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2018

ORST POE

Tasha maree 15015786

BCM3
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Table of Contents
Question 1.......................................................................................................................1
Question 2.......................................................................................................................4
Question 3.......................................................................................................................8
Question 4.....................................................................................................................11
References....................................................................................................................16
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Question 1
The purpose of teamwork is to promote collaboration and a sense of unity. A group can be
defined as a cluster of two or more people who have gathered for a specific purpose usually
for the benefit of the individuals in the group (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). However, a team
is not created simply by giving a group a name. A team is considered as a group of people
that has been formed to work together in order to reach or accomplish a specific goal
(Werner and Bagraim, 2007). The goal for the group is synergy. In light of this, the following
essay will discuss groups and teams as well as using the brand challenge experience as an
example.

Groups and teams have a specific task to perform in order to achieve their task. Through the
use of effective management of people these teams have the ability to produce great
performance levels and greater organisation effectiveness (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). By
understanding the psychology of groups and teams they can become effective and evolve
from an immature and dependent state to a mature optimal functioning state. An
understanding of the behaviour dynamics within the personal life of the individuals in the
team can assist the team in taking up their own authority, manage themselves efficiently and
meet the daily challenges of work (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). With insight into my brand
challenge experience, this viewpoint can be seen as true as a member of my team had been
encountering personal issues that ultimately affected the group dynamic.

People may often react in an irrational manner and not meeting the organisation’s working
expectations (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). This was seen during our brand challenge
experience when a team member would arrive to campus in a negative mindset and
emotional due to the experiences she faced in her personal life. This behaviour was a subtle
cue to the leaders of our team that this member of our team was using her mental energy to
deal with the stress and anxiety she faced due to her personal life experience rather than
using that energy to achieve various organisational goals. This is known as an unconscious
mental process which focuses on how teams can lead to unproductive behaviour in order to
deal with uncertainty or anxiety (Werner and Bagraim, 2007).

Although this mental process affected one member of our team, it changed the atmosphere
and working environment of our team. The feelings of anxiety and stress became an emotion
that was quickly adopted by the group which lead to an unproductive day. This mentality was
incredibly difficult to “shake off” especially since as a group we became anxious due to our
lack of direction during one of our brand challenge weeks. The feelings of being lost and
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uncertain made us unproductive. We were unsure of the concepts that we developed for the
client and this lead us to a three day downward spiral. Bion’s basic assumptions believes
that there are five possible assumptions that can result in a team not co-operating and is
therefore ineffective (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). Our team was an example of dependency
and pairing. Our group became dependent on the leaders to guide them out of the negative
state they were in. they needed to be told how to solve their own problems and how to find a
solution which made team members lack initiative in the problem-solving process (Werner
and Bagraim, 2007). We can also be considered have been an example of pairing as often
the strategists within our group would do everything together and the creatives would do the
same among them. This lead to a lack of collaboration as a group and what caused us to
become dysfunctional (Werner and Bagraim, 2007).

The Tuckman and Jensen model focuses on the stages of group development which
consists of forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning (Werner and Bagraim,
2007). The forming phase focuses on the initial stage in which we as a team were formed
and met. As a group we were initially awkward and self-conscious as we were unsure of
everyone’s capabilities. However, within the first three days we had started to get to know
each other and enjoy each other’s company. The next stage is storming and this was a
crucial stage for my group during brand challenge as conflict would arise due to a lack of
communication. The creatives members were unable to translate our strategy into a visual
representation due to miscommunication. This lead to frustration as executions and design
work simply did not meet the standards and expectations of all members within the group.

