Change is amongst one of the most laborious activities that any organization must undertake. Various reasons call for the need for change in an organization whether it is to help meet business goals and objectives, changing of status quo, mergers, and acquisitions among others. Nonetheless, despite change being an inevitable factor, more than 50% of all organizational change initiatives fail. The result of this is that the business will find it hard adapting to the political, social and environmental conditions thus losing their competitive advantage. The changes in an organization do not just affect the employees but also the company's leadership. Some of the most potent forces occurring in transformation are both pre-existing political dynamics and those created when you implement the changes in the form of employee resistance. Within any organization, conflict and resistance form part of the organizational culture (Pieterse, Caniëls & Homan, 2012). Because of this, it is natural that people would want things always to go their way and appear as the “winners.” The outcome of this is that people will tend to behave in ways that benefit their interest thus bringing about political upheavals within an organization.
In the event of implementing significant changes or initiatives, personally motivated political behavior is seen in the leaders. The leaders begin exerting their influence over other whom they have power over. Power is defined as the ability of an individual to exercise their will over others making politics a functional domain of power. In most cases, many political upheavals happen behind closed doors, and despite people thinking it is invisible, it is far more apparent than its perpetrators. It is an indication that organizational politics is central to a theoretical understanding of change and practical intervention in the change process (Bouckenooghe, 2012). People will end up colluding and not discuss the negative impacts of introducing political behavior at the workplace leaving the outcomes of this running rampant throughout the organization. Organizational politics does not support the overall change or long-term benefits of an organization instead; it has a destructive effect on the realization of the change process (Bouckenooghe, 2012). Organizational politics can sabotage the outcomes, drag the entire process and slow things down.
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Intel Corporation
Intel Inc. is an American Multinational company with its headquarters located in Santa Clara, California. Intel supplies processors to various computer and laptop manufacturers such as Dell, Apple, HP, and Lenovo. Additionally, the company is involved in the manufacturing of embedded processors, graphics chips, flash memory, network interface controllers, motherboard chipsets and other electronic components affiliated to computing and communication. Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce founded the company in 1968, and since then, it has had the opportunity to grow into a technological giant. As of 2017, the company had revenues amount to $62.76 billion and 107,100 employees .
Nonetheless , despite this tremendous growth over the years, the company has had to face many challenges along the way both internal and external. One of the internal disagreements encountered by Intel Inc. results from organizational politics in its board. This mainly involves disagreements between the various board members.
Internal Power Struggles and Organizational Change Disagreements at Intel
Brian Krzanich served as Intel’s CEO from 2013 until 2018 following his resignation. He joined the corporation in 1982 and worked as the Chief Operating Officer before his promotion into CEO in 2013 (Patrizio, 2018). His departure in 2013 was linked to a consensual sexual affair with one of Intel’s female employees that were against the company policies.
Nonetheless, despite working hard and helping Intel to diversify its workforce and product offerings, he forced out a lot of the company’s board members and other management personnel during his tenure. Under his leadership, Intel lost a considerable number of homegrown talents such as Kirk Skaugen (PC Division), Doug Davis (IoT), Renee James (Software director), Deborah Conrad (Chief Marketing Officer), Diane Bryant, and Kim Stevenson (Temlib, 2017).
The primary reason for this was that Krzanich feared that one of the executives would take over his position as Intel had a long history of picking in-house employees to its top ranks. Krzanich wanted to bring about various changes at Intel that would only serve his interest. Any executive who tried to oppose his changes was bound to exit not only by being fired but from the intense pressure; he put on the other executives. In the case of Deborah Conrad, the Chief Marketing Officer at Intel, Krzanich publicly castigated her before being replaced by unqualified staff (Patrizio,2018) Moreover, Krzanich laid off thousands of Intel employees with the aim of helping the company save operational costs. However, the shocking factor was that he later went ahead and awarded himself a $3.5 million salary increase (Patrizio, 2018). This did not go well with some of the various executive employees at Intel and chose to resign.
