Leading change management using kotter' 8 step change management process.

1. Change Action Project
MMBA8066 Leading Change, Term 3, 2020
Name: Amit Sati
Student ID: 45692386
Image: Sydney Opera House under construction
Source: nma.gov.au

2. Table of Contents
1. Introduction.................................................................................................................................2
1.1 About Talentedge....................................................................................................................2
1.2 Problem & Change Objectives.................................................................................................2
1.2.1 Understanding the Problem ..............................................................................................2
1.2.2 Iceberg Model...................................................................................................................2
1.2.3 Change Objectives............................................................................................................3
1.3 Action Project – Counselling Process Transformation .............................................................4
1.4 Methodology............................................................................................................................5
2. Change Maps ..............................................................................................................................6
2.1 Gap Analysis...........................................................................................................................6
2.2 Forcefield Analysis ..................................................................................................................6
2.3 Route Analysis ........................................................................................................................7
3. Change Intervention .................................................................................................................11
3.1 Rationale for Intervention ......................................................................................................11
3.2 Planning for Intervention........................................................................................................11
3.3 Conducting the Intervention...................................................................................................12
4. Change Evaluation....................................................................................................................13
4.1 Evaluation of Change Mapping..............................................................................................13
4.2 Evaluation of Change Intervention.........................................................................................14
5. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................15

3. 1. Introduction
1.1 About Talentedge
Talentedge.com offers digital-classroom based courses in higher education industry in collaboration
with leading Indian universities, institutions, government bodies and selected global institutes. The
courses are delivered through inhouse online learning management platform enabling undergraduate,
postgraduate learners and professional course learners to manage the learning at their own pace.
As the competition has grown significantly in Indian online education space, Talentedge is facing
higher expectations from prospective learners. Even though the number of registered learners is
growing the efficiency of marketing and sales efforts is declining. Constant increase in inventory cost
by marketing partners also create additional pressure on company’s overall profitability.
1.2 Problem & Change Objectives
1.2.1 Understanding the Problem
Conversion Rate is one of the key performance metrics, which is calculated based on how
many learners enrolled to courses out of total prospective learners enquired through website
or inbound call enquiry. This key performance indicator has been declining in last 1 year
constantly. To ensure that revenue targets could be achieved, marketing team had to plan and
execute additional paid advertising campaigns through partners.
The Counselling Centre department is responsible for counselling prospective learners (aka
leads) by providing telephonic counselling and followup emails about the courses they
enquired about. The Conversion rate metrics show huge variation from counsellor (aka sales
executive) to counsellor, which indicates the inconsistency in the counselling process but not
discussed openly.
1.2.2 Iceberg Model
Iceberg Model provides key understanding of the company’s patterns of behaviours (Image 1
below). To resolve the current problem of operational inefficiencies, the insights into beliefs,
unwritten rules, perceptions and other factors below the surface of Iceberg need to be carefully
understood. Many previous change efforts limited the scope of research to above the surface
factors and very little work on below the surface factors has been done.

4. Image 1: Talentedge Iceberg Model
1.2.3 Change Objectives
Change issue in discussion has two main objectives
- Improving lead time (time to reach prospective learners after they enquire on website)
- Establishing standard procedures to counsel prospective learners (Piecemeal
information sharing procedure) to avoid information overload
This would be helpful in driving other bi-products of change, such as better conversion rate,
improved efficiency, cost effectiveness & better employee morale. The cultural shift from result
driven to process driven approach could also be an important bi-product of this change,
however this would be too soon to imagine it!

5. 1.3 Action Project – Counselling Process Transformation
Initial observation suggests that only 30% enquiries move from first call to second call in the existing
counselling process. Out of 70% enquiries which doesn’t move from first call to next stage, 40%
enquirers are searching for a course to join only after 3 months. The focus of transformed counselling
process is to pre-screen the enquiries before they become eligible for detailed counselling.
Image 2: Counselling Process Transformation
The proposed counselling process (Image 2) also require restructuring of counselling team with two
specialised skill sets: Prescreening and Detailed Counselling.

