ORGANISATION MANAGEMENT

ASSIGNMENT 1
Coaching the Caterpillar to Fly
14th March, 2016

Submitted To:Course Instructor: Mr. Madan Lal Pradhan

Submitted By:Mohit Maheshwari

EMBA Fall 2015- Semester I

Q1. Briefly present your analytical impression of the Paper by highlighting the KEY MESSAGES
you infer from the paper?
Ideas that are inferred from the paper:
I.

Personal Growth & Managing Change

II.

Assisting Change Management Initiative

III.

Developing Individual and Organizational Potential

The paper Coaching the Caterpillar to Fly talks about things like commitment, engagement,
team work, continuous improvement in the organization by changing the traditional method
(square wheels) and intrinsic motivation of people and performance within the organization.
The people pulling the wagon should stop the wagon for some time and talk to the people
pushing the wagon and discuss the process that would help the people in the front to come out
with effective and innovative ideas, which would help in increasing quality and productivity of
the ride. Quality and Productivity as understood by workers, managers and customers are
measured by the smoothness and speed of the wagon ride.
The customers will always be in confusion, as their knowledge to the process or procedure of
the organizational system is minimal and if the competitors are able to provide smoother ride
to the customers, than our ride might not satisfy the customers. So, we should keep improving
our speed and smoothness which is possible by continuous changes in the organization working
process.
The paper talks about the changes that already exist in the organization but the need to carve is
always there. The round wheel already exists in the organizational wagon, yet to be used. To
discover and utilize the round wheel one has to stop the progressive work. If we are able to
discover the round wheel it will make the ride smooth and effective.

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Vision as well as sharing the vision with other team members will make a great impact on the
organization procedures. The leaders or the people in the front should show the people in the
back how the front looks like. This would help in motivating and we are able to do things as a
team with them rather than doing things to them.
In conclusion, the paper highlights that any new changes need not be brought into the
organization as it already exists within the organization. And explain that change is certain to
happen whether be slow or fast than ones anticipation and the leaders of the wagon should
find ways to motivate.

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Q2. How do you relate the paper to your observations on the way the organizations stand
and operate today? Substantiate your statement(s)/viewpoints with relevant examples,
contextual situations or common place explanations.
If we speak of organization at a global level, some organization like Apple, Samsung changed as
per time i.e. they adopted the proactive strategy and are now the mover and shakers of the
market, but some organization tend to change after external factors forces them to do like
Sony, Nokia, and Motorola lost their market shares for being rigid.
Similarly, in Nepal the companies started changing when the rules governing the organization
were harshly imposed on the organizations. And yet there are still many companies who are in
the gooey sticky mess, they operate both in the traditional as well as the modern way.
As we may also say that organizations in Nepal are rigid to change, they dont feel any need to
change. Many big organizations tend to carry also the traditional way of working i.e. through
mutual understanding, and as far as finance is concern they follow the harsh rules of traditional
accounting.
For the first 2 years of my working experience as Chief Financial Officer of my own venture the
tax laws were easy and sort of user friendly, but as the time passed by the tax laws were made
more harsh and the tax audit was being conducted on a regular basis, which forced our
organization change its old traditional method and change to the modern way of accounting.
But in the end the change was indeed beautiful, it helped in transparency within the
organizations procedure. But still they are a lot of organization in Nepal which are rigid to
change, and they might end up like Nokia by losing the market share.

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Q3. How do you rate on the efficacy and effectiveness of the paper on you? Was the paper
useful to you? Explain how it impacted you? How do you relate the explanations to your
personal growth and development?
Bringing change to any organization is not an easy task, it requires high level of dedication, time
and planning. Being from an organization which requires change the paper was effective and
helped me understand that the better way to do the jobs already exist within the organization.
I dont work in an organization which has very harsh and fast corporate rules but we intend to
change which would help our organization to grow and achieve our vision. Before reading the
paper I had a perception that vision is a concept that should only be shared within the Apex
level Management, but if we share it with the other team members it certainly will help to bring
out unexpected positive results, as they become the integral member of the process of the
organization.
Change being a continuous process cannot make a fortnight impact on the process of the
organization. The organization consists of different type of people, many saying my mom was a
moth, I will never be a butterfly or youll never get me up on one of butterfly things. The best
way to handle such a situation is by not knowing the answers. By knowing the answer one
tends to stick to one point or go around the same point, we need to forget the answer and try
to come up with innovative and different ideas, this would help us to lead change and dis-unempowering people.
The thinking that doing new things or doing the same thing in the new way helps in creating
ideas which would help in improvement was perfectly synced with the paper. The paper made
me clear that to be a butterfly we have to go from the gooey sticky mess and leave our comfort
zone.

