“What got us here won’t get us there… We have been incredibly successful.

The most successful Indian

company. But I want more. To be the most successful Indian company for the next 100 years and more.
Quite simply, our raw guts, entrepreneurial spirit, driven project management, and operational
excellence will not be enough to assure our future. But if we are brave enough, if we have the resolve, if
we can make a change now, I have a solution. How we got here will not get us there. We’ve been
brilliant. We’ve been faster. We’ve been better at making calculated bets. We’ve been braver. But…
we’ve done this without structure, without systems, without governance, without a means to pass on
what we’ve learned. We need to change how we do things at RIL. We need to make sure the system
gives us confidence that, as people change (let’s be clear: most of us will soon be moving on), that those
who follow operate within a system which guides them (rather than us telling them [what to do]!). Are
you ready to pass the torch to the next generation? I need you to be.”

------Mr. Mukesh Ambani’s opening statement at transformation launch, March 2014

Topic: Kurt – Lewin Model of Organization Change

 Participants of the Project

Ashutosh Kumar Pandey 22BSP0318

Sahiba 22BSP1451
Anmol Goel 22BSP0216
Sarthak Bist 22BSP1517
Ritik Garg 22BSP1372
Kriti Chaurasia 22BSP0811
Table of Contents Page no.

1
Acknowledgment
Objectives
The objective of the study is to explore the changes facilitated by the Reliance Industries in the
most concise yet expansive way possible. The idea is to make sure we touch upon both the
technological and the structural changes undertaken by the Reliance Industries.
We also discuss how the feud between the brothers Anil and Mukesh, and the subsequent rise
of the Mukesh might have inspired him to reorganize his empire in a way that avoids future
conflict in the Mukesh Ambani Family.
We will try to see how these structural changes affect the employees of the RIL.
We will be discussing the challenges encountered during the transformation.
We will see how the structural changes in RIL are different from the other organizations and
what sets them apart from the rest.
The goal of the study is to inspire and spark the interest in the mind of the reader or the viewer
of the presentation to do further study in the RIL re-organization and its working.
This study will try to get inside the mind of the Mukesh Ambani to get an insight of how he
thinks and operates, what motivates and moves him, and how he judges the business
environment.
Kurt Lewin's Change Management Model of Unfreeze, Change and Refreeze
Unfreeze, Change, Refreeze, or Kurt Lewin's Change Management Model is a model for
understanding and managing organizational change. The aim is to understand why changes
occur, implement the necessary changes, and normalize them in the organization's day-to-day
operations. The ultimate goal is to change the status quo with minimal impact on processes and
people to ensure maximum ROI.
Kurt Lewin’s Change Management Model Explained The Lewin Change Management Model is
widely used by organizations around the world. It was created in the 1940s by physicist and
social psychologist Kurt Lewin. His background in physics inspired his illustrations of social
change using the ice block metaphor.
The name of the model comes from the idea that a block of ice cannot be shaped into a new
shape without breaking it. Instead, to achieve transformation from one form to another, it must
first be melted (thawed), poured into a new form (altered), and then frozen into the new form
(refrozen).
Viewing change as a process with three equally distinct phases can help organizations prepare
for the new reality. Minimize complications along the way and have a plan in place to manage
your migration. By following this model, organizations can adapt to change and achieve stability
with minimal disruption and inconvenience to employees and other stakeholders.
The first stages of thawing serve above all to create awareness of the coming changes. During
the change phase, the actual implementation takes place to support migration. In the final
refreeze phase, the goal is to achieve post-change stability and balance.
Organizations can use Lewin's Change Model to change multiple processes or conditions, such
as:
The existing system, structure, or process.
Employee behavior, attitudes, or skills.
Corporate culture allows people to work together and pursue organizational goals together.
Change Management Checklist
The Need for Lewin's Change Management Model
Change is inevitable for organizations of all sizes and industries
However, many organizations struggle to adapt to the changes ahead. We often experience
multiple misunderstandings and confusion before adapting to change. Resistance to change is
another common problem, even when the potential benefits of change are known or apparent.
The Unfreeze-Change-Refreeze model is an attempt to manage change by understanding the
change process, creating plans for a smooth transition, and proactively overcoming potential
resistances.
This model helps raise awareness about the coming changes and the motivations behind them.
This will ensure that everyone affected is prepared and embracing the changes that are coming.
It also helps create an environment in which employees do not see change as a threat, but as
an opportunity to improve the organization and contribute to its strategic vision.
The Three Phases of Lewin's Change Management Model
The three phases of Lewin's Unfreeze, Change and Refreeze Model.
Unfreeze: This first stage is usually preceded by a motivating event, such as declining profits,
lawsuits, or simply employee dissatisfaction, that indicates the need for change. Once the
decision is made that change is necessary, the change management strategy should be
communicated throughout the organization to prepare employees for the change.
Organizations must prepare for the changes to come by increasing their awareness of change
while identifying and addressing potential resistance. Leaders and managers should explain to
employees why the organization cannot continue on its current course of action.
To support their message, you can refer to existing financial statements, talk about declining
sales, or explain the problems caused by a negative customer review. You should also try to
address strong feelings of rejection, uncertainty, and doubt at work by explaining why the
change is necessary.
Some of the main activities that take place during the Unfreeze phase include:
1. Communicate the logic and benefits of upcoming changes to all stakeholders.
2. Engage with appropriate stakeholders to gain support for change.
3. Develop motivation for change in the organization's vision and mission. Address
employee concerns and gain company-wide support for new balance
4. During the unfreezing phase, a detailed analysis of the current state of the organization
and effective communication of the "why" of change is essential. A gap in any step can
reinforce existing resistance and make it more difficult to move on to the next step in
implementing change.
Change: After the proposed changes have been properly communicated, the next step is to
implement the changes as quickly and smoothly as possible. The change phase implements
actual changes to the organizational structure, business practices, staffing, or other areas of the
company. These changes may vary in strength based on business needs, but should always be
carefully defined with input from employees and other key stakeholders.
Many times people know that they have to act in ways that are in line with new directions, but
it can be difficult to adjust to new realities. Therefore, it may take some time to implement all
necessary changes.
Preparation in the first place is important to minimize failures. Leaders should share all relevant
information with employees to help them transition and address issues and challenges early. A
clear communication strategy and strong leadership qualities are the most important pillars for
a successful transformation phase.
Leaders should also explain how this change will benefit employees. During the transition,
senior employees should explain the nature and purpose of the change so that employees do
not feel disconnected from the company and the change effort.
It can be helpful to engage with influential stakeholders and have them act as evangelists for
change. Celebrating small victories and tangible results is also important. That way everyone
feels part of the change effort and we can make it happen as a team.
Other important activities that take place during the phase of change include:
1. Clarify misconceptions and rumors.
2. A clear description of the effects of the change.
3. Managers set the daily direction.
Refreeze: The final phase is to harden the changes. This ensures that changes made in Phase 2
are standardized or internalized in the organization's day-to-day activities. This process can be
slow, as it takes a long time for employees to get used to new practices and procedures.
Refreezing is an important step in ensuring that the changes are permanent and that
employees accept the new status quo. It also prevents employees from reverting to less-
preferred old ways that can be detrimental to the organization.
Organizations can freeze and maintain new changes using both informal and formal
mechanisms. The goal is to remove any remaining doubts and resistances and ensure
acceptance of the new normal across the organization.
Other important activities during the refreeze period include:
1. The remaining barriers were identified and removed.
2. Establish a feedback system to collect employee comments and address new issues or
concerns.
3. Modify organizational structures, cultures, and policies to adapt to change and reinforce
new ways of working.
4. Provide employee training and support to make employees feel comfortable and relieve
their fears and doubts.
5. Establish quantitative metrics to measure success and communicate progress.
Discover Your Calling: Need for Change
Discovering your call and identifying the need to change is instrumental in the facilitation of the
change. Be it an organization or an individual, we can’t change anything if we don’t know what
we need to change? Answering this first question in itself can be a daunting task, particularly
for the Big Empire Business. The reason for this can be their desire to stay in comfort zone, their
deep-seated belief and faith in the status quo, restructuring or breaking a structure they build
with so much of passion and emotions, and fear of answering if not this then what?
On 6th July 2002, Dhirubhai Ambani passed away.
He did not leave any written will and within 2 years his two oldest sons started fighting for the
control of the Empire. This dispute was very public and nasty effecting the reputation and the
goodwill of the Ambani Family.
Disheartened, the widower of the Dhirubhai, matriarch Kokilaben intervened and resolved the
dispute between the sons. Division of the empire was done such that Mukesh got
Petrochemical and refining businesses whereas Anil got Telecom, Media, Power generation and
everything else.
While the division took place in 2005, the disputes between the brothers continued till 2010,
particularly relating to gas prices and non-competition agreements.
Reasons for undertaking the transformations are:
1. Our sense is that Mr. Mukesh Ambani feared the history repeating itself and the ghost
of conflict coming back to Ambani family to haunt them. Maybe in the form of dispute
between their 2 sons, Akash and Anant Ambani. This is perhaps the most motivating
factor towards altering the status quo but can’t be the only factor.
2. The rise of the FDI in India, as we know when foreign companies come to India, they
bring not only Dollars and their expertise but also technologies and work culture. This
threatens a lot of Indian businesses. We don’t have such technologies that facilitate our
operation seamlessly and perhaps most importantly the work culture. Few people
would disagree that multi-national companies are bringing better opportunities for their
employee, focusing not only on profit maximization but also on attracting and keeping
new talent.
3. The changes happening around us as Nation and as society. Increase in the aspiration of
the people, desire to get the best of the world might open a flood of market that can
only be satisfied by the foreign companies.
4. The rise of Startups, which are much more agile, flexible, open minded, have young
entrepreneurs who think out of the box and are ready to take risks are project enough
challenges to the Big Businesses such as RIL.
5. The dual problem of an aging leadership team and the company’s massively increased
scale of operations.
 6. Sustainability, with a focus on how to prepare the organization for a gradual delegation
of operational control.
7. The increase in the operational complexity caused by current expansion plans,
essentially quadrupling its size, has raised questions if the old system is adequate
enough.
8. The Liberalization of economy.