During the norming stage team conflict is supposed to be replaced by feelings of

cohesiveness (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). However, this was a stage in which my team
lacked, we became cohesive and team conflict did eventually settle but this was due to other
motivated team members carrying the burden and taking on the slack work. The strategists
became cohesive as their own team as they attempted to take on creative work that was
subpar. On the basis of performing, as a group we performed better in some aspects, than
others. Our strategy document affectively achieved the goals we set out to achieve however
it was our creative design work that failed to deliver and meet the expectations created by
the group. The last phase is adjourning where we as a team dissolved due to the ending of
brand challenge. We initiated a celebratory evening where we celebrated our work and the
time spent with one another, after this event our team had become adjourned. This was a
planned dissolution as we had completed our four-week brand challenge experience.
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Team processes describe a set of behaviours which can include both individual or group
behaviours that communicate the emotional status in the team with the exception of content
(Werner and Bagraim, 2007). An analysis of the cohesion and attractiveness of the team to
the team members provides an indication of underlying processes. A cohesive team is
described as one that displays integrity, commits to decisions and holds each other
accountable (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). However, during my brand challenge experience,
team cohesiveness severely lacked. Although on a personal level we enjoyed each other’s
company, from a team perspective we were very divided. We could hardly commit to a
decision, constantly making changes to executions and rewriting our concepts and due to
the fear of scrutiny, no one was held responsible for their actions. An example of this was
when a very poorly executed design was created, one of the strategy students in our group
decided to redesign the work and created a design that was far more visually appealing and
relatable to our communications. Our constant divide and mentality really became a
hinderance to our team cohesiveness.

Another aspect of team processes is the attractiveness of membership. Unfortunately since

our groups were not a choice and many of us were not initial friends, we did struggle to find
commitment in the early stages of our brand challenge experience. We lacked a correlation
between individuals goals and team goals due to our different standards and expectations as
individuals. Since we were all at different levels academically it made it difficult for our
individual goals to be aligned with our team goals. Our team climate also became relatively
heated at certain points throughout our experience. This was mainly due to our frustrated
feelings of not all team members being on the same level and the lack of communication. It
was evident that the strategists’ vision for the brief was different to those of the creatives
members of our team. Lastly regarding team processes our team became segregated due to
fear and stress. Therefore those who shared like-minded viewpoints would interact more
often with each other, this caused us to have a lack of unity.

As a team we had many obstacles due to our team dynamic and dysfunctions. Using Patrick
Lencioni’s model, there are five potential dysfunctions that can cause a team to have a lack
of cohesiveness (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). These dysfunctions are: absence of trust,
fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability and inattention to results
(Werner and Bagraim, 2007). The absence of trust focuses on individuals inability to be
open about one another’s mishaps and failures. This dysfunction played in a role in our
ability to function as a unit. During our brand challenge experience we faced various issues
where the creative design work simply did not correlate with our strategy or there was often
miscommunication. Instead of taking the work upon ourselves, we as a team should have
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pointed these mistakes out instead of criticising it among a few members of the group and
them fixing the design work ourselves.

Because we lacked trust we were afraid of conflict, members of our team were fearful of
hurting team members feelings and bruising egos that we therefore chose to be silent about
the below-average work that was produced. Our fear of conflict was a result in us not being
able to be vocal about the mistakes and weaknesses made within our team. Due to our team
lacking to be open discussion, we faced a lack of commitment. We had individuals in our
group who were willing to stay at Vega till late hours of the evening in order for the work to
be done where other team members would leave midday and they would be unable to be
contacted. Work would be submitted late and we struggled to have an effective present full
team who were motivated to get the work done in one space.

As a whole our team lacked accountability, during panel presentations when there were
mistakes made, members of our team would play the “blame game” instead of
acknowledging the faults as a team and working towards the improvements. We struggled to
hold team members accountable for the subpar work that was delivered and instead of being
accountable, the work that did not lie within our specialisations were adopted. Our failure to
work cohesively as a team stemmed for our inattention to results. Had we held each other
accountable and focussed on every member of the team producing quality work and
nurturing this culture and mentality we would have flourished as a team.

There are various components that create a team dynamic, therefore by understanding your
team, holding team members accountable and having a culture of collaboration teams are
more likely to be successful (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). Teamwork has the ability to
create success or failure within an organisation therefore the use of team-building and
motivating team members is vital (Werner and Bagraim, 2007).

