MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION AWARDED BY NOTTINGHAM TRENT UNIVERSITY

ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSION FORM

Note: Students must attach this page to the front of the assignment before uploading to WECSERF. For uploading instructions please see the help file online Name of Student: Zubair Saleem Student Registration Number: KL102047 Module Name: Learning & Changing Module Number: WEC-MBA-09-0306 Assignment Title:A thorough understanding of learning and changing concepts and strategies Submission Due Date: August 16, 2009 Students Electronic Signature: Zubair
Plagiarism is to be treated seriously. Students caught plagiarizing, can be expelled from the programme

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Assignment Form MBA Jan04

This piece of work is written to analyze and evaluate the concepts and strategies of continuous learning and change management as basic needs to problem solving in critical situations within the organizations to improve the efficiency, quality, customer satisfaction and innovation and other KPI of the competitive advantages of organization to achieve best possible goals of the organization. To be more specific we will start the analysis, synthesis and evaluation of the concepts of learning, its outcomes by having a thorough review of different domains of learning. Looking on the domains of learning we will show the basic three domains of learning by Benjamin Bloom and his taxonomy of learning. These basic concepts of learning will lead to understand more clearly the organization learning and the importance of learning within a complex and sensitive industrial working environment. After having the brief review of learning and its concepts we will be looking on the process of learning to understand how an organization can create a learning environment. Kolbs learning styles then will more clarify the styles of learning which organization adopt or try to adopt to be continuous learning and innovative. Organizational learning leads to organizational development and the models followed by the organizations to increase KPI of its competitive advantages to sustain and remain competitive in the global competitive market. Yunus Textile Mills as an industrial organization is a very complex and sensitive working environment, which always follow the business goals of the organization on

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priority and have many driving and restraining forces to create a learning environment and apply the change strategies. Therefore it is important to have a review of the KPI of learning and development in internal and external environment of the organization which also helps to apply and implement the change strategies more effectively. The most common and famous change strategy by Kurt Lewin is then thoroughly discussed as need of Yunus Textile Mills to unfreeze, move and then refreeze its learning environment to achieve the best possible results of the change applied. On the basis of concepts, analysis and strategies of learning, development and change required by Yunus Textile Mills, we will conclude the overall requirements by the organization to be a learning organization and implement change as its basic need.

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CONTENTS Executive Summary----------------------------------------------------------------------1.0 Introduction-----------------------------------------------------------------------2.0 Learning and Its Outcomes-----------------------------------------------------2.1 Domains of Learning-------------------------------------------------------2.2 Benjamin Blooms Taxonomy--------------------------------------------2.3 Lorin Andersons Revised Cognitive Domain--------------------------3.0 Organizational Learning And Its Importance--------------------------------4.0 Process Of Learning-------------------------------------------------------------4.1 Kolbs Learning Styles-----------------------------------------------------5.0 Organizational Development---------------------------------------------------5.1 Burgoyne Ladder Model Of Organization Development--------------6.0 Change And Its Strategy------------------------------------------------------7.0 Change Strategies----------------------------------------------------------------7.1 Kurt Lewins Force Field Analysis---------------------------------------7.2 Kurt Lewins Change Model----------------------------------------------8.0 Conclusion------------------------------------------------------------------------References------------------------------------------------------------------------9.0 -

