Kotter 8 Step Change Model
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Kotter 8 Step Change Model
Introduction
Change must occur at one point in an organization to improve products and services offered to customers. Organizational change is the movement of an organization from one state of affairs to another (Cameron, 2019). A change in the environment of (either for-profit or non-profit) organizations usually requires changes within the organizations operating within the environment. Organizational change can take various forms such as changes in the company’s policies, procedures, structures, technology, and even culture (Cameron, 2019). Change can also occur if the company is performing poorly and if there is a perceived threat from the environment. Walmart is one of the organizations that require a change to improve services. For such changes to be successful, a proper change model must be applied (Cameron, 2019). For example, Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model can be applied to ensure the successful implementation of changes within the organization. in that regard, this paper will discuss the company overview and Kotter’s 8 step approach to address identified problems within the organization.
Company Overview
Walmart is an American retail giant that was founded by Sam Walton in 1962, in Arkansas. It is among the world’s most profitable retail outlets for many years. It once became the largest employer in the United States (Walmart Inc., 2022). Walmart is a big company with more than one million employees and thousands of stores across the globe. The retail store operates in about 128 countries around the world incusing Korea, Mexico, Canada, brazil, china, Argentina, the US, and others (Walmart Inc., 2022). The headquarters of Walmart is situated in n Bentonville, Arkansas, and is a publicly-traded company on the stock exchange.
As Walmart continued its rapid growth, it introduced other retail chains. For instance, it purchased sixteen Mohr-Value stores in Michigan and Illinois. In 1983, Wal-Mart introduced several innovative changes and also opened its first Sam’s Clubs, wholesale stores that offered members the opportunity to purchase goods in bulk. Sam’s Clubs is one of the greatest achievements of Walmart (Walmart Inc., 2022). It aimed to help small business owners save money on merchandise purchased in bulk. Walmart has competitive and committed leaders. It has three levels of management such as executive committee, senior leadership, and board of directors. The executive committee is led by the president and CEO of Walmart Inc., Doug McMillon. The senior leadership is led by Koby Avital, Executive Vice President, Platforms (Walmart Inc., 2022). Gregory B. Penner is the Chairman of the Walmart Inc. Board of Directors and General Partner of Madrone Capital Partners.
Serving communities is at the heart of the organization’s mission, which is to help people save money and live better lives. Walmart aims to serve the community by meeting the needs of its customers and community stakeholder groups (Walmart Inc., 2022). The aim is to improve the lives of millions of people around the globe. For instance, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation invested $40 million in programs that helped veterans transition back to civilian life. The organization’s focus is to provide safer, healthier, and More affordable food and other products (Walmart Inc., 2022). Although one of the major objectives of Walmart is to achieve customer satisfaction, the organization has failed to fulfill this objective as identified in the next part of this paper.
Diagnosis
Although Walmart is the leading retailer in the United States of America and among the largest ones worldwide, the organization has been facing serious issues in recent years due to inefficient customer service (Swain-Wilson, 2021). Walmart is struggling with customer satisfaction problems which have continued to remain low. American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) score for Walmart dropped a notch in 2017, from 2016 (from 72 to 71) (Mourdoukoutas, 2018). This report placed Walmart at the very bottom of the list f department and discount retailers ranked, and a couple of notches below Sears. The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) measures the quality of products and services that are offered to Americans by giant departments and discount retailers (Mourdoukoutas, 2018). The ACSI uses information or data from interviews with about 180,000 customers annually as an insight into an econometric model for evaluating customer satisfaction.
The company is building its online channels and appears to be acquiring better shipping capabilities, but according to customers, it still lags competitors in many aspects. Some issues lead to poor customer ratings at Walmart (Mourdoukoutas, 2018). One of such reasons is the inability of the organization to value its employees. Walmart has refused to focus on quality jobs to create quality experiences for both shoppers and workers. A quality job pays a living wage, provides good benefits like retirement and affordable healthcare, and allows Walmart workers to get off of public assistance programs. According to (Swain-Wilson, 2021). Walmart has highly criticized employment policies that often result in high employee turnover. High employee turnover is often associated with poor customer service. When there is high employee turnover, it will take much time to transfer for new employees, which will also decrease the working efficiency and waste a lot of time. The poor customer experience at wall mat includes exhaustingly long lines at checkout (Mourdoukoutas, 2018). This personal experience is supported by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which cited the situation as customers’ number one complaint.
