Assignment:
Each year Fortune magazine publishes a "Most Admired" list of the top companies in the United States. Firms are rated on these eight dimensions: innovativeness, quality of management, long-term investment value, social responsibility to the community and the environment, people management, quality of products and services, financial soundness, wise use of corporate assets, and, if international, a ninth dimension: effectiveness in doing business globally.
For this assignment, select a familiar organization (you are encouraged to select an organization in which you have been employed for at least 6 months). Then, choose one of the eight dimensions used to rate top U.S. companies in which the organization appears to be underperforming. Prepare a PowerPoint presentation (12-15 slides) that addresses the following:
1. Identify a major issue the organization is facing and in which dimension (of the eight identified above) it is underperforming. Explain the ramifications the underperformance is currently having on the organization. Identify the likely consequence of failure to improve in the selected dimension.
2. Analyze the relevance of the current organizational structure, design, and culture and their influence on organizational effectiveness, especially in relationship to the dimension in which the organization is struggling.
3. Determine whether the organization embodies the principles and values of conscious culture and management and its relevance to improving organizational function.
4. Present a plan to bring about necessary improvement using Kotter's 8-step change model.
5. Address possible challenges to the suggested change and your plans for managing those challenges.
6. Explain how different subsystems need to be realigned in order to bring about the change.
7. Detail any lessons learned and evaluate strategies that you as a manager will either avoid or engage in when designing the structure, building culture, and managing change in your organization.
8. Present evidence from at least three scholarly articles to support your position and proposed change initiative.