Internal and External Forces and Change

Within the business world, there are different theories of effective change implementation. The corporation this research focuses on is Duke University Children’s Hospital, which is highlighted in the textbook. The topic of the research paper will focus on the process of implementing change within the hospital. Implementing change within organizations is very relevant to this course. Not only is the course called Leading Organization Change, but the topics we have been focusing on revolve around methods of implementing change. With changes, organizations need to take steps to fully plan the change in order to ensure a smooth transition and acceptance (Spector, 2013). Research will show how Duke University Children’s Hospital assessed the internal and external forces that impacted the change and how they assessed if the organization was ready for change. Also, research will show what model and strategies were used during the organizational change along with an analysis of whether resistance to the change occurred and if so, how it was dealt with. Finally, I will strategize how to handle leading group changes within a similar context. Often times, financial crises spurs change in organizations. This was the case for Duke University Children’s Hospital. An assessment was made by the key administrators that showed how dire their financial situation truly was due to various reasons. This resulted in the pending elimination of programs and reduced services. Additionally, sales productivity had dramatically fallen as well as patient and staff satisfaction reaching its lowest point. These negative factors caused the hospital to make an assessment that they were ready for change. Change was the only thing that would keep their doors open to the public and Meliones knew that once people understood the situation more fully, change would be a goal on all of the staff’s minds. The first step Meliones took was to diagnose what the root causes of the financial

References: Fullan, M. (2001). Leading in a culture of change (1st ed.). San Francisco, California: Jossey- Bass. Nguyen, S. (2010). Implementing change and overcoming resistance. Workplace Psychology. Retrieved from http://workplacepsychology.net/2010/02/05/implementing-change-and- overcoming-resistance/ Russell, J. (2013). How to create change in the workplace. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/how-to-create-change-in-the- workplace/2013/11/27/9d62f8de-5548-11e3-835d-e7173847c7cc_story.html Spector, B. (2013). Implementing organizational change (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.