Walmart has focused on low prices by keeping the production cost low, therefore, the organization does not spend as much money on their employees are required. Additionally, another problem that leads to negative customer satisfaction with Walmart is related to its poor online shopping system. According to Swain-Wilson (2021), it is evident from customers’ comments that Walmart’s online application is inconvenient and customers hold a negative attitude towards it. Some customers have reached the point they would not wish to choose the Walmart application. It is high time Walmart should realize that it needs to focus on improving customer satisfaction. In so doing, the organization should consider providing better prices compared to its competitors, redesigning or changing the store layout and design, as well as widening its product assortment. These are some of the areas contributing to the low rating of customer satisfaction (Swain-Wilson, 2021). In a nutshell, Walmart is currently facing several issues that have significantly contributed to the customer satisfaction problem. These issues need to be addressed efficiently.
Kotter’s 8-Step Approach
This model or approach was discovered by John Kotter in 1996 and is widely applied in implementing organizational change in many industries. Since its discovery, the model has been widely accepted and applied (Weiss, 2016). Therefore, it is a requirement for any leader who is serious about implementing change successfully to understand the 8 steps leading change model. Kotter’s 8-Step Approach explains the process organizational leaders and managers can follow to effectively lead a change in their companies or organizations. It is a broad change model that included topics such as planning, communication, team building, senior leadership sponsorship, and others (Weiss, 2016). Built on the work of Kurt Lewin, the model sets out the 8 key steps of the changes process, arguing that neglecting any of the steps can be enough for the whole initiative to fail.
Establish a sense of urgency
The first step is to create a sense of urgency to ensure everyone takes the matter seriously. The sense of urgency is the pressing importance of action required to address critically important issues (Weiss, 2016). It is required to spearhead the implementation of issues that are essential to organizational success. Establishing a sense of urgency involves a series of communication between leaders and stakeholders regarding why the change must occur immediately. In the case of Walmart, the leaders can create a sense of urgency among all employees to improve customer experience. When this is done, Walmart will be able to improve its listing in the American Customer Satisfaction Index (Weiss, 2016). If Walmart leaders will be effective in creating a sense of urgency, critical stakeholders will understand and accept the change.
Form a powerful guiding coalition
The second step for leaders is to create a guiding coalition. Here, Walmart leaders will take specific actions to identify critical, capable, and influential individuals to become members of the change oversight team (Weiss, 2016). This is an important step in the change implementation process. Since the change has taken the attention of critical stakeholders, it is high time to constitute a team that will lead the entire process. It is more than just assigning people to work on the change project. The change leader must gain the willingness of the guiding coalition members. Once the team is constituted, the members will communicate effectively and receive feedback from various stakeholders (Weiss, 2016). Therefore, Walmart should constitute a team of members who are willing to create a change that will help improve customer satisfaction by addressing specific issues identified.
Develop a vision and strategy
The third step of Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model is to create a vision. Since the guiding coalition has been put in place, it can move to the next level to create a vision that will direct the change efforts and even try to present a picture of what the organization will look like once the change is implemented (Weiss, 2016). A picture of what Walmart will look like after change implementation is both appealing and sensible. If it is not, then it will be hard for the leaders to sustain the organizational commitment to the change effort. Step 3 also includes the development of strategic initiatives that can be applied to achieve the change. Both the vision and strategies are well communicated later in the process (Weiss, 2016). This process of establishing sensible realistic statements and strategies can take 3 to 12 months.
Communicate the change vision
According to Weiss (2016), the guiding coalition must continuously and actively communicate the change vision by using every channel or vehicle possible to ensure both employees and other stakeholders understand the new vision as well as the strategies. To help Walmart achieve the new change, the coalition should use simplified terms that are easy to understand. Walmart can also apply different forms of communication such as through emails, phone calls, text messages, and others to communicate efficiently (Weiss, 2016). The pain purpose of communicating the vision and strategies is to capture the minds and hearts of the employees and stakeholders necessary for successful implementation.
Empower others to act on the vision
The fifth step of Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model is to empower broad-based action. Here, the change leader alongside the guiding coalition works together to remove obstacles that may hinder the change implementation (Weiss, 2016). The guiding coalition and the change leader are in the implementation phase. At this stage, Walmart will have to remove or alter some issues such as organizational structures, compensations, performance criteria, and others (Weiss, 2016). Walmart will look for strategies to empower employees to act on the visions, such as giving them skills needed to implement the change, specific goals, and access to important resources.
Generate short-term wins
The sixth step of the model requires the generation of short-term wins. This step involves generating short-term goals that match the new vision. For Walmart, the goals would include improving the American Customer Satisfaction Index score, improving employee pay, improving the store service, and others (Weiss, 2016). When leaders and the guiding coalition are effective at generating short-term wins, they maintain the momentum for change that is critical to any successful change effort.