6. 1.4 Methodology
The Action Project – Talentedge Counselling Process Transformation report is completed in three
step approach:
i. Change Map
a. Gap Analysis – to identify the current & future state clearly
b. Forcefield Analysis – to identify driving and restraining forces in Technology, Political and
Cultural aspects
c. Route Analysis – Using Kotter’s 8 step model of change, route analysis is done with
tentative actions in each step
ii. Change Intervention
This section describes the actions taken based on the planning from the previous steps.
iii. Change Evaluation
This section is used for reflection on the change map & intervention steps to drive learnings from
the strengths and weaknesses of the approach taken.

7. 2. Change Maps
2.1 Gap Analysis
Gap Analysis (Table 1) helps to clearly identify the current state and desired state through this change
processes. The overall effectiveness of the change process needs to be anchored using the gap
analysis. There are few factors like delayed responses and higher costs which are visible to naked
eyes but other factors like low employee morale and long working hours are never discussed but also
need to be addressed.
Current State Future State
Delayed Initial Contact with Leads /
Enquiries (as high as two days)
Faster Turnaround time leading to
better Leads to sales conversion rate
(target – less than 2 hours)
Low lead to sales conversion rate
(60% to industry benchmarks)
Conversion rate in 95% confidence
interval of industry benchmarks
Increasing cost of customer
acquisition (Increasing Marketing
Costs and lower sales efficiency)
Lower customer acquisition cost
leading to higher revenue potential
(target – reduced cost to 30%)
Long working hours
Reduced working hours & better
rewards system across the company
Low morale within the organisation Improved Employee Morale
Table 1: Gap Analysis
2.2 Forcefield Analysis
Forcefield Analysis (Image 3 below) is very helpful in understanding the different forces driving and
restraining the change issue in concern. It’s evident that cultural and political issues are generating
significant restraining forces and need to be carefully planned in the change process for effective
implementation.

8. Image 3: Forcefield Analysis
2.3 Route Analysis
Using Kotter’s 8 step Change model, the change Route is planned (Image 4). Considering high
political & cultural resistance to change, creating effective coalition and tailored communication plan
would be key. As the change has technological & resource challenges, short wins with pilot project
will help to course corrections and building confidence in the change process.

9. Image 4: Route Analysis
i. Create Urgency
Creating urgency amongst the management is instrumental for the entire change process.
The culture of the organisation is influenced to a great extent by the words and actions of CEO
& Chief Business officer. To convince them to recognize the urgency of change, two important
data sets would be presented:
a) The longest time a counsellor took to call the lead after the query was received at
the website, which is 2 working days.

10. b) The primary research suggests that on an average every counsellor is spending
about 8 hours over and above the planned roaster. Even though company has no
financial incentive policy for employee overtime, but the overhead cost to keep running
the operations could be saved.
ii. Form Coalition
The political and cultural resistance to change is well anticipated. Effective coalition will work
in the direction of reducing the restraining forces, especially internal rivalry withing the
company between departmental heads. Also, Counselling department head’s constant
conflicts with all other departmental heads is creating adverse effects at work place.
A coalition by getting Departmental heads of Technology, Marketing, Learning & Development
(part of Human Resources) would help to build strong forces to neutrilise restraining force by
Counselling department head.
iii. Create Change Vision
Using the inputs from all department heads, management and other key employees about
pains & gains of current state, change vision with core change coalition team would be
planned. The focus would be to remove 3 dysfunctions of team present in the company: Trust,
Conflict, Accountability.
iv. Communicate Vision
The change process would impact all the departments of the company. However, most
impacted would be Counselling and Technology department as most of changes will interrupt
the day to day activities of these two departments. Inside these two departments there are key
stakeholders such as Team leaders and quality managers, they would need different
communication to feel confident & inclusive. A dedicated half day “vision communication
workshop” would be planned for key employees, so they can accept the vision with heart and
communicate effectively to their team members.
A company wide communication plan will be implemented to build trust and shared through
emails, posters on the floor and video presentations during a 20 minutes fun workshop on the
floor for all employees.
v. Empower Actions
Individual counsellors are at the core of the change process. Empowering individual
counsellors to inculcate new habits and behaviours for improved operational efficiency is
inevitable. As the change will involve breaking down existing single counselling process into
two processes, different training modules would be required to be planned and executed.