Paradoxes of the RIL

RIL like any other business has paradoxes and these paradoxes are interrelated in a way that
they are enablers as well as barriers depending on the situation and time, also they might work
together. These paradoxes are:
1. Leveraging faith vs persuasion
Keeping other factors constant this paradox can result in the ability to impose change on the
organization using “Faithful Adoption”. This way Mr. Ambani bypasses the persuasion normally
associated with the change programs. This is enabled by two other paradoxes.
2. Individual justice vs utilitarianism
RIL staunch commitment to Individual Justice fuels a sense of faith in Mr. Mukesh Ambani. It
reinforces a sense that employees are treated fairly and will not be sacrificed when business
cycles go against the company. However, at the same time, Mr. Ambani makes it difficult to
change the capabilities in the management ranks.
3. Informal vs formal
This supports the RIL’s ability to move the organization rapidly. It enables faithful adoption by
giving permission for the owners to dispense with protocols, previous decisions and be
unencumbered by the process. This lack of formality takes form of ambiguity, within which
management team become accustomed to taking direction from the top.
RIL transformation program has four components –

1. Setting & rolling out foundational processes –

 Putting in place the standard level & structure for positions across business.
 Laying foundation for rolling out performance management, DOA & HR model.
 Building a common framework for differentiated rewards.
 Ensuring alignment of strategic objectives & platform for meritocracy & growth.