On February 20, 2014, Intel Inc.’s executive VP of the Intel Architecture Group David ‘Dadi” Perlmutter, resigned. Perlmutter had worked for the company for more than three decades following his resignation (McAllister, 2013). During his tenure at the company, he oversaw the development and innovation of various technologies such as the Pentium M processor in 2000 and Centrino Mobile platform. The Pentium M processor laid down the foundation for Intel’s core processor line, which Perlmutter also led. During his career rise at Intel, Perlmutter went ahead, became the head of all Intel’s platform product lines across consumer electronics, desktops, data centers, and laptops, and embedded devices (McAllister, 2013).
Nevertheless, following the appointment of Brian Krzanich as CEO in 2013, he initiated significant changes at the company that affected Perlmutter. These changes would see Krzanich overseeing the PC client division, data center division and mobile communications division all reporting to him. Perlmutter had earlier headed all the three divisions. Krzanich later did not announce a new role for Perlmutter and instead stated that they would work together with each other to support Intel attain its goals (McAllister, 2013). Nonetheless, Perlmutter decided to depart from the company.
Paul Otellini is another Intel CEO who resigned two years before his retirement age at the company. Otellini was accused of spearheading various changes at Intel without seeking advice from the board of directors or some of his executives. As a result of this, during his tenure, Intel lost two of the most brilliant minds Anand Chandrasekhar (head of ultra-mobile division) and Patrick Gelsinger (a technical director) (Temlib, 2017). The departure of the two meant that Intel’s future was unpredictable and it was not known whether the company would continue being a technological giant and compete with Google, Microsoft among others.
During Otellini’s tenure, a high number of executives including the board of directors wanted Intel to work with Apple, as the latter wanted to develop a revolutionary chip project with the former (Temlib, 2017). Otellini refused the deal with Apple, which saw Apple seeking services from Samsung. In case Otellini had chosen to work with Apple, the company would have benefited from the iPhone sales that have taken over the smartphone market. He also missed an opportunity of purchasing two companies Qualcomm and Broadcom and decided to spend more than $8 billion acquiring McAfee, a software and internets security provider (Temlib, 2017). He did not follow what the board wanted, in the end, Intel sold McAfee at a loss, and following his poor decision-making abilities and lack of cooperation and collaboration with other executives in choosing the right change directions, he resigned in 2012.
Intel’s Chief Technological Officer announced his departure from the company in mid-2013 after rising through the ranks and helping the company grow into a tech giant (Morgan,2013). His resignation raised many red flags as he was performing very well before his departure. Rattner was one of the greatest strategic minds at Intel. However, it is believed that Krzanich played a huge role towards the exit of Justin Rattner and others senior sector chiefs at Intel. After his ascension into power, Krzanich wanted to become involved in all organizational operations and become the overall executive. As he implemented these changes, Krzanich stepped on many other people’s toes for he had given himself full power over Intel operations making a considerable number of heads of department and executive members to leave the company.
Changes and Internal Politics
In the 21 st century, the business environment is faced by a myriad of challenges resulting from increased technological advancement, globalization, dwindling resources, melting global economies, changing shareholder demands, and increased competition. This has brought about for a much more need for the best practices to help the organizations in succeeding and surviving the murky business environment. The business environment is now unpredictable bringing about a need for continuous changes at the workplaces.
Nonetheless, change has always been known to bring about negative impacts at the workplace, and the most recent one is the introduction of politics within the organizations (Bouckenooghe, 2012). With a business, power and politics have been mixed making certain people want to satisfy their needs by acquiring power legitimacy and other illegitimately senior managers are known to compete for resources and their interest while employees compete amongst themselves for other fulfillments. Managers and employees have come to learn that organizational politics is the only means one will win the various organizational wars and more importantly, can get things done.
As an organization implements various changes, the top leadership plays a vital role in formulating the strategies that will be used in making the changes a reality. However, politics is introduced during the entire process, and this is what makes most changes for failing (Vigoda-Gadot & Talmud,2010) . Some leaders end up using devious strategies based on the adage of divide and rule. In the case of Brian Krzanich, this was his strategy at Intel. He pushed for various organizational changes such as setting job cuts and different investment portfolios.