03 05 07 07 08 09 10 11 12 14 15 17 18 19 21 24 26

1.0 INTRODUCTION

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The difference between a Human and an Animal is only that human always keep changing in terms of his practices, mental capabilities, relations to others etc and animal doesnt. But a person becomes successful only when these changes are positive (My father, Khair Muhammad Laghari, 2008) Almost all the organizations always focus on there basic financial, social and economic goals and to achieve these goals many of inputs like man, machine, materials, policies, facilities etc are engaged by them but question arises that why some of them become successful and some not. To solve this question many of the organizations have always tried to keep sight and find the root causes of problems which lead to the solution. Organizations now have accepted that the information, education, technology, thoughts, understanding and demands of consumers, entrance of new companies in markets, implementation of the best possible strategies and many other factors are continuously improving. If we go more deep, trends are changed from local to global, Environmental conditions are always changing, WTO is trying to implement globally free market trade rules, information communication technology (ICT) is continuously improving, Standard operating procedures (SOP)are continuously improving, manufacturing industries have changed their strategies from formal to Lean, Kaizen and Six sigma, Workforce caliber is day by day increasing, Consumers are more liberal rather than communist, and many other factors brought us to the thought of not only improving but continuously improving organization systems and strategies. To achieve these all competitive advantages, being customer oriented and innovative organizations need continuous focus on their processes and operations and to be very much alert in todays very much turbulent, competitive, innovative, and consumer based markets. Being always organizations try to achieve the status of continuously learning organization so as to avoid any missing of information, achieve highest possible expertise, continuous improvement and changing their process and strategies.
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This all is done to propose the right strategy on right place at right time to achieve best possible economic, social and financial goals of the organization. As I have been working for four years as Textile engineer in Yunus Textile Mills, Pakistan so I will try to work and elaborate the main consequences of this piece of work for on the same industry to look on the issues more precisely. Yunus Textile Mills is one of the leading industries of Pakistan and is producing fabric for many of the multinational companies and global warehouses like Wall mart, Target, 3 Suisses, and Dan River etc. As a global supplier of the fabric the quality and customer focus are the main strategies of this industry but this industry is loosing its customers and market shares day by day because of many factors like high prices due to increase in gas and electricity prices, old machinery, continuous increase in defects, poor management strategies, non-risk oriented strategy, increase in recruitment budget due to no trainings and development of employees, loosing expertise due to increase in workforce caliber with constant salary packages, extra usage of capacity, and many other reasons. Therefore Yunus textile needs many changes in its strategies, SOP, technology, information management system (IMS) etc which we will try to evaluate below.

2.0 LEARNING AND ITS OUTCOMES Live as if you were to die tomorrow, Learn as if you were to live forever (Gandhi)

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SKA (Skills, Knowledge, and Abilities) are three main characteristics which increases organizations competitiveness and enhance its ability to sustain and competitive in the global markets. These are three main competitive advantages which make an organization able to obtain its all other required competitive advantages to sustain and remain competitive in the global market. Individual learning can refer to his religious, philosophical, psychological and observational view. Obviously organizations are run by humans and individuals are responsible for improvements. 2.1 DOMAINS OF LEARNING Learning in over all view can be divided into four main domains as given below.

Source: http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/ldc.htm 2.2 BENJAMIN BLOOMS TAXONOMY

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Benjamin Bloom (1956) more clearly describes learning by dividing it into three main categories as Cognitive (Mental skills/ Knowledge), Affective (Growth in feelings/ Attitudes) and Psychomotor (Manual or physical skills/ Skills). Bloom defined all these three domains much thoroughly but as industrial operations and management is more deeply concerned with Cognitive Domain of learning as defined by Bloom, so we will discuss only this domain of learning to be more specific. In Cognitive domain of learning Benjamin Bloom gave taxonomy by dividing it into six main categories from lower to higher skills of thinking of an individual as given below.

Source: http://www.nwlink.com/~Donclark/hrd/bloom.html Different people got different views about learning but in fact learning tends to a positive approach of continuous improvement and constructive continuous process which leads the organizations to sustain and compete in the competitive markets. 2.3 LORIN ANDERSONS REVISED COGNITIVE DOMAIN

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Lorin Anderson was former student of Benjamin Bloom and he revised the taxonomy of Cognitive domain by changing and re-arranging the categories as given below.

According to Lorin Synthesis or creation (New thought or structure) must follow the Evaluation (judgments). From this also we can analyze that understandings of learning and its processes may vary from people to people whether they reside in same region or have same way of thinking and education.

3.0 ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING AND ITS IMPORTANCE

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As we have already discussed SKA (Skills, Knowledge and Abilities) are the main factors for the improvement and innovation of the organizations. This term SKA (Knowledge, Skills and Abilities) is not only bound to individual learning but this refers to organization SKA where organizational knowledge is not only knowledge in tacit form in a human mind. This refers to organizational knowledge, its skills and its abilities to manufacture the products and services and compete in the global market. Organizational knowledge is embodied in physical artifacts (Equipments, Layout, Database), Organizational structure (Roles, Reward system, Procedures) and People (Skills, Values, Beliefs, Practices). (L&C Handbook, Nottingham Trent University, P04, 2009) Textile industry is completely based on customers and produce consumer based products but due to global competition Yunus Textile Mills needs a lot of competitive advantages. To sustain in the global competitive markets and attain competitive advantages Yunus Textile Mills have to follow the KPI (Key performance indicators) of Competitive advantages. These KPI of being competitive in the market are Organizations Efficiency, Quality of Products, Customer Satisfaction and Continuous Innovation. In thorough view an organization can only achieve these competitive advantages on its competitors when it has SKA (Skills, Knowledge and Abilitites). As we have already discussed that the global markets are improving day by day and the competition is increasing continuously due to innovations and improvements in many of internal and external factors like ICT, Re-engineering, Morale, Workforce caliber and many other factors.

