Change Management Paper

The Change Analysis

According to Tock (2012), a successful CEO possesses 5 traits such as passionate curiosity, team smarts, fearlessness, simple mindset, and battle hardened confidence. However, not all CEOs possess these traits. Thus, a strong sense of leadership is vital when there comes a time when an organization needs a change to maintain or become successful. Two companies that currently acquired new CEOs are Yahoo and Apple. Both companies have been gone through changes within the organization with the new CEOs.

Yahoo organization has increased its revenue in stocks, acquisitions, and business launches under the current CEO’s, Marissa Mayer, leadership success (Mangalindan, 2013). One of the biggest changes that Mayer implemented was ending the work from home program. The change brought about scrutiny not only from the employees of Yahoo but other companies as well (Koster, 2013). However, despite the scrutiny and negativity around the change, the CEO stood her ground and instead implemented new changes to positively influence collaboration and productivity in the workplace. For instance, Mayer ensured that she communicated to all employees via web as well. Also, in order for Mayer to create the change, she hosted social happy hours which allowed employees to bond with one another and also allowed free meals in the cafeteria to all staff members (Koster, 2013). She transformed the culture of the company to collaborate together to become a successful organization again.

In addition, Apple has gone through changes as well with the current CEO Tim Cook. Under Tim Cook, the executive leadership has expanded with promotions and extra responsibilities for these members (Guglielmo, 2012). With the recent launch of a faulty Maps application for the Iphone, there were heavy negative press and scrutiny about the organization. Cook addressed the problem by removing Scott Forstall, who was responsible for the software to become an interim advisor instead. Instead, he appointed several executives to higher positions and gave them higher compensation. The change was to retain the executives and reward the employees for their years of service to the company (Guglielmo, 2012).

The similar changes that the companies have gone through are the change of CEOs. Apple had to change CEO due to the medical ailment of the former CEO, Steve Jobs. However, it was already a successful and growing company that is continually increasing its revenue. Tim Cook, the current CEO has made changes to increase executive leadership in order to retain their service to the organization. As a result, the company’s low turnover rate in the company continues to be low as with Steve Job’s leadership role (Guglielmo, 2012). Cook also wants to change the image of Apple to become more a philanthropist organization. Cook wants to continue to expand the organization, however give back more to charities and the communities (Internation Business). As for Yahoo, the recent change of CEO was due to the unsuccessful previous list of CEOs. Yahoo needed a leader that led the organization back to success. Thus, Mayer was able to achieve that by creating a culture that promotes collaboration and “thinking big” for the future of the company (Koster, 2013).

The difference during the changes of the companies is that the CEO for Apple already had an organization that is successful. Thus, Apple only needed to focus on maintaining that success. While for Yahoo, the CEO had to focus on reshaping and reorganizing the company as a whole to become successful.

Futhermore, there are six different types of images of change. The six are director, navigator, caretaker, coach, interpreter, and nurturer. Each image depicts a different type of way to manage organizational change. The three images that closely relates to the changes that occurred within Yahoo and Apple are Director, Caretaker, and Navigator. All three differs in how to manage change. For instance in Director mode, a leader dictates what, when, how the change will occur. Employees will have to follow what the leader wants in order to successfully follow that change of how the director/leader wants it to be. As for a Caretaker, the leader ensures that everything is in place in the organization such as resources to ensure that changes occur and employees follow. For a Navigator, the leader leads through guiding the organization to make changes in the organization.

For Yahoo, if the leader was to become a director only during the time of change, the culture of the organization would not become successful as it is now. Although Mayer, implemented changes that were frowned upon, she still incorporated the needs of others to ensure that the needs of the staff and the organization were both met thus, she exemplified being a caretaker during the change. As a navigator however, she opened hosted social happy hours in order to increase bonding of the employees. There was little control on how employees would bond during these times, but it was successful in changing the culture of Yahoo to become more collaborated.

For Apple, Tim Cook shows more of a navigtor approach during the change. Although the company was already successful, he wanted to change how the company runs. For instance, he increased compensation for promoted executive members. He did so in order to retain and reward their services, however, the change included giving more responsibilities to these executive members in order for them to directly report to him (Guglielmo, 2012). Cook exercised the behavior of a navigator, by placing multiple teams to assist organizational changes (Palmer, Dunford, Akin, 2009). Since Apple was already a successful business, if Cook decided to make changes are a caretaker, the business would continue to become successful because all resources are already in place and available. If he were to be a director type during the change, the turnover rates of the company would begin to rise because drastic changes to a successful company could lead to unhappy employees.

A successful leader should however exercise healthy balance of being a director and a caretaker during changes. As a director you can lead the company to become innovative and overcome the fear of the unknown. However, as a caretaker, you can be supportive at the same time and ensuring the resources are available for the organization to begin to change. Without the direction coming from a director and the support from a caretaker, the organization will not successfully change.

References

International Business, T. (5). Apple without Steve Jobs: 9 things CEO Tim Cook is doing to move forward. International Business Times.

Guglielmo, C. (2012). Apple CEO Tim Cook shakes up management team, iOS Chief Forstall, retail leader to depart. Forbes.Com, 1.

Koster, K. (2013). Yahoo! CEO aims to draw employees to workplace. Employee Benefit News, 27(8), 8-11.

Mangalindan, J. (2013). Marissa Mayer's 3 biggest decisions as Yahoo CEO. Fortune.Com, 1.

Palmer, I., Dunford, R., & Akin, G. (2009).  Managing organizational change: A multiple perspectives approach. (2nd ed.). New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Tock, E. (2012). Successful CEOs possess five traits that set them apart from the rest. Club Industry, 28(10), 18.