Summary: Making Change Happen

Review and Analysis of Matejka and Murphy's Book

BusinessNews Publishing

• Publisher: Must Read Summaries
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9782511021163
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Bookkeeping & Budgets
• Index: Business

The must-read summary of Ken Matejka and Al Murphy's book: `Making Change Happen: On Time, On Target, On Budget`.

This complete summary of the ideas from Ken Matejka and Al Murphy's book `Making Change Happen` shows that there is no one method that can always be used to implement change within an organisation, as there are too many variables involved. In their book, the authors have devised a systematic process for increasing your company's chances of success when trying to implement change. This summary explains the entire process in detail, making it easy for you to learn it and apply it to your own business.

Added-value of this summary:
• Save time
• Understand key concepts
• Expand your business knowledge

To learn more, read `Making Change Happen` and use clear articulation and consultation to make changes successful.

Summary of Making Change Happen (Ken Matejka and Al Murphy)

Phase 1: Build a business case for the changes you want to make

Your business case will provide the answer to the one question everyone will ask: “Why are we changing?” People want to be satisfied the management has done its homework and has thoroughly researched the change rather than doing something as a knee-jerk reaction. Your business case must convince people this is the right change to make before they are asked to buy-in and get behind the change program.

Analyze

It’s important that you take the time to analyze and identify the source or sources of the change you’re trying to implement. By doing this:

• You can explain to your own people specifically why change is important rather than saying something bland like: “We just have to do this to survive”.
• You double check the change is actually required. You might look at where the pressure to change is coming from and conclude you don’t need to make the change at all.
• You might decide it would make more sense to undertake a different change altogether rather than go through one change now and another change in a year or two. By taking the time to pause and evaluate things deliberately, a much better idea might come to the surface.

The pressure to make a change to your organization can only realistically come from one of three potential sources:

Each of these change drivers have different dimensions and factors which are worth analyzing in more detail. Unless you can clearly and positively identify where the source of pressure to change is coming from, you’ll struggle to develop a worthwhile business case for the planned change.

To take each of these sources of pressure to change in turn:

1. Demands of the external business environment and your competitive situation

The external drivers of change can be broadly broken down into six different areas:

2. A change in the business strategy your organization plans on using

There are really only five ways by which a firm can attempt to achieve and then sustain a competitive advantage:

The companies which perform best in the marketplace choose one of these sources of competitive advantage and then focus on doing that well. Invariably, when companies attempt to secure more than one source of competitive advantage at the same time, resources get wasted and opportunities get squandered. It just isn’t possible to pursue all five of these strategies at the same time and excel at each.

When the CEO and the senior management team of an organization make a decision to change from seeking one type of competitive advantage to another, that will automatically have a flow-on effect on the type of business strategy the firm will focus on. This will be a major source of change for many organizations. When the business plan changes, the top management is driving the change and should be able to explain their reasoning for just such a change.

3. A decision to upgrade and enhance your organization’s internal processes

From time to time, many organizations have a desire to upgrade and enhance themselves so they can compete better in the marketplace There are many ways to think about how organizations can go about enhancing their capabilities, but generally speaking there are four internal factors which tend to be focused on during these periodic attempts at enhancement:

In just the same way as a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, there’s no use an organization excelling in one of these areas only to fall short in one of the others. For example:

• There’s no use having superior technology if your employees have not been trained on how to use that technology to create satisfied customers.
• Your organization might have superior strategic leadership but los...

Table of contents

• Title page
• Book Presentation
• Summary of Making Change Happen (Ken Matejka and Al Murphy)
• About the Summary Publisher
• Copyright