Please read and respond to the post below

Hello Professor and classmates,

Reading the prompt for this weeks discussion, immediately had me thinking about a change that has been tried numerous times in my office, and every time, it slips back to the old way. With the vast amount of experience I have with the failure of this change, I will use it for this!

My shop has always looked to implement workflow management software into our daily activities. This software would provide us a better understanding of what needs to be worked on, if we need to collaborate, and quite simply, what we are spending our time doing. Supervisors could manage their teams time better and prioritize work so that customers are getting the products they need within expectations. Kotter mentions that leadership from senior management needs to keep the urgency for the changeup, which is lacking when this change initiative presents itself (1). I get the feeling, and this applies to me as well, that leaders are not comfortable with the change and are comfortable sticking with the old way of doing things. When the change begins, everyone is using the software, and once a roadblock is hit, they go back to the old way, and leadership does not push back. Malik mentions six factors for making changes, and the sixth one is to create a feedback loop, which would have been helpful during this change initiative (2). If we had weekly feedback sessions about the software, answering questions, bringing up bugs or issues with it, we could have addressed those and continued to reinforce the change simultaneously. Introducing some verbal rewards and pats on the back would undoubtedly have helped to encourage the change. Unfortunately, due to the nature of communication methods available, we could not block or make it impossible to use the old way of managing workflow. Everything in our office is designed to increase communication and collaboration, and this is how the workflow is usually managed, but it provides no accountability or way to track work.

Thank you,

Noe