Change Management: Exploring the understanding of an Organization's Capacity to Change in Atkins and Rio Tinto.

Master's Thesis from the year 2011 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: Distinction, Cass Business School, course: MBA, language: English, abstract: The purpose of this report is to detail the background, methodology and the findings of a pilot study that was undertaken to assess what constitutes an organization's capacity to undergo change. The study has been sponsored by a boutique management consulting firm based in London, which is looking at new opportunities for its business development. However, the study has far reaching consequences and tries to provide answers to why some organizations are better at change, while others are not. In-spite of all research and models, 70% of all change initiatives fail to deliver as planned originally. This might leave one wondering why? Why it is that consulting firms have little or no problem to change while manufacturing companies have huge problems even undertaking minor change initiatives? The organization structure does play a part, but what about an organization's ability or culture; doesn't that play a part in this? This study has tried to find answers to the above questions and has high-lighted 8 dimensions that an organization needs to think of before embarking on a change initiative. The dimensions are related to culture, ability of leaders, capabilities of key persons and effectiveness of organization processes. It has been found that each of these 8 dimensions is important for a change initiative to be successful and the same has been validated by studying a recently concluded change effort at Atkins. The results of the study have helped us identify the areas of improvement for Atkins, so as to mitigate the pain of change efforts. Our recommendations are around effective processes for communication, skills and training programs for line managers and change champions and framework for change planning.