Week 3: Cisca Engineering Ltd.

(CEL) Case Study

Seleste Garrett

Bovard College, University of Southern California

HRM 550: Change Management and Organizational Development

Professor Daniels

November 14, 2023

 Cisca Engineering Ltd. (CEL) Case Study

Analysis

1. How would you describe the current organizational culture at CEL?

The current organizational culture at CEL would be a culture of transparency and

fun. Transparency ensures trust at every level within the organization and it is vital to

the organization’s success (“Decoding the Buzzwords: The Difference between

Change Management and Organizational Development.,” 2023). CEL does a great

job of creating the culture or transparency by allowing the employees to be

stakeholders within the organization, employee ownership with projects, and

encouraging employees to bring new ideas to the organization. Also, the office at

CEL is glass and at the front of the building, which allows for the leaders to be easily

accessible. The culture of fun is evident in CEL because on Thursdays the employees

look forward to the barbecue lunch meetings because of if they performed well in the

previous month, then the company would order lunch or take them out.

2. What elements of CEL’s culture will support this change effort?

Transparency and trust are the elements that will support the change effort

in CEL’s culture. During the lunch after the announcement about the ownership

proposal at the organization, a few of the employees discussed how they felt about

the changes. One of the operations managers, Faizal Khan, stated:

“We shouldn’t be worried about the changes that are coming. This has

always been a great place to work. It is miles ahead of anywhere else that

I’ve been – that’s why nobody ever leaves. The culture is amazing and I
 think that having ownership will only make us an even more collaborative

and open group.” (MacMillan & Risavy, 2018)

This perspective comes from experiencing a culture that has embedded trust and

transparency in the organization.

3. What elements may be barriers to CEL’s change efforts?

One of the elements that could potentially be barriers to CEL’s change efforts is

the lack of knowledge surrounding growing a business. Arvidson had expressed that

he lacked the knowledge and training on how to grow a business. CEL leaders who

had formal training on how to grow a business and Arvidson took it upon himself to

obtain his MBA, so that he would receive the proper education. However, Cheryl

Landsberg was against Arvidson going back to school to receive the proper

education, until he pushed for it once more. The lack of support around learning and

development could be another potential barrier to CEL’s change efforts.

4. Do you believe CEL requires a CM process or an OD process? Why?

I believe that CEL requires an organizational development process.

Organizational development is focused on improving an organization’s

effectiveness and health with a holistic and long-term strategy (“Decoding the

Buzzwords: The Difference between Change Management and Organizational

Development.,” 2023). Arvidson concern was that he would not be able to grow

the business because of his lack of knowledge and the lack of knowledge amongst

the other individuals within the organization as well. Organizational development

 will help equip not only Arvidson, but other individuals as well and prepare them

to be able handle internal and external challenges in a rapidly evolving business

environment.

5. Identify the change strategy you would suggest for CEL and provide your rationale.

The change strategy I would suggest for CEL is organizational development because

of the depth of change that is required, which could potentially impact the culture and

norms. Organization development would provide a holistic and long-term change to meet

CEL’s needs. Lewin’s 3 step change management model would aid in providing the

necessary steps to take in order to keep CEL successful. The most important step in

Lewin’s 3 step change management model is the unfreeze phase because you want to

make sure that the individuals in the organization understands that change is necessary

for the business. When the change occurs as the second step, the individuals would be

able to look at things from a different perspective and act in ways that will support the

change. Lastly, refreezing the organization will help internalize and institutionalize the

change within the organization. This would be a great time to celebrate the success of the

change as a thank you to the individuals who participated to provide closure and thanks

to them for enduring the process leading up to the success.

 References

Decoding the Buzzwords: The Difference Between Change Management and

Organizational Development. (2023, August 14). Retrieved from Daniel Lock’s

blog website: https://daniellock.com/the-difference-between-change-

management-and-organizational-development/

MacMillan, K., & Risavy, S. (2018). Bringing Vision to Life: Culture Development at

CEL. In HBR (pp. 1–6). Retrieved from https://hbr.org/