2. Strengthen talent management process –

 Designing & rolling out processes for:

- Talent planning
- Succession planning
- Setting up & strengthening programmes for developing accelerated leadership
programs, international high potential identification, etc.
 Declaring & aligning people processes with a single RIL leadership framework.

3. Build learning culture & resourcing capabilities –

 Improving quality of objective assessment for people placements.

 Integrating competency frameworks with foundational processes.
 Declaring & integrating a RIL resourcing model.
 Providing assurance on competencies in safety critical roles.

4. Developing leadership –

 Having identified potential leaders, putting in place their developmental path.

 Establishing an enterprise-wide learning curriculum & supporting systems architecture.
 Establishing a group RIL learning governance framework, standards & supply chain
management.

This phase of RIL’s transformation program captures the required “behavioural” shifts, which
include building an HR function that can sustain change, developing new capabilities in the RIL
management cadre, and helping the company’s executive directors let go of some decision-
making activities.
Unfreezing Reliance Industries Limited

Current State: Highly centralized decision-making

Before undertaking the transformation plan the decision-making structure of the RIL had been
extremely centralized, our research for the purpose this project shows buck starts and stops
with Mr. Mukesh Ambani. Despite this the company had been doing alright particularly because
of the zeal and astute entrepreneurial skills of the Mr. Ambani, but its not necessary that his
sons will have such qualities too. The major object of undertaking transformation is to ready
the organization for next 100 years.
Current State: Expectations of line managers as executors
The current state had been such that RIL could not appreciate its managers enough. This is
something surprising that came in our research that although company has good reputation its
employees, particularly managers are not the happiest employees. This might be because of the
extreme entrepreneurial nature of the business, the desire to “move fast break things” and
valuing only loyal employees, leaving vast majority of others confused.
Current State: Value of execution and project management
Its primarily because of informal character of the decision making that a lot times execution and
management of projects are not up to the mark. This is no longer sustainable as the scale of
business is expanding and diversifying at the rapid pace. Before the undertaking of the
transformation the involvement of Ambani family had only been through Mr. Mukesh Ambani,
they knew at the time that more members of the Family might be included in the daily
operations of the business.
Current State: Subjective Personal Decision Making
When we combine all the flaws of the RIL decision making process we get to see that personal
decision making has been cause as well as effect of the problem. RIL wants to federalize the
system empower talented managers to take independent decision. They want to also build a
system which helps in evaluation of the meritocracy of the employees.
Current State: Mechanistic Forms of Management
Company has had a system which is too mechanistic and slow. They want to move towards a
system which agile, flexible, ready to deal with the changing world and sustainable. This might
be because of the challenges it might face from outside forces in the form of competition and
also because of the challenges it might face from within the family if the children of Ambani
Family don’t get along, professionally.
Our research shows that Mr. Ambani, One Man, had absolute power to impose this
transformation plan on whole organization. Majority of the stakeholders followed his vision and
RIL thought it will be rather counterproductive to reach out to those who are not on same page.
The interesting thing is most people thought “Ambani understands what’s in their best interest
as well as organization.
Still, we see that RIL did not really invest in the Unfreeze phase, this is primarily because they
did not much to unfreeze as the Power had been centralize in the hands of Mr. Ambani. This
simplified the Unfreeze phase. This is also because of the familiness of the organization.
Changing Reliance Industries Limited

“David, would you be willing to make a quick trip to India? Reliance has asked us whether we
could assist them by giving them an independent view of their transformation plan.” – From a
telephone conversation with Dr Helmut Schuster, BP Group HR Director, August 2013

Looking at things closely, its somewhere around 2010 when we notice a desire to transform the
business operations of the RIL. What Mr. Mukesh Ambani was looking for was a viable
roadman and hence Mckinsey was hired in 2012 and in early 2013 Booz. Neither firm to deliver
a persuasive plan.

Eventually Mr Ambani turned to BP Group an international partner of RIL in late summers of

2013.

What Mr. Ambani looking for was a plan that he could be confident in, something that would
interest him practically more than innovatively.