11. vi. Create Short Term Wins
Pilot project will be implemented with a small group of counsellors after initial round of changes
and technical implementations. This will be key to understand impact of technical & individual
behavioural changes towards the overall change objective. Evaluating behavioural standing
of Counselling department head is very important at this time. And how management team
reacts or other department heads are reacting will also be considered for course correction if
needed.
vii. Sustain the Change
With all the learnings from the pilot project, entire change plan could be implemented.
Implementation of technology changes on entire CRM system needs to be rolled out along
with training and team restructuring to complete the change.
viii. Institute the change
New rewards and recognition systems need to be devised in collaboration with core change
team, and then presented to management. Considering the fact that management’s view has
always been on results rather than efforts, new incentive plan to emphasise on better
counselling would be difficult. However, a robust reporting and monitoring system to
complement the new incentive system will make our case strong.

12. 3. Change Intervention
3.1 Rationale for Intervention
This rationale for the intervention is based on the learnings of Iceberg Model, Gap Analysis, Forcefield
Analysis and Route Analysis. The key learnings from Iceberg Model about the behaviours & culture
were used to formulate Forcefield analysis. Using Gap Analysis and learnings from Forcefield
Analysis helped to create Route Analysis.
As, previous learnings suggest that CEO and management’s view on driving performance was
dominated by coercive leadership style. There is enough scope to make changes in the Route
Analysis in the actual implementation after the Intervention with CEO. To convince CEO for this
change process, data needs to be selectively used to create maximum impact. The entire work done
in this project could not be shared as this would only create further friction, it won’t be nice to openly
talk about the commonly ignored ill practices to meet revenue targets within the organisation. Let’s
also be prepared for some back and forth before this change project could takeoff.
3.2 Planning for Intervention
The approach to discuss the change process with CEO before any other step is based on following
factors:
• Management’s ambition to improve profitability
• Organisational culture to follow management guidelines without questioning
• Power gap present in the organisation will be used to make better influence while change
execution
• Getting into a principal agreement with CEO about resource allocation & team
restructuring if needed
For the intervention a two-slide presentation is prepared highlighting few critical points:
• Key statics on industry benchmarks and company lead to sales conversion rate
• Industry lead time (the time gap between first call received to enquirer and when they
enquire on the website) VS company lead time
• Potential profitability improvement in timeline format suggesting how it will grow over
period of 1 year gradually after change is implemented
• A key circular problem that is causing the low efficiency in counselling processes
o Low morale leading to high employee turnover

13. o High employee turnover causing a greater number of new employees in process
at any given moment
o New employees to take longer to reach desired performance thus causing low
morale
3.3 Conducting the Intervention
Intervention was conducted in a twenty minutes meeting with CEO, which was earlier scheduled for
half an hour but was cut short because of his other appointment. I concluded explaining the
presentation in less than ten minutes and spent more time in providing situational analysis using
Change Management concepts of Gap Analysis, Roller coaster Ride and Route Analysis briefly. I
restrained myself from discussing much about Forcefield analysis and Iceberg models considering
that could unnecessarily create complications at this premature stage in this change project.
CEO looked impressed with the simplicity and clarity of objective in the change project. However,
even after I suggested about pilot project before the complete project rollout, CEO was worried about
the possible disruption in revenue and implications on other supporting teams. With these
apprehensions, CEO agreed for a Pilot Project with five counsellors but asked not to involve any
counsellor amongst the top performers. CEO didn’t want to make any major impact on revenue even
during pilot project.
I requested the CEO to be part of a joint call with all stake holders, in response to this CEO asked me
to get the call scheduled with the help of his Executive Assistant. CEO also asked me to send a
detailed Project implementation plan mentioning resources, milestones and other necessary details
before the call with other stake holders.

