Final Intervention Plan Gillette Organization, Development and Change

Word Count: 6958

12-12-2014

Group 3D

Lisette Lubberman 2557461

Vyara Tsvetkova 2562887

Darina Todorova 2561813

Gidrienne Bomberg 1704621

Introduction

Gillette has been facing some difficulties in the past years. The commission of Jim Kilts as the

CEO of Gillette can be seen as a starting point of improvements made concerning these

difficulties. This intervention plan is written to advise Gillette on further improvements it can

make within the company.

In order to advise Gillette on the issues that they are facing, it is first of all important to define

the core issue within Gillette. In order to do so, two diagnostic models are used, namely (1)

the IES model and (2) team conditions for success, which directed us analytically towards the

core issue within Gillette. In the next stage of our research, four appropriate intervention

methods are presented to deal with this issue. Since we do believe that alignment between and

a specific order of execution is important, we put them in the right order of execution already.

Finally, we included an evaluation plan and logistical considerations which consist of short-,

mid-, and long-term scenarios.

Diagnostic models

The IES Engagement model

The IES model is aimed at measuring the level of employees positive attitude and engagement

towards the organization (Robinson, Perryman & Hayday, 2004). This engagement results

from employees feeling valued and involved. According to Robinson et al. (2004) engaged

employees show a better level of performance. There are different factors that have an

influence on employees engagement, as presented in Figure 1.

Figure 1: IES Engagement model

Table 1, which can be found in Appendix 1, analyses the ten different factors influencing the

engagement of employees within Gillette. As shown, there are several factors that can (either

negatively or positively) influence the involvement and engagement of Gillette’s employees.

Throughout the change implementation started by Kilts, the company has primarily focussed

on the financial turnover of the company. In relation to the aspect of training development

and career, a hands-on approach is taken to coach and guide employees in adapting to new

methods. Some employees moved to new jobs. However, in case managers perceived that

employees did not possess the required capabilities to achieve the desired performance they

were laid off. Overall there is not much time spent on coaching and development of

employees so far.

Furthermore, Kilts has worked on significantly changing and improving the communication

within the company (organizing frequent meetings, reporting and allowing close interaction

across units). The overall objective is to allow and promote dialogue. However, some points

can still be improved. Close interaction for example, triggered discussion across units and

communication (particularly on global business reviews) appeared to be out of synch.

Additionally, whether or not there is immediate management within the company is not clear.

The frequent communication and new reporting lines suggest a rather centralized

management. This might imply that top management is not able to give timely feedback on

certain issues (also given that communication is at times out of synch).

The changes that took place lead to an increased financial performance. In reaching this,

Gillette had to change the perspective and sales strategy of their employees and therefore

switched to a performance-based appraisal method. Employees however did not seem to

understand this change and felt as they got a downgrade in their performance rating.

The change in the performance appraisal system resulted in a negative change in the

employees’ view on pay and benefits within Gillette. Some of the managers felt it as a

downgrade or they disagreed with the change and asked to increase the performance rating.

By taking a look at the co-operation it appeared that there is low co-operation within Gillette

due to regional differences, individualization (employees were doing what was best for

themselves instead of the group) and centralization. Also Job satisfaction appears to be a

problematic point within Gillette. Due to all the changes executed within Gillette it appeared

that employees are in general less happy. Employees feel overwhelmed by all the changes and

they are not convinced that this new system within Gillette is the correct one. It appeared that

employees are not sure whether they would like to stay with the company for some more

years.

From the data that we received from Gillette, we could not find whether Gillette is (fully)

focusing on equal opportunities and fair treatments, health and safety and family-friendliness

are not (fully). Therefore we could not add these aspects in the discussion.

The organization-wide analysis using the IES engagement model guided in identifying aspects

that should get attention from Gillette’s management. Given these issues we can reach the

assumption that the current change process is negatively affecting the engagement of Gillette

employees. We do believe that management should be concerned about this since these

different factors in the end might also influence the performance of employees.

Team conditions for success

The team conditions for success model evaluates team performance on a group level. As

Caluwe &Vermaak (2003) suggest, there are six independent conditions which influences the

creation of an effective team. These factors are explained in the following section.

The first factor is setting clear goals. When the company’s aims are clear for the employees,

they have the right direction and focus on how to conduct their operations. Within Gillette, the

former CEO Zeien reorganized the structure of the firm in order to improve performance. The

idea of this redesign was considered good, although it was not implemented correctly.

Therefore people struggled in fitting within the new matrix organization. After the executed

changes, the roles and the responsibilities of employees became unclear. Kilts made an

attempt to clarify the accountabilities of employees by expecting each team to report their

work to the GBU heads. This was not fully accomplished due to the fact that aligning aims

within a unit is already difficult, which makes it even harder to execute across units.

Employees were not aware of the need to change at the moment the company was

reorganized, so their goals were not clear enough. This led to poor involvement of employees

in the change process.

Joint responsibility is the next important factor for team success. Employees have to see

themselves as an important factor towards a good performance of the team. They have to be

united and consider themselves as one, to be committed to the change process and to believe

in the need of change. As a result, the team spirit and motivation of each team member

increases which will ease the implementation of change within the organization. However,

within Gillette employees only take their own interest into account since they are afraid to

lose their job and thus do not cooperate with other employees.

Thirdly, open communication is important. Team members have to communicate with each

other during the whole process and they need to share information in order to clarify

organizational goals and prevent possible further conflicts. Within Gillette, there is a great

need for open communication. Although Kilts stimulated the channels of communication, this

was only in the first stages of governing. Even though there was an attempt to develop the

communication within different departments, the new CEO did not reach to promote

credibility among employees which results in a lack of effective communication.