Also, since BP Group was not a consulting company, RIL could not directly ask them to come up
with a plan for them as an open-ended search for some unspecified solution.

So, they asked, “How can we adapt BP’s people, management and governance systems to work
for us?”

The changes they undertook were:

1. Devolved and expanded Leadership cadre
RIL undertook the plan to build new generation of highly motivated cadre who will eventually
become leaders in their field. The idea is to do away with the system of “what works?” and look
for more innovative ways to engage an employee to achieve mutually beneficial goals.
This is only possible if RIL decentralizes its power structure and empowers management system
to take independent decision.
2. Greater patience less control
RIL is realizes that what brought them here won’t get them forward because of the sheer size
and expansion plans of the business is such that requires a lot of patience and a lot less control.
One man calling all the shots days are now over, RIL is moving in the new direction where it
requires support from outside of Ambani family.
This is not only a structural change but more importantly a behavioral change at leadership
level as well. Behavioral change is much more remarkable than the structural change because
we all have been in situations where we see its so hard to let go of.
 3. Reliance Management Systems (RMS)
Perhaps the most innovative thing that came out of this transformation is development of
Reliance Management System. RMS is described as “comprehensive articulation of RIL’s
intended management apparatus: delegation, financial controls, operational parameters, and
so forth.”
It also has an exhaustive set of rules, policies, guidelines, and processes has been designed not
only to help institutionalized the cumulative knowledge of the company’s executive director but
also to establish the checks and balances necessary to inspire confidence that the company that
can operate without the continued daily intervention of the owner, Mr. Ambani.
This system is entirely new form of management encoded with technology (SAP, success factor,
Fiori) and policies (management grading system, organizational design, articulation of
delegation of authority).
4. Behavioral Change of Leadership

Instructional Leader

Top Down Mandate

Rapid Deployment of
Well Practiced New Systems

Demands Obedience
and Compliance
Engaged Employees and
Managers and Staff Embedded Change
Execute

Erodes Employee
Experience
The diagram on the previous picture shows the untransformed RIL, too owner centric,
authoritarian, one man running the show and top-down approach to operations. My sense is
this is what Mr. Ambani means when says “what got us here, won’t get us there”. RIL has went
out of its way to transform this, the post transformed RIL looks way different.

Are we wiling to make

this change?
Engaged Employee and
Embedded Change
Implies greater
patience lesser
control

Leaders as teachers Slower Deployment

and facilitators

Engage Employees

Enabling Leader

In the diagram above its clear the kind of transformation RIL went through. Mr. Mukesh Ambani
went from an Instructional Leader to an Enabling Leader.
Refreezing The Reliance Industries Limited
Mr. Ambani led RIL achieved the desired changes much faster than other organizations because
of the faithful adoption.
The Way Forward
We have seen in our study how Mr. Ambani led RIL has undertaken the transformation of RIL to
make it sustainable in this changing world, facilitate their expansion plan and of course pave
the way for his children.
Since this transformation is recent its tough to quantify the results just yet, it also inconvenient
to do so as there is no agreed measurement protocol.
People close to Mr. Ambani says that he is optimistic about the way things are going in the RIL.
Financially, RIL has shaken off the lackluster results from the 2011-13 period to emerge once
again as the India’s most valuable company in 2017.
Studies from IBM Kenexa staff engagement survey show a substantial increase in employee
engagement, trust and confident between 2014 at 68% to 2017 at 76%.
There is also more positive acknowledgement of the RIL, which has recently been recognized as
one of the best countries to work for in India.
These changes have made the succession plan of RIL easier and smoother. Mr. Akash Ambani,
the elder son of Mr. Mukesh Ambani recently took over the charge of Reliance Jio.
The next in the succession plan is Mrs. Isha Ambani Piramal, daughter of Mr. Mukesh Ambani
who will be taking the charge of Reliance Retail arm. She has been credited with the launch of
Reliance fashion portal, Ajio Fashion.
In conclusion, we can say that their transformation plan is on the right track.