Question 2
Conflict can be defined as a situation where there are differences in power, values and
viewpoints that may result in a misunderstanding, animosity between two or more groups of
people (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). Conflict management deals with techniques to
alleviate these issues within an organisation (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). This essay will
focus on the issues and the conflict management strategies used within the Brand Challenge
2018 context.
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Conflict is not necessarily categorised to be a solely bad occurrence, if properly managed It

can be incredibly vital (Berger, 2017). Effective leaders manage conflict through some level
of confrontation. Conflict unfortunately cannot just be ignored as it often leads to greater
issues that can impact the functions of the organisation (Berger, 2017). Therefore, conflict
needs to be categorised into functional or dysfunctional conflict. Functional conflict can be
understood as the result that leads to an open discussion, understanding the differences of
others and innovative solutions. Conflict in this case becomes a driver for the team (Werner
and Bagraim, 2007). Dysfunctional conflict is considered to be conflict that is focussed on
emotions rather than the goal of the team. This type of conflict branches off from personality
clashes or emotional interactions (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). During our brand challenge
experience, we faced team conflict where members within our team disagreed on how to
achieve various goals or miscommunicated what was needed and expected from each team
member.

One of the greatest actions towards creating an environment that minimises conflict is
creating a strong culture (Berger, 2017). It’s important to build a culture that encourages
giving and receiving feedback (Berger, 2017). Using my brand challenge experience as an
example we attempted to minimise conflict from the beginning of our encounters by each
team member discussing their strengths and weaknesses. This was done specifically to
have a better understanding of one another so that each team member would be able to
each other. This would therefore minimise the conflict as all team members were aware of
the weaknesses each of us have. We did initially struggle with confrontation as none of the
members of the team desired to voice their grievances. However, our weekly team meeting
became a platform for us to encourage one another and to also shed light on issues to
therefore reduce the conflict in the long term.

Although this was our initial approach to brand challenge in hope to reduce our team conflict
we still faced many obstacles due to goal differences and miscommunication. Although our
common goal as a unit was to produce the best work we could for our client we struggled
since each member of our team had different expectations. Our team did not consist of all
distinction or academic driven students therefore conflict arose when team members were
working twice as hard as other individuals. We had some team members who were willing to
spend late nights at Vega to accomplish tasks, those who were willing to push themselves
out of their comfort zones and then those who were lazy and unmotivated. Our
miscommunication stemmed from our creative team members who were unable to translate
our strategy into a visual execution.
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Although these frustrated members of our team these causes of conflict lead us to adopt our
conflict management style; avoiding conflict. Since we were a majority female team,
confrontation was not a path we all particularly enjoyed we therefore avoided conflict by
adopting the work ourselves. However, before we reached this stage as a team, we
attempted to communicate our grievances in a non-invasive or scrutinising manner. We
assisted our creative members by guiding them, we told them the tone that our creative
executions should embody as well as what the visuals needed to communicate through the
use of colour and various other elements that were stipulated in our brief. However, after
continuously indirectly approaching the situation through idea suggestions and assistance,
our barrier was still there. We had even attempted to use an individual from another team to
play devil’s advocate but the changes simply did not meet the standards of the team.

Our creatives simply lacked the initiative to fully understand and represent the client as well
as our proposed strategy. Therefore, strategists immersed themselves in creative work in
order to avoid conflict and to have executions that met their own personal standards.
However, this was not the correct approach and our conflict management strategy could
have been improved. We needed to take a direct approach where all members sit around
the table and voice their grievances. Each member of the team needed to suggest how to
make the team successful and what did they feel we were failing to do as a team. From
there each of us needed to be vocal about our situations with the communication and the
poor executions that did not meet standards and expectations.

We needed to create a safe space and be honest with one another without making members
of our team feel despondent or breaking their self-esteem. We also should have made use of
our buddy team and the campus councillor who could have facilitated our meeting to ensure
that no member of our team felt attacked. We did have sensitive members of our team
especially those within a creative specialisation who were very specific towards their craft
and could only create a certain style of work. Since brand challenge is a learning experience,
we should have encouraged each member of our team to learn. Because our creative team
members often felt their personal style could not match that of the client they became lazy
which also stirred conflict in our team.

