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Positive Organizational Change: The Case of Ford Motor Company

                Change implementation is one of the significant factors implemented by companies constantly to ensure that businesses remain competitive and functional amidst difficult operational times. Ford Motor Company is one of the well-known businesses that have implemented change within its operations. According to Barker (2015), Ford has implemented leadership change focused on improving its growth in the Auto sector. This paper explores the positive leadership change at Ford Motors. The evaluation is accomplished through the use of Kotter’s 8-step model to examine the nature of the change and the implemented tactics and strategies.

Kotter’s 8-Step Model of Change

 Step One: Create Urgency

In the case of Ford, a sense of urgency for the change in the leadership process was created by the 2008 financial crisis that was significantly influencing the performance of the firm. The crisis made it difficult for the firm to generate profits due to the establishment of stringent policies by the government as well as a global economic turndown and international trade decline (Barker, 2015).
Step Two: Form a Powerful Coalition

The second step of the model requires the management to recruit powerful leaders who will foresee the change (Mohiuddin & Mohteshamuddin, 2020). In the case of Ford, Jim Farley who was also the firm’s CEO undertook the initiative of ensuring the change was effectively established through a plan referred to as “One Ford” (Barker, 2015).

 Step Three: Create a Vision for Change

The third step of the model involves having a proper vision for the change (Mohiuddin & Mohteshamuddin, 2020). Ford achieved this functionality in that its vision was to improve on the performance of the firm by bring all the business’ global employees together, leveraging the firm’s unique assets and knowledge, and providing valuable commodities for the people (Barker, 2015).
Step Four: Communicate the Vision

Before the implementation of the change, the firm’s CEO communicated to the people the vision of the change process and how it will benefit the firm.
 Step Five: Remove Obstacles

Change resistance is a fundamental aspect associated with organizational change. However, in the case of the firm, the management was able to overcome resistance through effective communication with the staff members to ensure that they understood the need for change (Barker, 2015).

 Step Six: Create Short-Term Wins

Ford’s change process was related with short-term wins such as the improvement of the company’s finances by approximately $ 23.6 billion after mortgaging most of its assets (Barker, 2015).
Step Seven: Build on the Change

The firm managed to establish a connection between the success of the business and its new behavior to ensure that it continues to remain persistent and strong amidst the prevailing financial crisis (Barker, 2015).

Step Eight: Anchor the Changes in Corporate Culture

                The firm’s CEO ensured that the changes within the firm were embedded within its culture to ensure that the firm remains successful even in the future when the issue of financial crisis is no longer a factor of concern (Barker, 2015).

Evaluation

                Ford’s change was a positive one since it followed all the fundamental steps of Kotter’s model to be effective. The most effective strategy includes the fact that the management included the employees within the change process through the use of communication. Allowing the employees to make decisions in relation to the change, by communication, is a requisite strategy that could have worked better in that the sentiments of the workforce members will also be observed for a desirable output.