The document discusses strategies for implementing change at Walmart to increase e-commerce sales and improve the overall shopping experience. It recommends that Walmart (1) increase the sense of urgency around changing from a traditional to e-commerce sales model to promote long-term sales growth, (2) blend digital and traditional shopping experiences by integrating online and in-store pickup options, and (3) ensure effective communication between leaders and employees when implementing changes. This will help Walmart successfully transition to an e-commerce strategy and improve performance over the long run.

1. BUILDING THE TEAM
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BUILDING THE TEAM
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BUILDING THE TEAM
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Strategies for Change
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2 April 2019
Building the Team Strategies for Change
According to Kotter and Cohen, the second stage of
change; an organization should build a guiding team to bring
the right mastermind people with desired characters on board to
effect change within an organization (Hughes, 2016). All
employers working in a given organization have different
characters with different perception and ideas about change
about a specific issue. This stage allows leaders to integrate the
minds of all workers and create a team that will foster change

2. and leads it within the organization.
Building a team to address change
There are some ways through which leaders can build their
teams in preparation for a change in an organization. First,
employers should ensure that there is clarity of issues to the
team members team will readily embrace a change when they all
understand why, how, when, what and where the change is
expected. Also clarifying to the members that the change is
likely to affect the organization, employees, chains as well as
the customers will make them desire to work in line to effect
the change as expected by the management (Harrison, 2017).
Clarity is very critical in building teamwork as it addresses
“what if” situations enabling the team to plan well as act
effectively towards a change. Also, it allows team members to
analyze the risks and potential outcomes form a clear line of
thoughts and take a perfect path in making the anticipated
change a reality. Secondly, in building teams, leaders should
embrace thoughts from different members to cultivate the
diversity of thinking and acting through innovation. The
collaboration of ideas creates an environment where people can
connect, share and analyze situations concerning the desired and
anticipated change with an entity. Thirdly, the management
should encourage critical and strategic thinking in the run to
achieving or effecting change. Critical thinking builds strategies
since ideas are embraced (Hughes, 2016). The courageous
aspect of thinking allows team members to see opportunities in
various fields critically, anticipate for the unexpected risks,
unleash the hidden excellence pursuit, and work with the motive
of charitable purposes thus bringing the managerial change
desired by many(Harrison, 2017). Additionally, employers
should know the right composition of a team and the
aggressiveness of the members of the coalition team.
Showing enthusiasm and commitment to team members
Building a guiding coalition in bringing change to an
organization requires a high degree of enthusiasm and
commitment. To show enthusiasm and commitment leaders

3. should first consider the level of an organization and the weight
if the change anticipated. Through this, leaders may decide to
choose a group of 10, 20, or more members to a guiding
coalition. The team is called a guiding coalition since the
members are selected from various department and ideas are
embraced form each member with the aim of effecting the
desired change. A larger team with the right people in it acts as
a working engine as skills and ideas are collaborated to make
change happen in an organization. Skills such as leadership
skills among the team members stimulate high levels of urgency
to make things right in line with the coming change. Also
choosing guiding coalition members with different levels of
expertise from different fields or departments within an
organization will bring competitively and diversity of ideas thus
bringing moving power in bringing and adopting new change (
Hughes,2016)... Commitment will also enable an employer to
bring the right people together by identifying their passion,
desire, commitment as well as their experience in a specific area
at the workplace which is a very critical step in bringing
change.
Modeling trust and teamwork
Modeling trust and teamwork in fostering change in
organizations call for leaders to lead as an example by
demonstrating that they can trust other employees or their boss.
Team members learn cues from their leaders if there is no trust
they will also not cultivate trust to you and other employees
(Ryan, 2018). Also, as a leader, you need to communicate
openly and with clarity in an honest and meaningful way. Find
strategies to influence your team members also, to be honest,
and open when communicating change with other colleagues.
Leaders should consider building a working charter that defines
the role of each team members present it to the team and allow
them to ask questions and comment on their expectations.
Thirdly, organize and strategically plan for team building events

4. which will help team members to break ice and share freely
with the bosses or amongst themselves (Ryan, 2018). Another
way of creating trust is by ensuring that you know your team
members at a personal level. Also, creating an environment that
will allow o team members to share freely with other colleagues
about their lives families and hobbies will create a trust bond
and social life within the guiding coalition.
Structuring the team and ejecting energy
I will put my team into a functional structure which is
based on the team member’s functionality or expertise area. For
instance, I will group the team members into IT, marketing,
planning, finance and any other area of specialty (Harrison,
2017)... This structure will enable members from a similar
specialty to share experience and skills thus coming up with
ideas that will foster or embrace change. This structure will
have top management linked to small groups of specialty as
communication is effected from one department to the other.
Injecting energy into the team members will involve motivating
the team, giving them credit wherever they do a commendable
job, go easy on dress code (suggest one day within a week for
casual wear) as well as recommend days for social impact with
the organization.
Walmart Inc. is expected to implement proper changes to
their business operations. To compete with other companies in
the retail space and market, Walmart should invest in e-
commerce and improve the overall shopping experience.
Currently, the shopping experience is insufficient and the
employees lack proper motivation. To make the changes,
Walmart Inc. reported actions to bring about substantial changes
including investing in e-commerce and expanding he overall
shopping experience in the company. Making drastic changes is
important in increasing e-commerce presence is effective
(Hickman, & Silva, 2018). Walmart is expected to form proper
strategic partnerships to enhance the digital retail sales and
overall operations. For example, the company is expected to
form renovation into the shopping experience and the streaming

