Leadership of change
Tasks # 5

Tuesday, February 12 and Thursday, February 14

1.  Tuesday

Read John P. Kotter's Leading Change, chapter 4.  What are Kotter's answers to the following questions:

• Who should lead corporate change?
• Why are change initiatives beyond the abilities of a single executive?
• What power resources are needed within the guiding coalition?
• What are the contributions of leaders versus managers during organizational change?
• How can a guiding coalition build the trust needed to carry out a major organizational change?

2.  Reflect upon Kotter's recommendations on the leadership of change.

• Which recommendations make sense to you?  Why?
• Which recommendations raise questions in your mind?  Why?
• In what context are Kotter's recommendations most relevant? 
  • In what environmental contexts?
  • During what types of change?
  • At what organizational levels?

3.  Other questions to consider:

• How would Theory E and Theory O theorists answer the question - Who should lead organizational change?
• What types of managerial skills are needed in team-oriented, self-regulating organizations?
  • How are these skills different from the skills prevalent among managers in more traditional, hierarchical organizations? 

4.  Thursday

Read the Harvard Business School case "John Smithers at Sigtek".  Purchase this case study at the University bookstore under the articles for MGMT 451.  (Purchase "Northwest Airlines: Coping with Change" at the same time.  It will be used later in the course.)

After reading "John Smithers at Sigtek", be prepared to answer the following questions in class:

• Who are the key players?
• What is the environmental and organizational context?
• What series of events took place?
• Why did the organizational change fail?
• What are likely to be the consequences of this failure?

5.  Supplementary, not required, readings:

• Jon Katzenback and Douglas Smith, The Wisdom of Teams, chapter 11 (on e-reserve).
• Warren Bennis, "Cultivating creative genius," Industry Week, v 246 N 15 (Aug 18, 1997),pp 84 -90 (on e-reserve).
• Warren Bennis, " In conversation with . . .Warren Bennis," Director v 51 n 2 (Sept. 1997),  pp. 58 - 62 (on e-reserve).

created by dhostet@siue.edu
last revised 1/21/2002