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In this continuously innovative market environment organizations need to train and develop their expertise on continuous basis rather than once or discontinuously to achieve the best possible SKA. This continuous learning makes organization more competitive and due to this continuous learning with openness of learning, communication etc organization is termed as Learning organization. 4.0 PROCESS OF LEARNING After the World War II almost all the fields of organizations management, production of products and strategies of the organization were changed and people started thinking from a complete opposite angle, diverse concepts and vital understanding. Likewise Learning and SKA (Skills, Knowledge, and Abilities) also take over the concept of More money creates more power. Many of the psychologists, physiologists and management oriented people gave different theories and concepts to avoid past mistakes and bad experiences. Some main names in the field of changing the concept of organizations to operate customer based and create continuous learning organization are Howard gardner, Fernald, Keller, Gillingham, Montessori, David Kolb, Honey & Monfords, John Burgoyne, Kim and many others. Here we will be discussing only David Kolbs four learning styles which are concerned to our organization because Yunus Textile Mills is not a learning organization and to start its learning process, it is preferable for this organization to go through this method.

4.1 KOLBS LEARNING STYLES

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David Kolb (1984) developed a learning style model which then gave birth to Kolbs experiential learning theory (ELS) and Kolbs learning styles inventory (LSI). Kolbs experiential learning theory and Kolbs learning styles gives a cycle of learning in four stages for organizations to learn and achieve the competitive advantages or key performance indicators of those competitive advantages. The four stage learning cycle derived by David Kolb is as given in following figure.

Source: http://www.businessballs.com/kolblearningstyles.htm 1. Concrete Experience (CE) This style of learning basically refers the organizations to engage with those personnel who know the importance of learning and change. In this phase the organizations and its employees are motivated for the importance and making them to feel the importance to implement strategies of learning and development to increase their competitiveness in the global market. 2. Reflective Observation (RO)

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This phase makes organizations to understand the concepts and theories of learning and development and its models with practical understanding and review the past practices by organizations. 3. Abstract Conceptualization (AC) This phase is the motivational phase for management and employees to be motivated and start thinking and accepting the needs of learning environment and its practices. This phase make management to achieve best possible participation of employees in the learning practices. 4. Active Experimentation (AE) Before the implementation of learning and development strategies organization must analyze and experiment the results of the strategies from internal and external factors. This phase make them able to implement the strategies of learning and development more effectively.

