14 Jun The board of directors at AGC needs a status update on your change management project. Shawn asks you to write an executive report for John and the board of directo
Deliverable Length: 750 words
Part 1:
The board of directors at AGC needs a status update on your change management project. Shawn asks you to write an executive report for John and the board of directors about the change management process and the progress being made toward resolving the global human capital management problems at AGC. This report will be shared at an upcoming investor meeting. Because the future success of AGC depends on achieving its human capital management goals, the board of directors wants to ensure that investors understand that it has changed its strategy to align human capital goals with its organizational goals.
Review the AGC scenario for this course and prepare a 750–1000 word executive report that describes the steps in your change management plan, including the following:
- Diagnosis: A summary of AGC’s problems, how they were diagnosed, and your conclusions regarding the root causes.
- Intervention: A description of human capital management strategies that you recommended to create change at AGC and how they were implemented.
- Evaluation: How did you measure the effectiveness of your change management plan? What were the effects on the employees and the organization’s market performance?
Lessons From Experience: Diversity and Cultural Sensitivity
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Introduction
The story that you are about to read is from actual events that occurred in the field. Its purpose is to provide you with a real-world example from a seasoned professional in the business world.
Diversity and Cultural Sensitivity
My company, Elite Global Engineering, Inc. (EGE) is a multinational organization with international subsidiaries in eight locations.
Project management is an important component at EGE. Individuals are chosen to lead large change initiatives. Depending on the project, these changes often affect our home base in Florida as well as one or more of our global subsidiaries.
I was asked to lead a large project for our home base and two of our international locations in Italy and in China. The project involved the integration of a new informational management (IM) system. My core team was crosscultural and included members from all locations. As the manager of this project, I employed key components of change management principles and steps; I followed a combination of Kotter’s and Lewin’s basic steps.
Well into the project, I felt pleased about my team's performance until I received a phone call from one of the senior directors in China. He told me that team members in China had concerns about the team and their involvement. He said that they felt their opinions were not taken seriously and that they did not feel like equal partners.
This came as a surprise to me because we had been completing key objectives and keeping to our time line. I thought we were an effective team. In hindsight, I realized that I hadn't focused on cultural differences that may have led team members from China to feel that they were isolated. Even though I was always respectful to everyone, it simply wasn't enough because I was not appropriately prepared to handle all aspects of managing a cross- cultural team.
It is important to take away the following from this scenario:
• Expatriates are not the only people who need cultural sensitivity and
Lessons From Experience: Diversity and Cultural Sensitivity
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crosscultural team training. People who work virtually with international sites do as well.
• Project management training should include training interventions of this sort to strengthen the interpersonal skills of a crosscultural team.