A huge improvement we could have made as a team is that throughout our brand challenge
experience we became divided due to our conflict, it became a strategist and them
(creatives) mentality. The strategists spoke among themselves in an unconstructive manner
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about their issues. Instead of gossiping about our issues we should have discussed it as a
group so that improvements could have been made.

The time factor became an issue as team members lacked commitment and would leave
campus early. A compromise needed to take place to assist with this conflict issue. Parts of
our team would leave early due to having other commitment or because they were simply
ineffective when working at Vega. Other members of our team wanted the entire team in one
specific area so that communication could be more effective and there was more control on
the work being produced. Therefore, we should have created a formal schedule to create
structure where all team members were required to be at campus from e.g. 8-2pm and after
that they could carry on with work in their personal spaces but they must be able to be
contacted. Once a week we should have opted to work in a different space to effectively
work together as a team.

Towards the end of brand challenge as our final presentation was approaching we would
often have petty conflicts via online group chats. Although these minor disputes were
unnecessary they did play a part in work being accomplished. These petty conflicts were
centred around creative changes that needed to be made, however our creative team
members would complain as changes would take too long. This behaviour reinforced our
issue that team members had different expectations, where some of us were aiming for a
distinction other were merely happy to simply pass.

To truly alleviate this conflict issue, we should have motivated our team to therefore produce
the best work possible. If we motivated our team to reach a common goal which was not
only to produce the best work, we could for our client but to be specific in the sense where
we aimed to have a gold ranking each week this could have potentially resolved our conflict
issue. If we were all driven individuals this expectations conflict we faced could have been
resolved in a better manner than just our initial approach to avoid conflict. A huge point of
learning from this brand challenge is that everyone is different and not everyone thinks or
has the same standards. This is the reality of the working world therefore we need to learn to
interact and understand the way in which people operate.

If were open and honest with all members of our team and initiated constructive face to face
feedback with the ability to handle criticism in a mature manner our conflict could have easily
been resolved and we would have functioned better as a team (Werner and Bagraim, 2007).
If we had a better and more effective conflict resolution result we would have a better
understanding of each team member and how to communicate with one another as well as
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increased cohesion. We would have worked more efficiently as a team (Werner and
Bagraim, 2007).

Question 3

Leadership is vital for any unit or team to function. It provides a team with direction and
organises them into their tasks and duties (Mindtools, 2018). Its purpose is to add structure
to the team and to be an assistant in team dynamics. Leadership has the ability to truly
inspire and motivate team members to produce their best work and to create a culture of
unity and positivity (Mindtools, 2018).

Leadership is defined as the social manner in which individuals are influenced to function in
a voluntarily, driven and motivated to achieve the team purpose and goal (Werner and
Bagraim, 2007). It provides the organisation with a clear path to move from its current
position to its desired destination. Leaders play a role in providing the necessary steps to
reach incremental objectives that will lead to the ultimate goal (Werner and Bagraim, 2007).
They align the efforts of their team members with the organisation vision through the use of
strategy, services and building relationships to achieve the end or long-term goal.
Leadership focuses on mapping out where the organisation needs to go to ultimately
become successful as an organisation (Werner and Bagraim, 2007).

In context of my brand challenge experience, our team had two leaders who worked side by
side and complimented each other. Originally our group opted to not have a leader as they
felt that it would be unnecessary and most individuals in the group were unwilling to take on
that responsibility. However we found in the beginning stages of our brand challenge
experience that the lack of leadership displayed our lack our lack in direction and inability to
accomplish tasks.