5.0 ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

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Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do(Goethe) Organizations are always based on its tangible and intangible assets and put their best possible inputs to achieve best possible outputs. Before this transformation of inputs to outputs organizations try to plan all the procedures and strategies to gain the high edge of competitive advantages. But in some unwanted situations organizations strategies may fail due to any internal or external effect. This unwanted situation not only happens due to mistakes and wrong implementation of procedures and strategies but many external factors like PEST (Political, Economical, Social and Technological), competitors strategies, market growth, market fall, and environmental factors etc may also cause such failure of Planned strategies. In failure of the planned strategies organizations try to sustain the processes and recover the losses and for this cause many Unplanned strategies. Planned and unplanned strategies are basically based on the situations and company position. Analysis of situations and company position of Yunus Textile Mills is a big task, so based on my experience I have evaluated that yunus textile Mills is not a learning organization as I was working there for more than three years as a Textile Engineering and was tacitly and explicitly analyzing the company from top to bottom. Also Yunus Textile Mills is a fabric manufacturing industry and situations can be changed any time in such industry and company can highly be effected due to all PEST factors and unplanned strategies can only be suggested and evaluated on the time situation changes or planned strategy fails. For the organizational development basically two main models are being used as planned strategy approach i.e. Burgoyne Ladder Model and Ash Ridges 4 F model.
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These both models are basically used for HR (Human resource) development which leads an organization to its SKA (Skills, Knowledge, and Abilities) keeping the Human as main planning and strategy implementing resource of the organization. Yunus Textile Mills is still not on the right path of learning and keeping human as main resource of the organization, I will suggest Burgoyne Ladder model for organizational development. 5.1 BURGOYNE LADDER MODEL OF ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMET John Burgoyne (1988) suggested a model which leads to the human and management development of the organization. Basically the Burgoyne Ladder model used nowadays is the refined model of original Burgoyne model. The original model was refined by the colleagues (Pedler et al, 1991) of John Burgoyne. Following are six stages of Burgoyne Ladder model from bottom to top in which the first stage is kept as lowest learning level of an organization. Stage 1: No systematic Management Development This stage shows that organization doesnt follow at all for its employee and management development. Or in other words company completely relies on Laissez Faire. Stage 2: Isolated / Tacit Management Development In this stage organization is following some steps regarding development but the development is not according to business needs and steps are only taken when employees inform or show their needs. In other words management activities are only set for the general local problems and crises.
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Stage 3: Integrated structural and development activities Most executives and managers would rather be in an earning organization than in a learning organization (Anders Hermre, Technologies) Structural development activities are done only when a manager is directly concerned and activities take place for his needs. Or employees are motivated to achieve the organizational goals but no any development actions are taken for individual needs. Stage 4: Management Strategy to implement corporate strategy Learning, training, education and other development strategies are implemented to attain the corporate goal of the organization or to implement corporate strategy more effectively. Stage 5: Management Development as an input to corporate strategy formulation Employees and management development process contributes to corporate strategy formulation. But Human resources policies act as barrier because of Personal management focus of HR. Stage 6: Strategic Development of Management of Corporate Policy In this stage Human resource management becomes the foundation of whole organization and corporate policy is being enhanced by the human resource for which they are willing to contribute in achievement of organization goals. Yunus Textile Mills is now on the 3rd stage of this model where employees are motivated to achieve the organization goals efficiently and give quality production but they are not trained for the long term achievement of competitive advantages.
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CEO, Inter Knowledge

6.0 CHANGE AND ITS STRATEGY The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our Case is new, so we must think a new and act a new Abraham Lincoln Change is basically meant by making difference and the management of processes and strategies implementation to make this difference/ change is known as Change Management. Organization operations are always followed by some procedures and strategies and these strategies can be deliberate or emergent strategies of the operations and can be planned or unplanned depending upon the situations and circumstances. Organizations always try to implement the planned strategies and control the processes and factors effecting to avoid any unwanted situation which reflects in defects, losses and losing of market shares. Sometimes these planned strategies can fail because of many internal and external factors and in the situation of failure organizations go for emergent strategies. To control the organization operations is sometimes found to be difficult because of these same internal and external factors or uncontrolled way of managing the processes. When the processes go out of control, organizations take the corrective actions and implement some change strategies to control the processes and operations of the organizations. Also in the global market many of the factors like WTO rules, globalization, ICT, increase in competitions, customers knowledge, etc have made the organizations to must implement some changes and improve their operations to remain sustainable and competitive in the markets to achieve their business goals.
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7.0 CHANE STRATEGIES Change strategies can be of two main types i.e. Evolutionary and Revolutionary change strategies. i) Evolutionary Change Strategies Organizations suggest and implement Evolutionary change strategies when they need continuous improvement and when situations are under control in terms of their business goals. These evolutionary strategies are implemented to improve the operations to achieve the business goals more efficiently or if organization feels any expected negative change or requires innovation internally or externally. Evolutionary strategies include many types of organization development strategies suggested by many of the philosophers and operations managing personnel. But Yunus Textile Mills is already in the critical condition and is facing lot of problems like day by day reducing number of orders, increasing defects, employment of personal management instead of Human resource management, non-learning working environment etc. Therefore for this organization it is better to implement Revolutionary strategy to perform a change in the operations and management of the organization.

