Page 51 - DMGT520_ORGANIZATION_CHANGE_AND_DEVELOPMENT

Organization Change and Development

Notes
and distribution assets were acquired in end 1994 and early 1995 respectively. Then there
was the purchase of processed tomato assets of Pepsi Foods in Punjab. Overall, the company
fully utilized the opportunity for growth in processed foods. With these restructuring
exercises, the company’s employees now are from diverse streams and the task was to
adopt an approach which will create the most positive cultural environment.

Five Lessons
There are five important lessons that were learnt in the process.
The first lesson is start with the individual. Even before the merger of Lipton India and
Brooke-Bond was formally announced and approved by the Company Boards, it was
appreciated that it was imperative to develop a clear human resource plan with the
individual in mind. This helped to determine the new management structure with people
assigned to key functions during the transition phase. The managers who were good in a
single company context now have new competition leading to a reappraisal of their
relative strengths and positions. Although all this appears quite logical the process was
rich in human emotions. In such a situation, one must move ahead with strong focus on
counseling and retraining as the remedies.
The second lesson that was learnt is to institutionalize open communication.
A restructuring effort such as this can give rise to wild rumours that can affect group
morale and interrupt smooth operations. An elaborate communication package was
therefore designed to relieve employees at all levels of any concerns by taking them into
confidence. The comprehensive communication package covered employees, units, traders
and the external contacts. Communication meetings were initially held at the Corporate
Office in Bangalore and within three days it cascaded down to all levels of employees
through unit heads and departmental heads. The Chairman’s review held annually to
reflect on the working of the past year and to understand the key task ahead in the current
year was used as yet another communication forum. Through regional reviews at six
different centers the entire managerial group was covered. Symbolic of the new mindset
that had begun to evolve; a lively audio-visual was developed to encourage employees to
give up their formal identities in favour of their new identities.

The third one is to create feedback mechanism and this is an important lesson too. However
effectively done, every communication exercise runs the risk of turning into a one-way
topdown effort. For lasting results the improvement of a two-way dialogue and feedback
mechanism at corporate levels cannot be overemphasized. A novel two-way communicate
mechanism branded as ‘Reach-Out’ has been established in the company where employees
can directly communicate with the top management. The top management responds to
the employees’ queries, comments and suggestions at the monthly communication
meetings. The company also conducted a structured survey immediately after the merger
and acquisition in order to assess the organization climate. The feedback has been useful
for creating a framework that facilitates employee empowerment and decision-taking at
the most operational level.
The fourth one is to establish positive processes for a new mindset. Even as the process of
integrating the operations of the erstwhile entity has got under way, further initiatives
were set in motion in order to create a new mindset among employees and attune them to
the challenges of the future. As a step in that direction, the company organized a series of
confluence workshops where the top management shared with the participating employees
all details of the company’s vision to build a large food business. The workshop touched
on major problems in the way and the steps being considered to overcome them. By this

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