Through our lack of direction, two leaders emerged to give our team better structure and
focus. Our honours team member, Katherine and myself took on the role to lead and guide
or team to success. Katherine has a trait leadership perspective, although she has never
been involved with brand challenge in the past, she quickly took on the role to organise our
group and delegate tasks (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). Her phenomenal organising skills
allowed us to have a clear vision in the objectives that needed to be obtained each day. I
was able to assist Katherine to lead by helping her understand the process of brand
challenge and what each stage required. Through this we were able to relay the tasks
needed to each group member to better function as a team.
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Katherine can be identified to have a trait leadership perspective to her natural ability to
organise individuals and tasks in an efficient and effortless manner (Werner and Bagraim,
2007). It was through this innate skill we were able to work well as a unit for most of our
brand challenge experience. Katherine’s personal competencies consisted of high energy
and willingness to succeed as well personal effectiveness (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). Her
social competencies focussed on her ability to influence, when she gave direction and set
out tasks for each individual these tasks were achieved (Werner and Bagraim, 2007).
Acknowledging the behavioural leadership perspective by Blake and Mouton’s Leadership
Grid, Katherine can be considered to be a team leader (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). She
attempted to boost team morale through rewards for e.g. team treats as in confectionary
goods as well as team coffees. She did this to create an environment that would make our
team desire to work together and be within the same working space. Her focus on goal
attainment is why she can be categorised as a team leader (Study, 2017). She attempted to
listen to all communication channels and acknowledged the opinions of team members
during decision making. Ultimately Kat wanted the very best results as possible from her
team but they lacked drive and motivation. She encompassed team spirit and offered
incentives to our team while striving and making sure the daily objectives were met.

Fiedler’s contingency leadership theory suggests that a leader can only be either task or
relationship orientated and they need to be placed in an environment suited to their style
(Werner and Bagraim, 2007). I however disagree, I believe that a strong and capable leader
is one that has the ability to adapt. It is noted that in this case Katherine is a task-orientated
leader who is highly self-motivated and goal driven therefore, according to Fiedler’s theory,
Katherine would be most productive and successful working in a structured environment
where team members would be receptive to this specific style (Werner and Bagraim, 2007).

I however can be considered to be the more emotional leader and therefore we both
complimented each other well. Where Katherine’s strengths lied in her abilities to organise
and plan, my strength lied in my ability to empathise and understand people. I therefore
categorise myself to be a servant leader (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). I constantly tried to
promote a sense of purpose and belonging among the group so that every team member felt
that they were adding value to the team. An example of this is, is when a member of our
team felt lost and did not understand her role as a copywriter according to the brief that was
given. I took the time to try and motivate her by conversing with other copywriters to
understand what her role entails and to encourage her to produce work. It was simply taking
the time to understand the situation and her feelings so I could motivate her. It was through
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this encounter, our copywriter found a sense of purpose and started attempting to get
involved in the creative process. She was able to incorporate her flair and strengths into the
client brief for an aspect of our strategy.

The value-based leader is the leadership style I identify with the most (Werner and Bagraim,
2007). I always aim to promote and carry myself with a sense of integrity and honesty. I lead
our team in accordance to my own personal values which is what defines a value-based
leader. Value-based leadership is not about the personality traits of leaders but rather their
underlying values and attitudes that actions and influence their interactions (Werner and
Bagraim, 2007). I was often the mediator through our brand challenge experience, when
topics of interest became heated I reminded each team member that respect is a key value
we share not only as individuals but also as a team. When our team would become divided
in a case of strategists versus the creatives, I did my best to try and understand both parties.
An example of the value based leadership style being used is when members of our team
would sneer or make impolite comments about team members I would step in to remind our
team members that, this type of behaviour is not necessary and will create animosity among
us. I encouraged unity by reminding our team that we succeed by uplifting others not tearing
each other down.

Remaining ethical and honest has always been a huge part of who I am as individual, I
brought this aspect of myself to my brand challenge experience by being mindful, engaging,
and authentic. When asked my opinion on decisions that needed to be made, I always made
sure to take a moment to evaluate the situation and the options I had when required to make
a decision. How will my decision impact another individual? This is a key question I ask
myself during a decision-making process. An example of this, is as team we struggled to
often bridge the gap between creative and strategists. This would result in the strategists
within our team asking for assistance in how to handle a certain situation with the creative
members of our team. I would therefore take a moment to find a decision that would result in
both happy parties. Initially, embracing the diversity of our thinking as individuals was an
obstacle for me as a leader. However, I learnt that my embracing the diversity I could be
empathetic and understand my team better. I attempted to use each person’s strengths to
help tackle our daily objectives. This is also a display of authentic behaviour. Unfortunately,
this did not always translate positively as some of our team members strengths creatively did
not match the voice and feel of our client.

