Organisational Barriers And Change Management: A Case Study Of General Motors Company

Organisational barriers signify the impediment to the flow of information that impacts over the employee’s performance and liable for commercial failure. The major organisational barriers are rules and policies, hierarchical positions, organisational facilities, and complex organisational structures. These are the situational and structural barriers of organisation and these situations are imparted as the valid understanding that organisational must enlist with their content so that better market position will be gained them. These problems mitigate the rate of production and also work over these problems that influence a wrong directive in business. The barriers can be perceptual, which is quite relevant in this globalised world where different perceptions are coming from different employees. The barriers may be emotional and through the emotional barriers, the fear and mistrust will occur in the workplace. The language barrier and cultural barrier are also important in that case to understand the situations faced by a particular organisation and also need to know the possible understanding they trying to deliver. In this essay, General Motors Company has been chosen for this essay. General Motor (GM) is an American multinational company, who manufactures trucks and cars and sell more than 30 countries (Gm.com, 2018). The barrier face of the company is the concern matter of this. 

The thesis statement of this essay is to understand the barriers of the company and applied effective changes within the company so that organisation gets effective chances to reduce their problem situation. Managers will take effective initiative or strategies to overcome those situations and this is the main thesis aspect to be evaluated.

The major barrier that GM has faced in recent time that their innovativeness (Gm.com, 2018). Due to some external and internal factors, some of the activities and changes are restricted. Lots of experienced employees and managers are there and they have not updated their thoughts and due to that reason company is lacking behind in case of competitive advantages. Old employees and managers are not providing their positive feedback for this change as they will not accustom with the modern technology and innovation (Khan & Hashim, 2014). Organisational productivity will hamper this unchanged situation of the organisation that impacted on the existing stakeholders. Change in structural, policies, material, social and cultural aspects are needed for the better development and technology (Gm.com, 2018). This is important for the organisation challenges for the companies as well as employees. There are some reasons for barriers that needed to evaluate the situation of GM (Gm.com, 2018). The first barrier for this situation is awareness and knowledge of employees and employees do not want that change as they do not have enough knowledge or training about the new technology (Lozano, 2013). Motivation may work as another barrier and employees doing the unnatural behaviour as some leaders are against this change so their followers also do not want the change.

Skill is an important aspect for the employee as they need the skill to operate the technologies and that is the reason most of the individual skill makings are strengthen their case (Khan & Hashim, 2014). GM needs to implement some good strategy so that effective technological and structural process needs to be implemented (Bolden, 2016). The perceptual barrier will come in that case and that will impact on the organisational stagnant situation. 

Different resistance has come in this situation and through this process, analysis can be evaluated. Selecting people who need change is important for GM, as they will consider the positive alteration of the organisation. On the other hand, education and level of communication of those employees are good and they can adopt themselves with the new changes that help this organisation to move further (Flottorp et al., 2013). So another barrier that comes on that occasion is the execution of planning and employees’ resistance to the new changes is the occasion of this section.

Organisational change management is the first implemented change that managers want to impose. In any organisation underpinning a new technology or strategy not quite effective in all the case. It requires better strategic planning to introduce those strategies. The way change management models have been used is the best way to implement the process and through the intervention process global establishment will sustain (Cresswell & Sheikh, 2013). The same situation persisted in case of GM, as the most delivering Chevrolet cars are not making their ground in some of the countries and transformational endeavour has finished from the company (Khan & Hashim, 2014).

Lewin’s three steps change model is important at that stage. The situation GM is in is the unfreeze situation, where employees and some of the leaders are against the change and they are quite happy with the old technological situation to deliver the amount of product persuade earlier also. The movement or change has come when the management has decided to implement the change strategy (West, 2012). Through this change strategy, they can implement some of the new policies, some technological development, some ideas, and some trade regulations as well. This is the freeze situation of the company when earlier thoughts and process are nullified and new consequences are delivered. The last section is refreezing and through this section, all changing situation is considered as permanent and the situation also balances the position of driving force and restraining force. The refreeze positions are delivering the same situation that evaluates the freeze situation.

Kotter’s eight steps model is also important in that case and through these steps adopted changes are planned. At the first stage sense of changing urgency is required and this urgency is needed by the management in case of GM company (Fowler, 2013). Then the company require enough power and potential to lead the change. There are some simultaneous obstructions come to fulfil the achievements but with the proper planning, leading enforcement has provided. Set of the new vision and achieving strategies are important in that case and through this change new vision achieved (Hollnagel, 2016). The fourth stage considers the communication and through the visual communication factors the process enhances the meaning and nature of the study. Generating some acts or revised policies that empower the vision statement and mitigate all the barriers. The organisation needs to plan for the short term reward movement, which signifies they are setting their target for the short-term goals and whenever they will get the success they have been rewarded by the management (Le Fevre, 2014). Continuous adjustment of improving the new program is the seventh stage of the model and through this model, a path of improvement has practised. The last stage of the model highlights the reinforcement in the organisational behaviour. Through the behaviour change, the good relationship has maintained in this aspect.

These are the strategies that GM wants for the development of the organisation and to provide a better solution.

There are various types of physical barriers present in an organisation, especially in an organisation where too many people work together in a common area. To trounce the physical barriers in an organization the first thing should be done is to check out for the things which make the obstacles in the way, the experts can be involved in this process for overcoming the physical barriers as sometimes it becomes difficult to handle these associations (Carter et al., 2013).

Some of the situations like starting from the top of the top, where the entire communication process has been started. In other words, the recognizing limit of planning is another aspect that managers have to do and through the managers, the limit of strategic planning has been set. Communication is another aspect that needs to indulge in the situation and through the communication big problem can be solved. The participation process needs to be done in an effective manner so that commitment level needs to be managing in a right form. The updated form and long-range planning are other criteria that revision planning is required. Contingency planning is another aspect that required for overcoming the situation. Training is another aspect and employees need that training for making that process in a swift way. If they improve their training then the better result can be expected by them. Through the training process, better chances can be got to develop the production. There are multiple sources of information and through the information, extra knowledge can be attained and this critical understanding highlights the basic planning of operation process that GM has done. 

Conclusion

Therefore it can be concluded that General Motors may have faced some challenges and through this process lack their momentum in a decreased from. The situations are not favourable in midst of competitive global arena. There are some barriers that need to be mitigated by the managers. The improved training and development procedure is important for the better market position of the company. Improved structure and common form of innovative acceleration are important for the development of organisation and GM managers implement the change for the organisation as well.