Nevertheless, some of the executives that did not align with his changes were fired , and some resigned due to the intense pressure by the former CEO. Otellini, a former CEO at Intel similarly used a dived and rule strategy by implementing various strategies that did not have the support of the entire executive leadership at the firm. Executive members who opposed his acquisition of McAfee resigned following a poor relationship with Otellini. Krzanich used a divide and conquered by infusing conflicts with various department heads such as Rattner who quit.
From the case of Intel, it is evident that change brings about harmful internal organizational politics the leaders in most cases will push for change agenda that befit their interest and force others to implement the strategies. However, for leaders who might not align with the specific changes, they are either fired or bow down to pressure and resign. In other words, change and organizational politics have a mutual relationship. It arises from the fact; a leader will even employ devious strategies in fighting off other leaders who do not support his ideas. In case he/she has overall power such as the CEO, the leader under him/her will end up being fired or pressured until they finally resign. In the long run, a leader will employ his/her friend who will not oppose any changes even though they will negatively affect the company as witnessed in the numerous failed projects by Krzanich.
Impact of Change on Organizational Future
It is quite evident that from the tenure of Paul Otellini and Brian Krzanich, a high number of executive members left the company. Some resigned while the CEO fired others. During Krzanich error, it was marred by a high rate of brain drain as some of the best and renowned technical directors and managers left the company. Most of the executives including other employees stated that Krzanich was a short-tempered individual and was easily enraged (Temlib, 2017). It was not wise for one to get in his way or question his decisions whatever the reason whether they were valid or not. The high number of top executives who suffered regardless of their rank, being fired, evidences this .
Additionally, this was the case for Otellini who saw the departure of two of the most creative and innovative directors at Intel. Otellini made various organizational changes without engaging in decision-making, and thus some of his executive leaders felt left out. As a result of the brain drain brought about by the two former CEOs, it brought about substantial problems in the development of future product generations. This indicated that it would be difficult to teach and train the new engineers in the respective specialized fields to replace those who had learned the skills for over ten year and above. Krzanich was obsessed with cost reduction and growth an indication most of his changes were based on the mid and short term goals forgetting about Intel’s future.
Change Management Best Practices
The introduction of organizational changes can elicit excitement or threatening reactions among employees and management. As a result of this, change has always been marred by increased rates of resistance and can bring about poor employee relationships within an organization (Pieterse et al., 2012). Successful management of any form of change depends on the cultivating of acceptance and support from all comers within an organization for people will have to change their behavior, mindsets, status quo and adapt to new practices for the change) process to become a success. There are various change management practices that an organization can put in place to ensure that all leaders and employees read from the same book and avoid any conflicts and resistance.
Planning
A traumatic experience resulting from change is asking people their status quo. A considerable number of project managers focus their efforts on the technical aspects of the change leaving out the impact of changes on employees and planning requirements. In case not all people are on board, achieving the mission and vision of the change will not be possible. In planning, one should first communicate the need for change to the other executive leaders including the employees (Newton, 2012). Employees from a crucial part of the change process, as they will be the one who will implement the changes. Through communication, employees will have an awareness of why there is a need for the business to engage in change , what it will mean and be required of them and most importantly, the risk of not changing. The planning phase will allow managers and other executive leaders to have a definition of what their roles will be during the entire change process (Newton, 2012). The aim of this is to prevent any overlapping of duties that might bring about the conflict . Resistance management is another vital element. The management must outline the various measures that will be used in containing any form of resistance.Planning requires the collaboration of project team, supervisors, managers executives sponsors and employees for the entire process to become a success.