Consolidate gains and produce more change
Consolidating gains and producing more change is the seventh step of the change model. Walmart can do this by hiring, training, or promoting employees who can implement the vision. The organization may decide to dismiss an employee who is resistant to change while promoting and training those who support the new vision (Weiss, 2016). This step prevents the organization from going back to its old way of doing things and also combats continuing resistance to change. The actions at this stage help remove unnecessary processes, internal connections, and inter-departmental procedures that hinder the progress of the change effort.
Anchor new approaches in the organizational culture
This is the eighth and the last step of the change model. The primary purpose of this step is to ensure that the change becomes firmly established in the organization. The change leader and the coalition work together to make changes in Walmart’s norms and values, as well as other procedures and processes (Weiss, 2016). In this step, Walmart will make the change accepted and established in the organization’s culture. Walmart can achieve this by increasing its performance through customer and productivity-related behaviors. It is important for Walmart to articulate and reinforce productive and empowering relationships between the new behaviors and organizational successes so that employees do not misinterpret the effects of the change (Weiss, 2016). Failure to properly articulate the new approach in the organizational culture may in turn lead to failure to sustain the changes.
Conclusion
Organizational change is the movement of an organization from one state of affairs to another. Organizational change can take various forms such as changes in the company’s policies, procedures, structures, technology, and even culture. Walmart is currently facing serious issues with employee satisfaction, which places it at the brink of initiating changes to alter the negative trend. American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) score for Walmart dropped a notch in 2017, from 2016 (from 72 to 71). Kotter’s 8-Step Approach is a change model that can be applied to initiate a change to help Walmart improve customer satisfaction.
References
Ameron, E. (2019). Making sense of change management: A complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Place of publication not identified: Kogan Page.
Mourdoukoutas, P. (2018). Minimum Wage Hikes Won’t Solve Walmart’s Customer Service Problem. https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2018/03/18/minimum-wage-hikes-wont-solve-walmarts-customer-service-problem/?sh=54f6847a1e09
Swain-Wilson, S. (2021). More than 50% said this grocery store has the worst customer service. https://www.mashed.com/479185/more-than-50-said-this-grocery-store-has-the-worst-customer-service/?utm_campaign=clip
Walmart Inc. (2022). About Walmart. https://corporate.walmart.com/about
Weiss, J. W. (2016). Organizational change (2nd ed.). Bridgepoint Education.
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Course
Instructor’s Name
Date
Kotter 8 Step Change Model
Introduction
Change must occur at one point in an organization to improve products and services offered to customers. Organizational change is the movement of an organization from one state of affairs to another (Cameron, 2019). A change in the environment of (either for-profit or non-profit) organizations usually requires changes within the organizations operating within the environment. Organizational change can take various forms such as changes in the company’s policies, procedures, structures, technology, and even culture (Cameron, 2019). Change can also occur if the company is performing poorly and if there is a perceived threat from the environment. Walmart is one of the organizations that require a change to improve services. For such changes to be successful, a proper change model must be applied (Cameron, 2019). For example, Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model can be applied to ensure the successful implementation of changes within the organization. in that regard, this paper will discuss the company overview and Kotter’s 8 step approach to address identified problems within the organization.
Company Overview
Walmart is an American retail giant that was founded by Sam Walton in 1962, in Arkansas. It is among the world’s most profitable retail outlets for many years. It once became the largest employer in the United States (Walmart Inc., 2022). Walmart is a big company with more than one million employees and thousands of stores across the globe. The retail store operates in about 128 countries around the world incusing Korea, Mexico, Canada, brazil, china, Argentina, the US, and others (Walmart Inc., 2022). The headquarters of Walmart is situated in n Bentonville, Arkansas, and is a publicly-traded company on the stock exchange.
As Walmart continued its rapid growth, it introduced other retail chains. For instance, it purchased sixteen Mohr-Value stores in Michigan and Illinois. In 1983, Wal-Mart introduced several innovative changes and also opened its first Sam’s Clubs, wholesale stores that offered members the opportunity to purchase goods in bulk. Sam’s Clubs is one of the greatest achievements of Walmart (Walmart Inc., 2022). It aimed to help small business owners save money on merchandise purchased in bulk. Walmart has competitive and committed leaders. It has three levels of management such as executive committee, senior leadership, and board of directors. The executive committee is led by the president and CEO of Walmart Inc., Doug McMillon. The senior leadership is led by Koby Avital, Executive Vice President, Platforms (Walmart Inc., 2022). Gregory B. Penner is the Chairman of the Walmart Inc. Board of Directors and General Partner of Madrone Capital Partners.