Katherine would have been seen as the sole leader to the rest of the team because of the
manner in which she carried out tasks and herself. I however was pleased to be a silent
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leader, one that assisted my team in any way possible but may not has been as vocal in
comparison to Katherine.

As a team there were two types of leadership methods that needed to be better adopted:
transformational leadership and authentic leadership. A transformational leader is one that
plays an integral role in creating a dynamic organisation (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). The
influence of the transformational leader makes followers believe that change offers the
opportunity to grow and develop to new heights (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). If we had a
transformational leader during our brand challenge experience, they may have had the
potential to inspire the creative students to change and branch-out so they can better align
their work with the desires of the client. They would have understood the vision and been
motivated to get on board to produce work that collectively as a team everyone would have
been proud of. Although I value authenticity as an individual, I needed to promote
authenticity better in order to create group solidarity and to potentially better persuade team
members. The lack of these two leadership approaches and characteristics may have also
burdened us as we struggled with how to deal with various scenarios (Werner and Bagraim,
2007).

Overall I believe our leadership was well received and good, we managed to have tasks
equally distributed and understand our team members. However, by adopting other
leadership tactics we may have been able to improve our productivity and outputs as a team.

Question 4
Organisational change focuses on the stages that a company will encounter as they evolve
over time. Organisational change occurs in reaction to an event or circumstance in order for
the organisation to move forward and exist (Gartenstein, 2018). It refers to an alteration that
takes place in the working environment where businesses need to adapt to change in order
to stay relevant (Gartenstein, 2018). This essay will focus and compare three models of
organisational change: Kurt Lewin’s three stage model of change, A systems model of
organisational change and innovation and Kotter’s model of change.

Models of organisational change are simplistic representations of complex organisational

change and development functions. These models however enable us to understand
organisational change. Kurt Lewin’s organisational change model consists of three stages:
unfreezing, movement and refreezing (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). The first stage
unfreezing is focussed on preparing the organisation for the change that is to come. This can
include the environmental changes that are being anticipated or forecasted that may
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ultimately affect the organisation, investigating the organisation’s ability to handle this
change and then creating the motivation to carry forward this change (Werner and Bagraim,
2007). The second stage is movement and this stage is concerned with organisation moving
towards its desired position by introducing various strategic plans (Werner and Bagraim,
2007).
An example of this could be the learning of new procedures and new behaviours that will
need to be adopted by the employees of the organisation. The third stage refreezing implies
cementing and making sure the changes that have been introduced become permanent.
This stage stabilises the organisation’s manner of operating and the new desired behaviour
is promoted and encouraged.

The systems model of organisational change and innovation is based on the concept that
the organisation is an open system that routinely interacts with all that’s around it (Werner
and Bagraim, 2007). The organisation consists of subsystems that influence each other
(Werner and Bagraim, 2007). This model focuses on the factors that influence the
organisation also known as the inputs, the transformation process and then the outputs. The
inputs are regarded as anticipating a need to change, transformational leadership, vision,
change agents, SWOT analysis, diagnosis, analysis and feedback (Werner and Bagraim,
2007). These are eight factors that can potentially influence an organisation and have the
ability to spark desired change.

The transformation phase consists of two parts: planning and implementation. Within these
two parts there are three main approaches to organisational change: structural, technical
and behavioural (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). Structural and technical approaches affect the
organisational behaviour and attitudes of the employees where as behavioural approaches
are aimed specifically at individuals, teams, management and the organisational culture. It’s
important to note that these subsystems are interrelated therefore a change in one area will
have a domino effect and affect various areas within the organisation.

The outputs are measures to achieve the desired end results. Hard measures e.g.
production levels and revenue can be used to measure the operation success of the
organisation. The outputs are measured at regular intervals in order to determine whether
the goals are being achieved (Managementstudyguide.com, 2017).