Defining Your Governance
Every prosperous change management initiative has well-defined governance, which is fundamentally the structure for making verdicts and the set of pre-determined procedures for executing those decisions. Therefore, change projects require similar governance processes as other organizational functions. Most organization’s skip the formation of a change governance framework as they deem it as being not helpful. As a result of this, leaders end up pushing for change initiatives that flawed bringing about failure in most projects. The governance framework will enable the efficiency, speed, and effectiveness in executing and designing change (Craddock, 2015). A change initiative that lacks governance will slow down the entire progress, and this can arise from confusions along the way on who is in charge, internal political fighting and backtracking on the decisions made. In the end, no actions are taken for people who destroy the change process for there is no clear line who is in charge or who is to be informed about crucial issues.
A good governance structure should address four distinct elements. It should identify the change leadership roles and responsibilities (Craddock, 2015). Once the roles are defined, people with the right skills should properly staff them. Coaching should be provided to the people filling the leadership roles. Secondly, the structure should have an efficient and effective change leadership structure (Craddock, 2015). This can depend on the various leadership structures to ensure each knows who to report to . The aim of this is to eliminate any room for leadership wrangles and politics. Thirdly, there should be concise decision-making processes and rights. The people that will lead the entire change initiative must agree on the decision authority and levels. It will enable one to outline how power is exercised and prevent any room for politics. The final element is that the structure should clearly describe the affiliation between change initiatives and operations the leadership roles under the change management should be described and clarified on how they will interface with leaders who run the actual organizational operations.
Change Agent
This is an individual equipped with the right skills and power to facilitate, stimulate and coordinate change efforts within an organization (Lunenburg, 2010). The change agent will help the organization to increase its reactiveness and readiness to the change initiatives, both externally and internally. The change agent can have a role in the training of the staff and management on various change management processes and different approaches to change. This is based on his/her ability to analyze multiple data and develop the required skills in the staff and management. The change agent can also research various change management styles and use the best one in particular industry (Lunenburg, 2010). This strategy is based on the different means of minimizing resistance, risks and internal politics. The change agent is also a consultant who brings about the experience and specialized set of skills to aid the management team on who to implement various changes and prepare the employees. The change agent should be not be viewed as an instrument of change but rather a source of advice and guidance (Lunenburg, 2010).
Conclusion
The politics of organizational change is purely based on dirty dealings. Additionally, it is based on power and influence or coalition building. However, the overall reasons for leaders to engage in organizational politics is to gain to foster self-interest (Cairns, 2017). Most of the senior managers end up competing for their agenda and resources. Once the organization decides to implement a change, senior managers who feel the change will negatively affect them end up ganging up and begin fighting off the change efforts. This can include sabotaging the implementation of change within their departments and even filling employees with incorrect information regarding the change. This is evidenced from cases whereby employees have cited demonstrating following rumors from senior managers that the change has adverse effects on their well-being. As a result of these dirty dealings resulting from political influences, organizations have ended up losing millions of dollars after failed change efforts. Senior managers who feel the changes will negatively affect them tend to resign and this brings about brain drain affecting the future productivity of a company.
The CEO is the overall executive leader at an organization. In most cases, the CEO plays a vital role during the change initiative formulation process. This has seen the CEO pushing for changes that will benefit them in one way of the other. The CEO will force the senior managers to implement the changes and will not involve the senior managers during the change formulation process. All the senior managers get is a document outlining what needs to be done and a time frame granted for each senior manager. Senior managers who try to oppose the CEO’s initiatives are either sacked, demoted, sent on compulsory leave or pressured until they resign. This is an indication that the CEO uses his/her power and influence to foster for change without consulting senior managers.
The best means through which politics of change can be eliminated among the senior managers and CEO is by introducing a change agent. He/she will act as an outside third party an indication there is no self-interest alignment with proposed changes. The change agent should be neutral and approach the CEO and senior managers similarly to avoid any form of bias. More importantly, the senior managers and CEO should not be involved in the selection of a change agent. This should be left to the change project management team or the human resource management.
References
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Newton, R. (2012). Managing change step by step: All you need to build a plan and make it happen . Harlow: Pearson Business.
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Vigoda ‐Gadot, E., & Talmud, I. (2010). Organizational politics and job outcomes: The moderating effect of trust and social support. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 40 (11), 2829-2861.