Serving communities is at the heart of the organization’s mission, which is to help people save money and live better lives. Walmart aims to serve the community by meeting the needs of its customers and community stakeholder groups (Walmart Inc., 2022). The aim is to improve the lives of millions of people around the globe. For instance, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation invested $40 million in programs that helped veterans transition back to civilian life. The organization’s focus is to provide safer, healthier, and More affordable food and other products (Walmart Inc., 2022). Although one of the major objectives of Walmart is to achieve customer satisfaction, the organization has failed to fulfill this objective as identified in the next part of this paper.
Diagnosis
Although Walmart is the leading retailer in the United States of America and among the largest ones worldwide, the organization has been facing serious issues in recent years due to inefficient customer service (Swain-Wilson, 2021). Walmart is struggling with customer satisfaction problems which have continued to remain low. American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) score for Walmart dropped a notch in 2017, from 2016 (from 72 to 71) (Mourdoukoutas, 2018). This report placed Walmart at the very bottom of the list f department and discount retailers ranked, and a couple of notches below Sears. The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) measures the quality of products and services that are offered to Americans by giant departments and discount retailers (Mourdoukoutas, 2018). The ACSI uses information or data from interviews with about 180,000 customers annually as an insight into an econometric model for evaluating customer satisfaction.
The company is building its online channels and appears to be acquiring better shipping capabilities, but according to customers, it still lags competitors in many aspects. Some issues lead to poor customer ratings at Walmart (Mourdoukoutas, 2018). One of such reasons is the inability of the organization to value its employees. Walmart has refused to focus on quality jobs to create quality experiences for both shoppers and workers. A quality job pays a living wage, provides good benefits like retirement and affordable healthcare, and allows Walmart workers to get off of public assistance programs. According to (Swain-Wilson, 2021). Walmart has highly criticized employment policies that often result in high employee turnover. High employee turnover is often associated with poor customer service. When there is high employee turnover, it will take much time to transfer for new employees, which will also decrease the working efficiency and waste a lot of time. The poor customer experience at wall mat includes exhaustingly long lines at checkout (Mourdoukoutas, 2018). This personal experience is supported by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which cited the situation as customers’ number one complaint.
Walmart has focused on low prices by keeping the production cost low, therefore, the organization does not spend as much money on their employees are required. Additionally, another problem that leads to negative customer satisfaction with Walmart is related to its poor online shopping system. According to Swain-Wilson (2021), it is evident from customers’ comments that Walmart’s online application is inconvenient and customers hold a negative attitude towards it. Some customers have reached the point they would not wish to choose the Walmart application. It is high time Walmart should realize that it needs to focus on improving customer satisfaction. In so doing, the organization should consider providing better prices compared to its competitors, redesigning or changing the store layout and design, as well as widening its product assortment. These are some of the areas contributing to the low rating of customer satisfaction (Swain-Wilson, 2021). In a nutshell, Walmart is currently facing several issues that have significantly contributed to the customer satisfaction problem. These issues need to be addressed efficiently.
Kotter’s 8-Step Approach
This model or approach was discovered by John Kotter in 1996 and is widely applied in implementing organizational change in many industries. Since its discovery, the model has been widely accepted and applied (Weiss, 2016). Therefore, it is a requirement for any leader who is serious about implementing change successfully to understand the 8 steps leading change model. Kotter’s 8-Step Approach explains the process organizational leaders and managers can follow to effectively lead a change in their companies or organizations. It is a broad change model that included topics such as planning, communication, team building, senior leadership sponsorship, and others (Weiss, 2016). Built on the work of Kurt Lewin, the model sets out the 8 key steps of the changes process, arguing that neglecting any of the steps can be enough for the whole initiative to fail.
Establish a sense of urgency
The first step is to create a sense of urgency to ensure everyone takes the matter seriously. The sense of urgency is the pressing importance of action required to address critically important issues (Weiss, 2016). It is required to spearhead the implementation of issues that are essential to organizational success. Establishing a sense of urgency involves a series of communication between leaders and stakeholders regarding why the change must occur immediately. In the case of Walmart, the leaders can create a sense of urgency among all employees to improve customer experience. When this is done, Walmart will be able to improve its listing in the American Customer Satisfaction Index (Weiss, 2016). If Walmart leaders will be effective in creating a sense of urgency, critical stakeholders will understand and accept the change.
Form a powerful guiding coalition
The second step for leaders is to create a guiding coalition. Here, Walmart leaders will take specific actions to identify critical, capable, and influential individuals to become members of the change oversight team (Weiss, 2016). This is an important step in the change implementation process. Since the change has taken the attention of critical stakeholders, it is high time to constitute a team that will lead the entire process. It is more than just assigning people to work on the change project. The change leader must gain the willingness of the guiding coalition members. Once the team is constituted, the members will communicate effectively and receive feedback from various stakeholders (Weiss, 2016). Therefore, Walmart should constitute a team of members who are willing to create a change that will help improve customer satisfaction by addressing specific issues identified.