Lastly Kotter’s model of change is an eight step systemic process that emphasises the
importance of change (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). His model consists of:
1. Establish a sense of urgency
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2. Create a guiding coalition
3. Develop a vision and strategy
4. Communicate the change vision
5. Empower broad based action
6. Generate short term wins
7. Consolidate gains and produce more change
8. Anchor new approaches in the culture

Using this change model, organisations will need to create a sense of urgency by having an
open and transparent conversation about what is happening within the organisation and the
market place (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). If people start talking about the change, the
urgency can build and feed on itself. A sense of urgency can be accomplished through
displaying various scenarios that could take place if change is not introduced as well as new
potential opportunities (Werner and Bagraim, 2007).

By convincing people that change is necessary a powerful coalition can be formed. To bring
coalition an effective team with a high levels of influence need to come together to promote
and embrace the change so that a positive outlook on the change can be filtered throughout
the organisation (Werner and Bagraim, 2007).

A vision that is attractive will ultimately result in a buy-in from all the stakeholders within the
organisation (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). Developing a direction as to why this change is
necessary is vital as this provides employees with context as to why this change must occur.
The vision and strategy must therefore be communicated to all members of the organisation
so they are made aware of all the changes and have an understanding of the purpose for
this change.

Removing the obstacles that may provide barriers to stakeholders buying -in to the change
can result as a stumbling block for both the organisation as a whole and the individuals who
are driven to carry out the change (Werner and Bagraim, 2007). Therefore, management
needs to be aware of the obstacles that may occur and prepare for them. Create an
organisation of problem solvers who are ready to embrace the change.

Creating public triumphs to acknowledge and reward the success and to then use the
success to propel the organisation into a greater scale of change (Werner and Bagraim,
2007). And then to lastly reinforce the new changes so that they ultimately become habits.
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These three models can be regarded as similar as each step or initial phase starts with an
initiator of change. Kurt Lewin’s model focuses on unfreezing which prepares the
organisation for change, a systems model focuses on the inputs which influence the
organisation and Kotter believes in urgency which is an understanding for the reasons of
change (Business Management Ideas, 2018). Both Lewin’s and the systems model have a
very similar process with the use of the three phases that ultimately have the same outcome.
The systems model however has a more global approach regarding the inputs that affect the
organisational change. It is also more specific, pointing out clear factors that will potentially
affect the organisation. Whereas the unfreezing stage in Lewin’s model focuses on preparing
the organisation for change (Business Management Ideas, 2018). Kotter’s organisational
change model is a detailed process and takes both Lewin’s and the systems model into
consideration.

The first step is focussed on the reason to change which links to the systems model’s input
“anticipating a need to change” and the unfreezing stage in Lewin’s model. All three models
also end in a similar manner with a focus on creating a new sense of efficiency and making a
habit of the new behavioural changes of the organisation. This can be seen with the freezing
stage in Lewin’s model which aims cement the new way of operating into the company. The
outputs in the systems model focus on creating an environment that creates satisfied
customers and employees (Business Management Ideas, 2018). The last step in the Kotter
model is to reinforce the new processes and behaviours to elevate them a level of habit.

The models differ in the sense that Kotter’s steps are not a linear process like the other
models and needs to be applied concurrently to various situations within the company. This
model is also simple with regards to the steps that need to be followed however the steps
can’t be skipped and the process can be very time consuming (Business Management
Ideas, 2018). Kotter’s model also is a top down approach which gives minimal options for
co-creation or true participation. With regards to Lewin’s model though the idea of the model
is substantiated it ultimately lacks the consideration of human feelings and experiences
(Business Management Ideas, 2018). Although the Kotter model is detailed and
encompasses most aspects on how to achieve organisational change, the Lewin model is
ultimately shorter and is most likely to be adopted by organisations when facing
organisational change (Business Management Ideas, 2018).

There are pros and cons to every organisational change model however organisations need
to choose a structure that best suits their situation at hand. They need to understand
holistically the various models and how they can be implemented into the organisation. The
 17
systems model provides a global viewpoint on the factors that may affect the organisation,
Lewin’s process lacks human understanding and the Kottler model is time consuming. Each
has their pro and con therefore the organisation must decide based on the changes that
needed to be made in the company (Business Management Ideas, 2018).

References
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