Archie Norman Case Study Summary

ASDA has a long road ahead of them as the organization is experiencing a time of considerable issues. Archie Norman, a new executive and new leader in the retail world has just taken the rains of the organization. The following essay will discuss the challenges he needs to undertake, the faces of change ASDA needs to engage in, and how they can go about motivating employees so that they engage in the change. Before change can take place, leaders need to communicate the value of the change, as well as, how the firm and the employees with flourish. Moreover, they need to ensure they have a strong implementation strategy.

To being with, Archie has to re-orientate all components of the firm, which is otherwise known as discontinuous change, in

Norman has to take on several different approaches, in order to realize change within the organization. First, in the short run, he had to improve the immediate financial status of the organization as they were almost in breach of their loan covenants. The best approach to solve this is implementing a, turnaround method so he can focus on the income statement and balance sheet in order to reduce cost, or better manage their assets (Spector, 2013, p. 5). This could be removing items, tasks or people that are not directly necessary in the overall process. Another face of change focus for the organization is techniques and tools. These are organizational procedures, systems, as well as, other interactions planned to produce a project or service (Spector, 2013, p. 6). In ASDA case, in order to make changes in regard to the poor quality and customer satisfaction, Archie could utilize and implement a total quality management process. Additionally, he could use a balance score card and run operations lean so that there would be a solid balance between the financial objectives and the internal/ external business processes. The balance between non-behavioral and behavioral elements can lead to success (Spector, 2013, p. 6). Next, to address the poor communication, the organization could change this behavior by linking and coordinating the vital value chain activities of the organization such as purchasing, delivering, sales etc. Lastly,

The literature notes that having the capabilities to handle the different energies help an individual adjust to change more readily (Conner, 2010). When we first discovered the news, we has to mentality analyze what actually was happening and detect how we needed to respond. For illustration, should I look for another job as the company was unsalvageable, or stick it out as this may be a perfect opportunity to prove myself as a leader, which may lead to advancements in the future? We were able to clearly break down the situation into a pros and cons list to make an educated decision. We also had to deal with our emotional energy appropriately, so that our marriage and kids were not affected. For instance, we had feelings of anxiety and loss as we did not want to give up our friends and family in the area. This was not one of strongest areas as we had some disagreements that were not particularly related to the change but more related to our anxiety of leaving my wife’s family. Respectively, I probably should have been more understanding and recognizing of what she was giving up and sacrificing as a part of this move, for example a new job and family. Our physical energy was discovered to be strong. We were successful at balancing our stress levels through relief strategies, such as going to the gym and riding bicycles.