Restructuring of First Bank Family enterprise, First Bank, has, for three decades, been the town's only bank. Mr. First, the founder, originally instituted it as a little loaning shop; the small business grew larger, turning into the town's sole financial services organization. It provided small loans and over-the-counter cash facilities to clients. The town's growth, however, has led to a tremendous increase in the bank's client base, challenging the current operational structure of the organization. The problem faced is threat to the organization's existence, owing to the fact that the bank, at present, is not up to the task of meeting the town's growing demands. Bank management, comprising chiefly of family members, is unwilling to alter the existing operational structure as well as improving quality and increasing the number of personnel employed. This has been a major factor in the bank's inefficient, stagnated, and outdated structure. Apart from hiring fresh talent, expansion of the business by using varied product range and automation of the existing services is necessary. Change Management is required for an organization to move from current state to the desired state. Consequently, at First Junior's (Mr. First's son) insistence, management has, appointed Transform Consultants for aiding them with effecting organizational development and change.

Change Management

Change, in general terms, is described merely as "a new state of things" that differs from the state of things previously (French & Bell, 1999). Thus, by employing this definition, one can explain organizational change as a transition from an existing state to a future state, where the enterprise wishes to reach (Cummings, et al., 1985). The simplest way to comprehend change in the organizational context is a comparison of it with other forms of change, rather than an attempt at defining it. The name "organizational change" deals with a transformation in the activities of an organization. However, this definition does not suffice, as it fails to explicate the kinds of activities undergoing change. The foremost thing one can note through a comparison of organizational and operational change is that the former has a broad scope, covering all operational practices, manufacturing, logistics, and customer service, while the latter deals exclusively with individuals in the organization, their values and their roles (Salminen, 2000)

According to Schoonover and Dalziel (1988), change is either an unplanned or planned organizational response to external and internal pressures, emerging from various sources. For instance, external factors can be competing firms, technological advancements, and regulators, while internal change forces may be product or service obsolescence, increase in workforce diversity, new opportunities in the market (or new markets), and new strategic aims (Lanning, 2001). Numerous strategic factors drive change processes (Schilling & Steensma, 2001); these include the requirement for greater organizational-task-related integration (Rugman & Hodgetts, 2001) and the necessity to bring about better enterprise performance (Balogun & Hope, 2008). Adler and Shenbar (1990) profess that all changes necessitate revision and transformation in organizational processes, methods, human skills, culture and strategy.

The word 'change management' is customarily used to describe management of organizational change -- change in company structure, leadership, culture, job structure, values and roles (Salminen, 2000). Change can basically be categorized as radical and incremental. The former (also called revolutionary change, turnaround, and transformation) denotes an extensive, major alteration in organizational strategy and culture, while the latter relates to evolutionary modifications, fixing problems and fine-tuning. In short, incremental change deals with improvements to company performance without essentially altering the company (Lanning, 2001).

Analysis of First Bank

For comprehending specific reasons regarding why change is needed and understanding changes which must be effected in a cost and time-efficient way, a SWOT analysis of First bank was carried out. SWOT analysis refers to an assessment of a firm's internal weaknesses and strengths, and external threats and opportunities. Strengths represent current organizational elements contributing to exceptional performance (such as highly qualified workforce, quality enhancement focus, and employees' thorough understanding of company objectives. Weaknesses denote company factors, which contribute towards lowering service quality or increasing operational costs. Opportunities represent noteworthy novel business initiatives open to a company, whereas threats are elements capable of adversely affecting performance of the organization (Gretzky, 2010).

First Bank's SWOT Analysis

Strengths: sound client base, bank credibility with clients, good client-company interpersonal bonds, small hierarchical arrangement in the company that facilitates speedy decision-making, good loan repayment terms, and flexibility in interest rates

Higher education away from his hometown has exposed him to other markets of the nation. Therefore, he possesses knowledge required for saving the family bank from collapse as well as experience with banking organizations in other regions. Hence, he is aware of the range of services and products the banking sector can provide. In spite of First Junior's competence to guide the family enterprise through its change process, his father, Mr. First refuses to assimilate change, assign or hand over authority for allowing change to occur. This has led to much conflict, since both take an assertive stance -- desiring to fulfill their personal interests -- in lieu of assuming a cooperative stance wherein both are ready to fulfill the other's interests (Thomas, 1976).
The solution to managing this father-son conflict is getting them both to collaborate- a cooperative and assertive strategy in which both parties endeavor to co-operate with one another for coming up with a mutually satisfying, integrative solution. The approach is grounded on a pursuit for winning resolutions; it may entail information and idea sharing in collective problem solving, and confronting differences. Another key is accommodation -- a cooperative, unassertive strategy wherein one of the conflicting parties forgoes its own interests to accommodate those of the other party. In other words, it may necessitate yielding to views. A third conflict-resolving means is compromise; here, at least a few interests of both parties are satisfied, while the rest are forsaken. It entails seeking tradeoffs to reach satisfactory solutions for each party (Thomas, 1977).

For effective conflict management, both parties need to understand and accept that the organization's interests hold more value than their own personal interest; they should be prepared to give lesser priority to personal concerns. Focus should be shifted from self to the enterprise and what steps must be taken for it to survive. Some of their preferences should be set aside for company benefit. This helps reduce lending of a personal identity to solutions, with both parties looking to organization interests. This will prove to be a great challenge for the owner, Mr. First -- he feels as though his authority as enterprise owner is being usurped. He must first realize that delegating authority to others does nothing to reduce his own control and dominance. Additionally, his son has been empowered by education, and the knowledge and experience he has gained must be deployed for the betterment of the enterprise. The son should be free to apply his experience without being derided. This will also be a struggle for First Junior, who feels his education to be the key to his family business's continued existence. Consequently, the son may face ego issues and may possibly be looking forward to his father stepping down from leadership, for him to take control. He must, however, acknowledge the fact that his father has started and run the business successfully for 30 years. Mr. First's efforts need to be valued, not discredited. He must aim at building upon the base established by his father, rather than destroying it to incorporate change. Once First Junior proves to his father that he will add value, and put in hard work, Mr. First will gradually stop resisting change.

Approach Change as a Group

There are 20 employees in First Bank and the recommendation is that they come together as a task force for promoting inclusivity and collaboration. Each organizational member has played a part in ensuring the bank's survival and growth for many years; being actively involved in the process of change will lead to a sense of process 'ownership', somewhat reducing their opposition to change. Formal groups functions have been enumerated by Schein (1980) as follows: carrying out complex tasks which cannot easily be performed individually; a mode of inspiring creativity and eliciting novel ideas; decision implementation for ascertaining that a collective goal or aim be established for the group rather than the individual; accessibility of multiple outlooks for the purpose of problem solving; conveying and reinforcing common group message; institution and testing of beliefs, experience, meanings,…