ii) Revolutionary Strategies

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When organizations face any problem which is against their corporate strategy or any critical situation which may lead to loss or even liquidation of the organization then organizations go for the Revolutionary change strategies. Revolutionary strategies may require lot of budget and less time of implementation but this is the only way for the organizations when they face such situation. The most famous and our organization related revolutionary change strategies may be Action Research and Kurt Lewins change strategy. But the conditions of Yunus Textile Mills prefer the Kurt Lewins 3 steps change model. But before we go to the strategy, it is important to have a view of positive and negative forces applied on the change strategy 7.1 KURT LEWINS FORCE FIELD ANALYSIS Kurt Lewin introduced force field analysis to calculate the Driving forces and restraining forces of the change strategy. Before the suggestion and implementation of change strategy organizations analyze the internal and external environment of the organization to calculate the driving and restraining forces of the change strategy as given and explained below.

Source: http://home.att.net/~nickols/changing.htm Driving Forces

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Driving forces are those forces which help organization to successfully implement the change strategy. These forces can be termed as the positive forces for the change strategy like strong leadership, team work, learning environment, motivated workforce etc. Restraining Forces Restraining forces are the forces which create barriers in implementation of change strategy. The forces like poor leadership, non learning environment, self interest, uncertainty in workforce, lack of motivation etc causes the failure of the change strategy. Organizations try to reduce the restraining forces and increase driving forces or reduce efficiency of restraining forces and improve efficiency of driving forces to avoid barriers in implementation and control of change strategy.

7.2 KURT LEWINS CHANGE MODEL

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Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) was an American psychologist and his hard working gave us many new concepts of management like team building, experiential learning, action research and 3 stages change model etc. According to Kurt Lewin an organization can not implement change if he is not unfreezing its first implemented strategies and operations. Kurt Lewin described his change model in three main stages i.e. Unfreezing, Transition of change, and Refreezing of strategies and operations as given in following figure.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/david_jones/3350260757/ i) Unfreezing Organizations follow their process routes and procedures very carefully and are mostly emphasizing the continuous working environment. But to implement change in this stage they must remove all previous practices in the area where they need to apply change. This phase make them able to start their change process by firstly removing all strategies implemented before to be able to accept the new changed practices and strategies.

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In this phase the situation plays a very important role and organization try to evaluate the following main analysis. Cost/benefit analysis of the organization and change strategy. Marking the end result or ensuring that change team can concentrate and implement the new ideas instead of the old one. Planning of the change and its process. ii) Transition/ Move In this stage the change is implemented and employees are continuously motivated to participate and follow the change. Mostly employees cause barriers because of disturbance, uncertainty, and self interests and in this phase organization apply push and pull strategies to make them able to understand the situations and accept the change. The main focuses in this stage to accept and implement the change are as given below. Creating the complete understanding for tasks of each individual. Acting or making each individual to perform his task. Follow up and evaluation of individuals tasks on completion Ensuring the tasks are complete and closing the loose ends. iii) Re-Freezing In re-freezing stage organizations accept the changed system or strategies as their new system implemented.

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In this phase organization or change agent need to complete the following tasks. Marking the new beginning and creating new rules and policies. Celebrating and ensuring the energy of new daily work and making future plans. Evaluating the final results of the change as a whole.

CONCLUSION Changes and innovations in global conditions, market improvements, environmental conditions like global warming etc, strong competitiveness in global free markets
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have made it must for every organization along with Yunus textile mills to be a learning organization and make improvements by application of change. Being a textile manufacturing industry Yunus textile mills is dealing with world giants and the requirements of consumers living across the globe are also continuously increasing. To overcome the todays problems and avoid any risk in future, Yunus textile mills must implement change towards innovation in its workforce, information, planning and technology sectors. During my job I have felt a lot the non-learning and non-risk oriented environment in the organization which is very sensitive situation for such organization. World is modifying day by day and Yunus textile mills is still following the old strategies with old machinery with lack of management control practices. These conditions bring us to the conclusion that in this condition company must go for continuous learning and for the development of the employees. The leadership as an important KPI of learning, change and development is also very important to focus which in Yunus textile mills has to be proactive but in this industry it is reactive. The human resource department of the mills must be replaced with personal management so as to achieve the training and development strategies to improve the SKA (Skills, knowledge, and abilities) of the industry. For change company must apply the Kurt Lewins change model by unfreezing, changing and refreezing the system and strategies after the internal and external analysis of the driving and restraining forces of the industry.

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