Problem Statement: Analyze the Case & Implement Eight Steps of Transforming an

Organization (Radio Station WEAA, in this case), as suggested by John P. Kotter

Leading Change

A] Unfreeze

Step-1: Establishing a Sense of Urgency

 Current Staffing Problems: Fiske is supposed to plan and deliver 15 hours of

quality content every week through a staff of 30 direct reports, 29 of whom are
volunteers. Training, Development and Motivation of the workforce (Mainly,
Volunteers) is the major issue.
 Unconventional Aspects of Organization: Inefficient business processes, improper
reporting relationships, too much of red-tape, lack of commitment and agreement
on operating policies
 To find a replacement host for Razan and come up with a new program quickly
 Limited Funds: Not even a single formal fund raising drive is organized in previous
two years.

Step-2: Forming a Powerful Guiding Coalition

 As Fiske’s Boss, Owens, trusts her capabilities, and has required authority to
execute some of the changes, which she wants to bring; She must first take him in
her confidence. He also has similar concerns like lack of direction, lack of structure
and lack of basic understanding that most of the workforce at WEAA is facing with.
 Fiske should also take both the direct reports, Sharyn & Ettifaq, also into the
confidence, as they also believe in her approach, and their point of view is valid,
on which Fiske can work on. For instance, Sharyn believe that Fiske should try to
communicate more frequently with the staff and Ettifaq believe that she should

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 balance her passion and urgency with the level of passion and urgency of other
people.

Step-3: Creating a Vision

 Fiske should come up with short term as well as long-term vision.

 Short Term Vision: Focus on training, development and motivation of
volunteers. More structured and well-defined policies should be drafted, and
more accountability of volunteers should be ensured. Realistic expectations
should be quantized and defined in the form of their job description.
 Long Term Vision: Come up with a system, that can ensure decent pay
system for volunteers as well, that could justify the value addition made by
them. She must develop tools, resources so as to establish regular
evaluation. She should also give direction to the News & Public Affairs
Department, and eventually to WEAA overall, and lead the change towards
making it self-sustainable radio station (Non-Profitable Radio Station
Model).

B] Change

Step-4: Communicating the Vision

 Firstly, she should frame both, short term and long term strategy, based on the
short term and long term vision, she has decided for her organization. She then
should communicate these strategies to her close aids, especially her boss,
Owens,
 She then should focus on stimulating this vision, through her close aids to reach
more number of people. She should also involve her directly, and should strive to
come up with a single communication strategy that will reflect what the
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 organization aspires to become, and what role each individual has to play in the
achievement of that objective.

Step-5: Empowering Others to Act on the Vision

 She should encourage more risk taking, and non-conventional ideas, activities and
actions that could empower young volunteers, who wants to come up with different
innovative programs.
 She should also streamline the expectations aspect from these volunteers, by
specifying the main requirements, and should get rid of all the obstacles which are
not letting these volunteers to work effectively.
 Motivation is one of the keys that can work well here. When volunteers feel that
their show is making some sort of contribution in the life of so many people, they
start taking ownership. The only thing matters it, how this feeling is communicated
to them. There should be some reward or incentives based system, which should
be given to some of the best performing shows and their hosts.
 In the best of her capacity, she should also try to weed out all the ineffective
policies, business processes, and improper structures, that are the major source
of inefficiencies in the system. If it’s not in her authority, she should influence the
person with authority to make the change (Empowering them indirectly).

Step-6: Planning for & Creating Short-Term Wins

 As soon as the audience of a particular show starts growing at a descent pace,

she should felicitate the host of that show with rewards, both monetary as well as
non-monetary, and that too in front of all the volunteers. This will not only be a
short-term win celebration for that host, but a source of motivation for many others.
 She should organize some quarterly event, where she should not only felicitate
those shows, which are doing well, but she should also try to give certain token of
appreciation to those hosts who can do better.

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 C] Freeze

Step-7: Consolidating Improvements & Producing Still More Change

 Slowly and steadily, she should thrive towards making this whole performance
appreciation thing, a part of routine process, as if it starts getting into the DNA of
the organization. The volunteers then would be fully aware of what it means to be
a good performing show. What the steps are, they need to take to make their show
trending, and hence, this whole thing will itself become a part of the system.
 She should then hire, promote and develop the employees who can execute her
vision. The volunteers, who are in complete control of their role and take full sense
of ownership of their work.
 However, she should not let the system go complacent, and should strive towards
a sense of constant change, by reinvigorating the present system or radio shows
with more new and innovative projects, themes and change agent.

Step-8: Institutionalizing New Approaches

 Based on the long term strategy, and a part of well-defined and properly structured
work process, her ultimate objective should be on, how to make this whole change
process a part of this structure. How her organization can absorb any change and
associate the outputs/impacts of that change on the ultimate success or the bottom
line.
 Instead of leading so many volunteers all by herself, she should also look for
leaders like her or better than her, from the volunteers who could emulate and
implement her vision for the organization, and can take the change process
forward, which she initiated at once.
 She should also nurture that talent inside her organization, so that in case of
emergency like situation when Razan, left the organization suddenly. There should
be someone (as equal or better than Razan) who can act as immediate substitution
and not let organization face the ripples.
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