14. 4. Change Evaluation
4.1 Evaluation of Change Mapping
Change Mapping in this action project was hugely benefited by the academic concepts learnt in this
subject. In my earlier experiences in implementing changes at work place, the emphasis was always
on the future state and then mapping actions backwards to meet the change required. I have always
focused on the actions (or we can say top of the
Iceberg) and there was no thought given to the
behaviours and drivers present in any
organisation such as culture, subculture or
politics.
Gap analysis and Forcefield analysis were
accomplished using organizational iceberg and
structural force segmentation such as technology,
culture and politics. This also helped to create a
well-informed Route Analysis, as I was aware of
more precise driving and restraining forces
present in driving change.
In all previous change implementations that I was
involved, the pre-defined path was considered
non-negotiable. However, in this action project I
have considered the openness towards making on going improvisations in the route map to
accommodate changes.
Following the method to understand restraining forces that could be present deep below the surface
of organisation iceberg helped to work on right motivation factors. This also helped to removing the
obstacles to change which are not visible on the surface but could derail the change implementation.
It helps to improve the efficiency of change program to find the politics, cultural forces, sub cultures
present in any organisation and even the water cooler gossips.
I could understand that human emotions play an important role in any organisation and our focus
should be to find out behaviours and interactions. A perfect change program is not only perfect on
paper but also for the people it is planned for.

15. 4.2 Evaluation of Change Intervention
My discussion with CEO was encouraging, as CEO agreed to take the change project ahead and
accepted my request to attend the joint call. I would like to take that opportunity to create urgency
amongst all share-holders. However, keeping our top performing counsellors away from the pilot
project is the biggest of my worries right now. I should have expected this in advance, but I will have
to live with this right now.
The results of pilot project will decide the future of actual project roll out. New counsellors generally
lack in industry experience as well as they take a lot of time to understand the company products in
details. With new counsellors driving good performance that could impress everyone from the pilot
project would be challenging.
After my first discussion with CEO, I am still waiting for the meeting confirmation from the Executive
Assistant of CEO. In the meanwhile, there has been couple of informal interactions with other
stakeholders within the organisation.
I am not sure that anyone is really enthusiastic
considering the new work arrangements
because of Covid-19 restrictions. Revenue
has also been negatively impacted in last few
months and the counselling team is
apprehensive of any change right now.
For the moment, I can consider this to be a
small win for the action project. There is lot to
be improvised as we go ahead in this change
process. Things like Covid-19 restrictions are
not part of my initial planning work, which needs to be addressed before we move ahead. I am looking
forward for some more hiccups before the rubber meets the road!
Image: allinclusivemarketing.com

16. 5. Conclusion
This action project helped me understand that organisations are not just the artifacts present in the
public domain such as awards, press releases, advertisements or CSR activities. Organisations have
many things below the surface, hidden from outsiders and even people within the organisation could
be unaware of these. There are many instances when management would inculcate the culture of
unsaid rules and pseudo-transparency.
While leading change in organisations, we should be mindful of the biases and uneven playing fields.
This would help us mobilize resources effectively to implement perfect or near perfect change
projects. This project also helped me to understand importance of planning the change in details as
much possible, placing right mechanism for tracking progress and using different styles with different
people to implement changes effectively.
Finally, this change project motivated me to be more open towards ambiguity and unforeseen events
in the process of change. The art of embracing the uncertainty would be key in future change projects.