Change and transformation
Introduction
This is the first chapter in the second section of our chapter. In the dynamic world of logistics and supply chain management the only constant is change itself. To this end this section of our study within this chapter covers how managers can lead change and promote agility and innovation.
At its heart the management of most operations occurs in an environment of change. As such, management is about transforming organisations by leading people and innovation from one continuum onto another before discontinuities and non-competitive practices occur.
This chapter will deal with change and the many traditional views on change and how we need to adopt a more enduring approach to address change as part of both transport and logistic business operations.
There are so many different perspectives on the change process (organisational, product, behavioural, societal, etc), different stages in a change process, different levels (individual, group, organisational, systems), and many ways of explaining the nature of change (continuous, dynamic, rapid, transformational, innovative, etc). What we do know is that change affects individuals and influences the competitiveness and survival of an organisation. As such this chapter will seek to remove the 'noise' associated with the management of change and suggest how individuals, groups and organisations can adapt to change and meet real world business challenges.
Learning objectives
After completing the work for this chapter you should be able to:
- Identify the leadership and management responses and practices required to address change
- Establish and explain the fundamentals of change in the management of transport and logistics operations
- Analyse the different continuums of change
- Reflect on the five change theories traditional used to explain change
- Establish how to successfully communicate change
- Integrate elements of the theories of change into a practical leadership model for effecting change
- Identify change implementation models for organisations at a specific stage of development