Develop a vision and strategy
The third step of Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model is to create a vision. Since the guiding coalition has been put in place, it can move to the next level to create a vision that will direct the change efforts and even try to present a picture of what the organization will look like once the change is implemented (Weiss, 2016). A picture of what Walmart will look like after change implementation is both appealing and sensible. If it is not, then it will be hard for the leaders to sustain the organizational commitment to the change effort. Step 3 also includes the development of strategic initiatives that can be applied to achieve the change. Both the vision and strategies are well communicated later in the process (Weiss, 2016). This process of establishing sensible realistic statements and strategies can take 3 to 12 months.
Communicate the change vision
According to Weiss (2016), the guiding coalition must continuously and actively communicate the change vision by using every channel or vehicle possible to ensure both employees and other stakeholders understand the new vision as well as the strategies. To help Walmart achieve the new change, the coalition should use simplified terms that are easy to understand. Walmart can also apply different forms of communication such as through emails, phone calls, text messages, and others to communicate efficiently (Weiss, 2016). The pain purpose of communicating the vision and strategies is to capture the minds and hearts of the employees and stakeholders necessary for successful implementation.
Empower others to act on the vision
The fifth step of Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model is to empower broad-based action. Here, the change leader alongside the guiding coalition works together to remove obstacles that may hinder the change implementation (Weiss, 2016). The guiding coalition and the change leader are in the implementation phase. At this stage, Walmart will have to remove or alter some issues such as organizational structures, compensations, performance criteria, and others (Weiss, 2016). Walmart will look for strategies to empower employees to act on the visions, such as giving them skills needed to implement the change, specific goals, and access to important resources.
Generate short-term wins
The sixth step of the model requires the generation of short-term wins. This step involves generating short-term goals that match the new vision. For Walmart, the goals would include improving the American Customer Satisfaction Index score, improving employee pay, improving the store service, and others (Weiss, 2016). When leaders and the guiding coalition are effective at generating short-term wins, they maintain the momentum for change that is critical to any successful change effort.
Consolidate gains and produce more change
Consolidating gains and producing more change is the seventh step of the change model. Walmart can do this by hiring, training, or promoting employees who can implement the vision. The organization may decide to dismiss an employee who is resistant to change while promoting and training those who support the new vision (Weiss, 2016). This step prevents the organization from going back to its old way of doing things and also combats continuing resistance to change. The actions at this stage help remove unnecessary processes, internal connections, and inter-departmental procedures that hinder the progress of the change effort.
Anchor new approaches in the organizational culture
This is the eighth and the last step of the change model. The primary purpose of this step is to ensure that the change becomes firmly established in the organization. The change leader and the coalition work together to make changes in Walmart’s norms and values, as well as other procedures and processes (Weiss, 2016). In this step, Walmart will make the change accepted and established in the organization’s culture. Walmart can achieve this by increasing its performance through customer and productivity-related behaviors. It is important for Walmart to articulate and reinforce productive and empowering relationships between the new behaviors and organizational successes so that employees do not misinterpret the effects of the change (Weiss, 2016). Failure to properly articulate the new approach in the organizational culture may in turn lead to failure to sustain the changes.
Conclusion
Organizational change is the movement of an organization from one state of affairs to another. Organizational change can take various forms such as changes in the company’s policies, procedures, structures, technology, and even culture. Walmart is currently facing serious issues with employee satisfaction, which places it at the brink of initiating changes to alter the negative trend. American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) score for Walmart dropped a notch in 2017, from 2016 (from 72 to 71). Kotter’s 8-Step Approach is a change model that can be applied to initiate a change to help Walmart improve customer satisfaction.
References
Ameron, E. (2019). Making sense of change management: A complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Place of publication not identified: Kogan Page.
Mourdoukoutas, P. (2018). Minimum Wage Hikes Won’t Solve Walmart’s Customer Service Problem. https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2018/03/18/minimum-wage-hikes-wont-solve-walmarts-customer-service-problem/?sh=54f6847a1e09
Swain-Wilson, S. (2021). More than 50% said this grocery store has the worst customer service. https://www.mashed.com/479185/more-than-50-said-this-grocery-store-has-the-worst-customer-service/?utm_campaign=clip
Walmart Inc. (2022). About Walmart. https://corporate.walmart.com/about
Weiss, J. W. (2016). Organizational change (2nd ed.). Bridgepoint Education.