"The Heart of Change" is a book by Dan Cohen and John Kotter that discusses the process of change. According to the authors, the change process takes eight main steps widely accepted all through various industries—these steps from the most suitable model for implementing changes within organizations. Kotter and Cohen's eight-step model contains these stages; emphasizing urgency, establishing a guiding team, getting the right goals, buy-in communication, and empowering action by removing barriers.
The other main steps in this model are: development of short term winnings, sustaining of acceleration, and making the changes permanent. The first three steps of change focus on forming an environment that supports the change. The fourth to the seventh steps focus on creating an enabling and engaging environment within the firm. The last step is about implementing and sustaining change (Chappell et al., 2016). This paper discusses how Tesla Corporation can apply these step steps models of change by Kotter and Cohen. The steps will guide in implementing the good practices and policies by Telas's Human resources management to support change. In discussing these steps, the paper will show the strategies of removing boss barriers, information barriers, system barriers, mental barriers, and information barriers. The paper discusses what Tesla's guiding team has to do in empowering action and retooling the boss.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Applying Kotler's eight steps model
Increasing urgency
Tesla aims to bring about new changes that emphasize re-defining its cultural values to boost employees' confidence and drive buy-in among employees. Thus the changes aim to bring about new ways of working and address the challenges of such changes. Therefore, successful change must occur at Tesla if this organization's management team takes actions that have sufficient urgency. The team has to apply the acting on employee's toes attitude to present opportunities for solving problems ( El-Amin & George, 2020 ). The attitude should also encourage every individual within the company to have a 'let's get into work' or 'let get things rolling' kind of approach. Without creating this sense of urgency, all the company's change efforts will end up in futility. For the transformation initiatives to work successfully, it must start with the leader's ability to assess the changing market to contribute to its competitive realities. Thus, the chief executive officer at Tesla should inform and explain to the employees about the significant changes within the employee's practices, which are eminent. In a frank and open discussion, the chief executive officer will inform the employees with valid evidence from the company's external environment that shows why these changes are necessary ( Chappell et al., 2016 ).
Building a guise team
The sense of urgency will importantly help constitute the right team that will guide the change process within Tesla Company. In doing so, it is crucial to encourage teamwork among members. Cameron & Green (2019) say that many employees will be interested in contributing their efforts without caring about any personal risks through the sense of urgency . Additionally, as they pull their effort towards the same direction, the management has to be watchful and gain trust in the process even when they do not achieve any personal rewards in the short term.
Additional efforts are also required to place the right people in places that require trust, team efforts, and emotional commitment. The strategy is to show commitment and enthusiasm to the right people within the tea. Furthermore, Tesla may conduct meeting formats for the teams to enhance trust and eliminate frustrations.
Have the right Strategy and Vision
In most cases, the guiding team may fail to adopt a realistic goal/vision or a clear direction. Such cases can be tragic for Tesla Corporation and discouraging for employees. Therefore, for successful change efforts, Tesla's guiding team has to answer questions that can help create a clear goal and a sense of direction. The team must be aware of the things to be changed, set a new vision for the company, and outline the small things that have to be changed. Furthermore, the team has to have an effective strategy for making the vision become a reality. Also, the team has to identify those unacceptably dangerous strategies ( El-Amin & George, 2020 ). In doing so, Tesla can position itself towards a better future. Tesla's guiding team has to make efforts to visualize a future and have a vision outlined at any minute. Strategies and vision be moving and bold to bring them into reality.
Vision for Buy in Communication
It is also essential for the guiding team to disseminate strategies and vision. The direction towards change has to be communicated although the companies to enhance buy-in and better understanding. Small et al. (2016) point out that the objective is to make people believe in the process and work willingly to make the vision a reality. Kotter indicates that a compelling vision has to be focused, desirable, and communicable. The vision also needs to be flexible, feasible, and imaginable. It has to be communicated in the most simplistic way for better understanding.
Empowerment of a Broad base action
A successful change process can occur when people at Tesla start to understand and apply action towards the goal or vision. The employees and the management have to be ready to eliminate hindrances that come towards their path. In the book by El-Amin & George (2020), Kotter warns that even the boss can be the single obstacle towards achieving a change process. When the employees are ready to embrace the set visions or want to help attain the vision, their boss shuts them down. Layers of hierarchy and bureaucracy, including rules and procedures, can tie workers who desire to attain the change vision. Another source of disempowerment, according to Kotler, is the lack of information. It is crucial to employ or bring inexperienced people who have successfully bolstered people to gain self-confidence and deal effectively with hindrances. It will help to deal with such hindrances that block the right actions. Another strategy is to use recognition and rewards to promote and inspire optimism ( El-Amin & George, 2020 ). Regular feedback is also crucial in making the right decision on the path towards Tesla's vision.
Short Term wins
The short term will enable the employees at Tesla to nourish their trust and faith towards the change initiative. These short terms win help in building momentum and keep the critics at bay. Lack of these wins may discourage employees and may relax towards taking the right actions towards change. Consolidate procedures and gain after successfully attaining short term wins, it will be possible for Tesla to have both direction and momentum. The organization will steady momentum towards achieving the change vision by lowering the false pride feeling and maintaining urgency. Tesla will eliminate demoralizing and discouraging policies and also celebrate small victories. The company can make use of these successes to revise systems and policies and also deal with major.
Marinating the changing culture
New approached to maintain the desired culture changes in the organization have to be anchored on strong principles. Tesla has to maintain the new practices of human resources by creating new and supportive and formidable culture. According to Chappell et al. (2016), such as supportive culture, it provides a foundation for the new ways and new operating methods, as Kotter pointed out. These practices will enable Telsa to witness a successful change process.
Conclusion
For Tesla to maintain its new human resources practices and approaches as part of its culture, it has to follow the Kotler model's 8 step process as presented in this paper. Stopping even at the seventh step will derail the entire change process. Therefore Tesla's guiding team has to ensure that the new culture change policies have had strong roots. Constantly informing the staff about the visions for a better Tesla, what it does, and reasons for doing them will enable the new changes to stick and be part of Tesla's culture.
References
Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2019). Making sense of change management: A complete guide to the models, tools, and organizational change techniques . Kogan Page Publishers .
Chappell, S., Pescud, M., Waterworth, P., Shilton, T., Roche, D., Ledger, M., & Rosenberg, M. (2016). Exploring the process of implementing healthy workplace initiatives: mapping to Kotter's leading change model. Journal of occupational and environmental medicine , 58 (10), e341-e348.
El-Amin, A., & George, B. (2020). Towards a model and strategy for transformational change. Economics, Management, and Sustainability , 5 (2), 28-38.
Small, A., Gist, D., Souza, D., Dalton, J., Magny-Normilus, C., & David, D. (2016). Using Kotter's change model for implementing bedside handoff: A quality improvement project. Journal of Nursing Care Quality, 31(4), 304-309.