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To grow is to change and change brings development. As per my thinking I dont believe we
ever come of the gooey sticky mess until we change to improve the whole organization. We
cant change the whole organization at once we need to go step by step, so to change the
whole organization we need to stay in the gooey sticky mess and act accordingly. Being in the
top level management of the organization I always try to bring change in my workplace.
But in the end its a big challenge to implement change among the organization by removing
the members from their comfort zone and implementing new ideas by working with them as a
team rather than imposing it on them.

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Q4. What is your impression with failed organizational change efforts and practices? Why is
change so difficult in the organizations? Explain with examples. Using the paper as the
reference, enlist any four factors that you think needs to be addressed, the improvement in
all these factors will make change more likely in organizations?
Change Is Inevitable, its certain to happen.
Quoting Robin Sharma a renowned author on change All Changes is hard at first, Messy in the
middle and so Gorgeous at the end.
So, what is an organizational change? Organizational change occurs when an organization alters
its current system of working to achieve desired future system of working. The inflexible part is
to manage change, one has to minimize employees refusal and cost of the organization while
simultaneously maximizing the effectiveness of the change efforts.
If the organization is not willing to change, after some point of time the person pushing the
wagon becomes demotivated and which tends to decrease the smoothness and speed of the
wagon, making the ride for the customer unsatisfying. The yellow gooey mess may not stay that
way and it may become cement in which the organization might get fixed without any
improvement or development. In long tenure organizations that resist changing die at a fast
rate. Because the caterpillar walks slowly rather the butterfly can fly.
Even though many organizations think that change is not required, we need not take risk and
play safe. If that were the case big companies like Blockbuster, Borders Books and Blackberry
would not have been outdated by Netflix, Kindle and Apple respectively. These companies
resisted to change and at the end found them self in cement.
Change is difficult because people need to deal with the gooey stick mess. In transformation
process from being caterpillar to being a butterfly, we are nothing but a yellow, gooey sticky
mess which is an uncomfortable process and it requires a level of commitment. People tend be
the caterpillar and dont want to leave their comfort zone while in the process of becoming a
butterfly.
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People share different perspective and a diversity of ideas till they dont know the answer but
once the answer is revealed they tend to stay around the answers. This shows that even we
tend to resist risk and change, its certain to happen.
To bring change in the organization the leaders should clarify the vision of the future with every
member. But the key aspect to bring change is by making every member aware of the
environment i.e. the realities of the procedure.
The four factors play a vital role to bring the change in any individual or group:
I.

The current level of discomfort with the way things are now.

II.

The attractiveness of the vision to the future.

III.

The individual or the group previous success with change.

IV.

The level of peer or workgroup support for the change.

Change is not only necessary it is certain to happen, if any organization resists changing it would
end up in the grinding pastes or cement. The organization must try to find ways to come out of
the paste and take up the road to progress. Proactive management of change to optimize
future adaptability is invariably a more creative way of dealing with the dynamisms of industrial
transformation than letting them happen. That process will succeed better with the help of the
company's human resources than without.

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Q5. Do you think Visions are important and need to be shared with all organizational
members? Explain.
Vision defines the goals that the organization would like to accomplish in the mid or long term
future. If the organization has a clear vision, it would formulate the right strategy.
Formulating a clear vision is the work of the person in the front of the wagon, basically the Apex
Level Management. They should formulate such a vision which is achievable. The pullers or the
person in the front often wonder that why arent the people in the back of the wagon
motivated. Well, the answer is Visions are important and must be shared.
If the vision is not effectively communicated with every member of the organization continuous
support and supervision will be required from the leaders for the work done in the
organization. The people pushing the wagon would trust the decision of the leader but after
some time they will lose interest and will start questing whether we are heading the right way
and even thinking that the old traditional way is never to be changed.
The view from the front is beautiful and clear, whereas the view from the back is dull and as the
time passes by the work becomes monotonous. If the vision is shared among all the members
of the organization they would have the same clear view as to where the organization is
headed.
Sharing the vision requires sharing information as to where have we reached, how does it looks
like and how far are we from our set objective or goals. The Top level management needs to
share vision so that they can motivate people pushing the wagon to work together. If vision is
shared among the organization it tends to work as one rather than not sharing would lead it to
a situation where leaders live in one dimension and the members in another.
Its not only the vision we should share with the people at the back of the wagon, we should
share a more realistic sense of missions and values about the journey itself. If we get people
involved for finding the solution or formulating the strategy, they become the owners of the
process or problems and we do things with them rather than to them.
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An organization can certainly perform nicely without communicating vision among the
members, the process of creating a shared vision itself gives the organization and its employees
a lot of satisfaction and motivation which might otherwise be missing. A shared vision can be a
very valuable instrument to guide an organization.

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