Importance of communication in managing change
Aim
This assessment involves a series of activities based on case scenarios where the learner is required to apply knowledge and skills relevant to the workplace situations. By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate leadership knowledge and skills such as:
– Interpersonal skills to communicate and build trust and confidence among the team members
– Leadership styles and their application to various situations
– Risk management skills to analyze, identify and control risks
– Knowledge of legislations and codes relevant to organisation’s operations
– Knowledge of organisation’s mission, vision and objectives
– Knowledge of business ethics and their application
– Knowledge of developing personal and professional competence
Assignment Type
Case scenarios
Content
This assessment comprises of Eight (8) Activities covering a variety of workplace situations.
Word count
The report should be between 2,500 to 3,000 words excluding the references, tables and diagrams.
Activity 1
i. You work for an organisation which does not have a formalised mission, vision
and values yet.The owner has now realised the need to develop and communicate the mission and vision to relevant group and individuals. He has asked you to provide him inputs on developing the mission, vision and values. He has asked you to research and provide him with the mission and vision statements of three real-life organisations for his reference and guidance:
| Organisation’s name |
Mission & Vision |
Website |
| Organisation A |
Mission statement: Vision statement: |
|
|
Organisation B |
Mission statement: Vision statement: |
|
|
Organisation C |
Mission statement: Vision statement: |
|
ii. Once you record the information as per above, answer the following:
a) Identify which group of stakeholders the mission and vision statements addressing.
b) Identify and list three values as communicated in their website.
c) For each of the mission and vision statements identified above, list two measurable performance indicators.
Activity 2
Consider you are the manager of an organisation, and a major incident has occurred affecting your customers and staff. The incidents could be such as:
– A mining company that has had an underground mine collapse
– A shipping company that has lost contact with a vessel in a storm
– An air freight company that has lost a plane in remote mountains
– A major cyclone has affected the city where the organisation’s headquarter is (or any other major workplace incident)
At present, lives of 5 employees are unaccounted for. You are hoping they are still alive, but don’t know for certain. You have already called in the best rescue teams in the world who are working around the clock to locate and rescue the survivors (if any). And you have employed outside investigators to work out what went wrong. Humanly speaking there is nothing more you can do. But your job is to communicate with the anxious relatives, co-workers, and media waiting outside. They know nothing other than rumors, and emotions are running high.
Design and develop a media release that informs the stakeholders of what has happened and what your company is doing about it. The media release should be prepared keeping following things in mind:
– It should be concise and clear and describe what, when, how etc of the incident;
– It should be “from the heart” showing empathy to the worried families and co- workers;
– Your legal advisors have cautioned you not to admit fault or apportion blame, as the matter may end up in court – but you still need to be honest and transparent;
– Your organisation has responsibilities to many stakeholders, including employees and their families, customers, the general public, government authorities, and shareholders, all of whom will hear the release
– You need to address the ethical and code of conduct issues adequately and ensure the organisation is positively represented in the media.
Activity 3
You have taken on a new job as a manager in an organisation. The organisation does not have a policy or guidelines on ethical behaviour. You observe that the conduct of your team at times is questionable. They take short cuts, especially on safety, display poor attitude, over-quote on work, keep materials left over from jobs and display poor customer relations. When you have challenged people, you get excuses such as:
– It’s not really illegal or immoral
– It’s in people’s and the organisation’s best interest
– No one will ever find out
– Since it’ll help the company out, the company will back me up. You decide to get your team to develop a code of ethics.
– Develop a code of ethics for the team
– What will you do to encourage the team to work in accordance with the code of ethics?
Activity 4
Consider you are the manager at XYZ Pty Ltd. As part of expansion strategy, the organisation has recently bought a rival business at a premium price. There was little communication and consultation with the staff members before making this decision. Following this approach of the senior management, resistance to change has been surfacing through low staff morale, passive compliance and vocal resistance in the office when management personnel were not present.
The CEO has asked you to initiate and implement a strategy to improve organisational culture through regular communication, consultation and engagement and ensure the positive team working environment is built and maintained.
You will need to:
– Develop a draft action/implementation plan of the strategy (such as Gantt chart).
– Develop a draft budget for the change program
– Develop a draft communication plan for internal and external stakeholders.
Activity 5
Consider you have been assigned a role as a supervisor of a project team. You have been asked by your team leader to prepare a report on “role of communication for successful project teams”. Your report will need to cover the following:
– Why should managers and team members be aware of their organisation’s strategic vision, mission and values?
– How can managers encourage open and two-way communication?
– Why is it useful to have regular team meetings?
– Why is it important to have feedback system?
Activity 6
Prepare a short report for your manager on the actions you will take to promote learning in your work team. Include in your report:
– How would you identify training needs of the team members?
– Identify three types of learning and development activities.
– How your actions will facilitate improvements to team performance.
– Professional development and networking activities (record in the template below)
Activity 7
You are engaged as a consultant of a medium sized Australian Financial services organisation. In response to recent poor financial performance, your client will implement a restructuring of the organisation. Some parts of the organisation will be closed and others will be significantly changed in size and or scope. Many staff members will be affected in ways ranging from new duties to retrenchment.
– What is importance of communication in managing change? How can effective communication be achieved?
– Prepare the communication plan for the change project using the template below:
– Why does resistance to change occur? How can managers overcome resistance to change?
Activity 8
Assume you are to conduct a performance appraisal interview with one of your team. The employee has been a consistently low performer and has not achieved his/her key expected results. How would you deal with the employee in order to develop a performance plan or solutions for improving performance?