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Running head: MANAGING WHITE SPACE
Managing White Space at Superior Widget Company
Managing White Space at Superior Widget Company
Superior Widget Company (SWC) had made a change in the Customer Service Department (CSD) from regional CSDs to a centralized CSD. The SWC's CEO decided to unfreeze the CSD's status, when he or she wanted to change the centralized CSD's policies and procedures, and then refreeze the department with a new status quo. This will cause regional cross functional departments that interact with CSD to change their way of doing business. Through SWC unfreezing the process of CSD, it will disconfirm the present department manager's behaviors; the changing of polices and procedures will cause department managers and employees to learn new concepts of CSD, and refreezing will cause department personnel to exhibit new behaviors (Schein, 2002-2006). While the organizational structure is unfrozen, the organization will select a 'change status quo' team; it will consist of department heads to change the status quo.
Organizations, like SWC, will usually select a team with the profile of any stakeholders' manager that has cross functional interaction with CSD. These managers will collaboratively set a new status quo for the department, while it is in an unfrozen state. The department's managers that should be involved in the change may be Finance, Inventory Control, Transportation, General Warehouses, Regional Sales, and etc. When companies, such as SWC, make changes within the organizational structure, it creates conflicts between the organizations cross functional lines. This will cause management to view the areas of conflicts, the way to approach ...