will help team members to break ice and share freely with the bosses or amongst themselves (Ryan, 2018). Another way of creating trust is by ensuring that you know your team members at a personal level. Also, creating an environment that will allow o team members to share freely with other colleagues about their lives families and hobbies will create a trust bond and social life within the guiding coalition.

Structuring the team and ejecting energy

I will put my team into a functional structure which is based on the team member’s functionality or expertise area. For instance, I will group the team members into IT, marketing, planning, finance and any other area of specialty (Harrison, 2017)... This structure will enable members from a similar specialty to share experience and skills thus coming up with ideas that will foster or embrace change. This structure will have top management linked to small groups of specialty as communication is effected from one department to the other. Injecting energy into the team members will involve motivating the team, giving them credit wherever they do a commendable job, go easy on dress code (suggest one day within a week for casual wear) as well as recommend days for social impact with the organization.

Walmart Inc. is expected to implement proper changes to their business operations. To compete with other companies in the retail space and market, Walmart should invest in e-commerce and improve the overall shopping experience. Currently, the shopping experience is insufficient and the employees lack proper motivation. To make the changes, Walmart Inc. reported actions to bring about substantial changes including investing in e-commerce and expanding he overall shopping experience in the company. Making drastic changes is important in increasing e-commerce presence is effective (Hickman, & Silva, 2018). Walmart is expected to form proper strategic partnerships to enhance the digital retail sales and overall operations. For example, the company is expected to form renovation into the shopping experience and the streaming of the retail stores. Therefore, the strategies for implementing change is important in promoting sales growth and long-term performance.

Strategies for Change-Making Sense of Urgency

There are different strategies to implement proper changes in the organization to increase the overall retail sales. Taking advantage of the market opportunities is important to enhance retail sales. One of the strategies is understanding customer-interfacing employees effectively. Service employees are critical in improving the customer reactions and encouraging the managers to work effectively. Proper treatment of the employees and responding to urgent questions is critical in ensuring that the company is prepared for proper changes to the adoption of e-commerce sites (Elnaga, &Shammari, 2016). The organizational leaders should take proper actions to understand the needs of the stakeholders. The leaders should also understand the need for making proper changes to support long-term online sales growth.

Some of the critical steps and actions for implementing sense of urgency includes understanding severity of leadership commitment to implementing proper changes, reviewing the bad news of poor retail sales, demanding managers and employees to respond directly to the unhappy customers, and other stakeholders, sharing information to support change, and ascertaining that the management actions are aligned with the change communications to enhance online ecommerce sales. It is impossible to implement urgency without proper and effective communication with the work teams and employees. The leaders demand clear communications that is critical in promoting change efforts and programs. Understanding sense of urgency is important in overcoming the status quo to improve change and future productivity.

It is also recommendable for the managers of Walmart to identify the specific tasks and reduce the potential confusion. Sense of urgency is critical in making proper judgments about the understanding the motivation of the employees. Clarification of the organizational tasks is critical in promoting communications for forming quality leader-follower relationship. Clarifying the issues related to e-commerce presence of Walmart is effective in understand the capabilities of the employees effectively. The clarifying of the potential consequences of e-commerce change is also important. It is necessary for the teams to understand the actual consequences of poor productivity and performance of Walmart Inc. Effective organizational leaders should understand the effects of challenges that impacts on the productivity of the organization. Understanding the need for e-commerce change is good to promote long-term actions and plans.

Most importantly, it is vital to set proper conditions and guidelines for the work teams to ensure that they respond to the urgent needs of the organization. The guidelines for the implementation of online retail strategy for Walmart are valuable to the long-term performance of the company. The recognition of the employees is vital in responding to the sense of urgency is important (Hickman, & Silva, 2018).Changing the online sales strategy is critical in promoting success and recognizing the teams effectively. The mastering of these online strategies is critical in implementing proper changes to Walmart’s proper actions.

It is recommendable for Walmart to support a blended shopping experience and program to improve the implementation of the e-commerce program. However, the company is making effort to enhance the digital and the traditional shopping experiences for Walmart. The integration of these retail shopping experiences is important in improving the performance of the retail firms to enhance the long-term sales expansion. For example, Walmart Inc. should integrate relevant pickup discounts for specific products purchased online (Elnaga, &Shammari, 2016).Some of the online stores gives the customers the opportunity to purchase the grocery products online. The empowerment of the employees is critical to promote long-term online earnings.

Conclusion

In summary, Walmart Inc. should increase the sense of urgency through the changing the traditional sales environment to an e-commerce platform that promotes sales growth and performance. The implementation of these change strategies will be effective in promoting the long-term online sales performance. For instance, the blending of shopping experience is necessary to enhance sales performance as well as the e-commerce program and initiatives. The implementation of the shopping experience is useful in ensuring the integration of the digital and traditional shopping experiences to improve sales growth. Most importantly, effective communication between the leaders and the work teams is also necessary. The collaboration between the leaders and the work teams will help in promoting the long-term performance of the company. Walmart will rely on the sense of urgency strategies to implement a comprehensive ecommerce strategy.

References

Elnaga, A. A., &Shammari, F. H. A. (2016). The impact of e-commerce on business strategy: a literature review approach. Journal of American Science, 12(5), 68-79.

Harrison, P. (2017). Communicating Change. In Exploring Internal Communication (pp. 79-86). Routledge.

Hickman, C. R., & Silva, M. A. (2018). Creating excellence: Managing corporate culture, strategy, and change in the new age. London, UK: Routledge.

Hughes, M. (2016). Leading changes: Why transformation explanations fail. Leadership, 12(4), 449-469.

Ryan, L. (2018, March 17). Ten Ways to Build Trust on Your Team. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/2018/03/17/ten-ways-to-build-trust-on-your- team/#186e4b472445