5. of the retail stores. Therefore, the strategies for implementing
change is important in promoting sales growth and long-term
performance.
Strategies for Change-Making Sense of Urgency
There are different strategies to implement proper changes in
the organization to increase the overall retail sales. Taking
advantage of the market opportunities is important to enhance
retail sales. One of the strategies is understanding customer-
interfacing employees effectively. Service employees are
critical in improving the customer reactions and encouraging
the managers to work effectively. Proper treatment of the
employees and responding to urgent questions is critical in
ensuring that the company is prepared for proper changes to the
adoption of e-commerce sites (Elnaga, &Shammari, 2016). The
organizational leaders should take proper actions to understand
the needs of the stakeholders. The leaders should also
understand the need for making proper changes to support long-
term online sales growth.
Some of the critical steps and actions for implementing sense of
urgency includes understanding severity of leadership
commitment to implementing proper changes, reviewing the bad
news of poor retail sales, demanding managers and employees
to respond directly to the unhappy customers, and other
stakeholders, sharing information to support change, and
ascertaining that the management actions are aligned with the
change communications to enhance online ecommerce sales. It
is impossible to implement urgency without proper and effective
communication with the work teams and employees. The leaders
demand clear communications that is critical in promoting
change efforts and programs. Understanding sense of urgency is
important in overcoming the status quo to improve change and
future productivity.
It is also recommendable for the managers of Walmart to
identify the specific tasks and reduce the potential confusion.
Sense of urgency is critical in making proper judgments about
the understanding the motivation of the employees.

6. Clarification of the organizational tasks is critical in promoting
communications for forming quality leader-follower
relationship. Clarifying the issues related to e-commerce
presence of Walmart is effective in understand the capabilities
of the employees effectively. The clarifying of the potential
consequences of e-commerce change is also important. It is
necessary for the teams to understand the actual consequences
of poor productivity and performance of Walmart Inc. Effective
organizational leaders should understand the effects of
challenges that impacts on the productivity of the organization.
Understanding the need for e-commerce change is good to
promote long-term actions and plans.
Most importantly, it is vital to set proper conditions and
guidelines for the work teams to ensure that they respond to the
urgent needs of the organization. The guidelines for the
implementation of online retail strategy for Walmart are
valuable to the long-term performance of the company. The
recognition of the employees is vital in responding to the sense
of urgency is important (Hickman, & Silva, 2018).Changing the
online sales strategy is critical in promoting success and
recognizing the teams effectively. The mastering of these online
strategies is critical in implementing proper changes to
Walmart’s proper actions.
It is recommendable for Walmart to support a blended shopping
experience and program to improve the implementation of the e-
commerce program. However, the company is making effort to
enhance the digital and the traditional shopping experiences for
Walmart. The integration of these retail shopping experiences is
important in improving the performance of the retail firms to
enhance the long-term sales expansion. For example, Walmart
Inc. should integrate relevant pickup discounts for specific
products purchased online (Elnaga, &Shammari, 2016).Some of
the online stores gives the customers the opportunity to
purchase the grocery products online. The empowerment of the
employees is critical to promote long-term online earnings.
Conclusion

7. In summary, Walmart Inc. should increase the sense of urgency
through the changing the traditional sales environment to an e-
commerce platform that promotes sales growth and
performance. The implementation of these change strategies
will be effective in promoting the long-term online sales
performance. For instance, the blending of shopping experience
is necessary to enhance sales performance as well as the e-
commerce program and initiatives. The implementation of the
shopping experience is useful in ensuring the integration of the
digital and traditional shopping experiences to improve sales
growth. Most importantly, effective communication between the
leaders and the work teams is also necessary. The collaboration
between the leaders and the work teams will help in promoting
the long-term performance of the company. Walmart will rely
on the sense of urgency strategies to implement a
comprehensive ecommerce strategy.
References
Elnaga, A. A., &Shammari, F. H. A. (2016). The impact of e-
commerce on business strategy: a literature review
approach. Journal of American Science, 12(5), 68-79.
Harrison, P. (2017). Communicating Change. In Exploring
Internal Communication (pp. 79-86). Routledge.
Hickman, C. R., & Silva, M. A. (2018). Creating excellence:

8. Managing corporate culture, strategy, and change in the new
age. London, UK: Routledge.
Hughes, M. (2016). Leading changes: Why transformation
explanations fail. Leadership, 12(4), 449-469.
Ryan, L. (2018, March 17). Ten Ways to Build Trust on Your
Team. Retrieved from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/2018/03/17/ten-ways-
to-build-trust-on-your- team/#186e4b472445