Next, mutual respect needs to be taken into consideration. This aspect is quite important to

build team members confidence, since it makes each individual feel valuable and unique to

the organization and thus will increase their productivity. Within Gillette this way of thinking

is not applied. The employees are not confident and for that reason they are not satisfied with

their job. They are exhausted from their work and they do not see themselves as an important

resource for the company.

Being flexible is important for the team as well, since mobility is a crucial factor that

stimulates team development. Within Gillette not much attention is paid to coaching and

developing the human factor within the company. This can be seen as a loss for the company

as employee involvement is poor.

The last factor that has an effect on the team’s success is whether the members show

initiative. By showing initiative team creativity will be influenced and the team will be

motivated to act. A mentor for the employees is needed to influence them and to stimulate

them in their initiatives which are now poorly applied in Gillette. The new CEO asked for

much administrative work to measure each member’s performance. Unfortunately, this

resulted in killing the autonomy and creativity of teams, since most of the time is spent on

bureaucratic work.

Based on this diagnostic model we can conclude that the employees of the company do not

have clear goals, they do not have joint responsibility and their motivation and creativity are

oppressed and not stimulated. As mentioned beforehand employees are less satisfied with

their job and therefore lost their motivation to be part of the change processes in the company.

The need for change is not seen and understood by them and therefore they are not committed

to the processes.

The limitation of the model resides in the fact that social interactions are not easy to perform.

The role development will take some time and employees are not always ready to conduct

them properly. Furthermore, by speaking about team work, the situation requires a degree of

safety in order to make the organization’s team members committed to the overall firms’

goals.

Core problem within Gillette Based on our analysis using the two diagnostic models presented in the previous section we

tried to derive to the core problem that should be resolved within Gillette.

It could be noted with the IES model that different factors (negatively) affect the engagement

of employees to the company. The state of these factors was the result of the change process

taking place within the company. Given that the internal environment of the organization

shifted and some aspects were negatively affected, the commitment to this change process

also decreased. As Meyer, Hecht, Gill and Toplonytsky (201) state, people adapt best when

there is a person- environment fit. If this is not present the commitment of employees is

difficult to maintain.

The motivation for the choice of the second diagnostic model Team Conditions for Success is

that it is an useful tool to assess and improve a team’s functioning. During our research we

determined that Gillette’s employees lack involvement in the change process currently taking

place in the organization. After Kilts was appointed as the new CEO for Gillette, he

introduced his management style (which based on the color strategy, is blue-oriented) which

was new to the company. He did not take time to understand Gillette’s practice and

operations. Next to this, he did not make the employees feel comfortable with him as the new

CEO and thus made them distinct to the changing environment. Wing (2005) states that in

order to accomplish great things in a dynamic system there is no need1 for multiple layers of

leadership. A single leader should not conduct the work by himself, because the outcome will

not be as good as if there are other synergies involved. If employees are not committed to the

change process they could be an impediment when implementing the change. Therefore, if

presented clearly each factor of the six conditions will help to create an effective team,

however the factors are not independent but correlated to and building on each other.

Based on the previous observations (of Gillette through the application of IES Engagement,-

and Team Conditions for Success diagnostic models) we arrived at the core issue. Different

steps took place that lead to the current situation of Gillette. However taking a look at the

present situation the core problem can be stated as: the lack of commitment of Gillette

employees toward the change process.

Based on this core problem we are going to suggest four intervention plans that are relevant to

the issue within Gillette and that will thus motivate the employees to be involved and

committed towards the change process.

Intervention models In this section the interventions and their relation towards ‘solving’ the core problem are

discussed. Furthermore, we elaborate on the application of each intervention towards Gillette

and their correlation with each other.

After exploring the history of Gillette, we correlate it with the colour strategy and determine

that the company needs to balance its colour strategy. Before Kilts arrival, the dominant

colour was yellow, which implicate that the structure of the organization is top-down oriented.

By Kilts arrival, a blue-oriented strategy arose, which again stressed the hierarchy at Gillette.

In addition to this structure, a lot of changes were implemented in a short period of time

which negatively reflected the employees’ commitment towards these changes. Employees

felt stress which influenced their job satisfaction. Furthermore, the employees feared losing

their job, which made them feel less committed towards the change process. Therefore, the

four interventions are discussed in order to cope with the mentioned problems.

The first chosen intervention is the confrontation meeting. Although it is a yellow

intervention, it will influence the organization in a positive way, since it enables various

perspectives to be brought together and allows employees to further discuss and negotiate

problems and eventual solutions. Organization confrontation meeting is an intervention

focusing on human processes and creates a sense of unity among employee, which the

company is currently lacking. This intervention will mitigate the negative impact of the

change process on people as it will create a platform where people will feel free to interact

and cooperate with each other. Confrontation meetings can thus have a positive effect on

individual level and organization level.

The second and the third intervention are both part of the human resource management

approaches. Employee wellness is part of the red thinking and follows the belief that if people

feel well within the organization, they will create good things (Caluwe & Vermaak, 2003).

Our goal is to make the change attractive and thus make the team willing to be part of it. In

case all employees feel well and fond about their work the effectiveness of their performance

will increase. The intervention is thus takes place on the individual level as well.

Thirdly, goal setting is introduced. The motivation for this particular choice is that it is part of

the human resources management interventions which again emphasis the employees

commitment. The connection to our core problem is that by revising the process and setting

clear objectives, employees would be more aware of the goals that are set, about the reasons

why they are set and about the targets that need to be reached, which will lead to more

commitment. Goal setting is an intervention which is held on the group level within Gillette.

The fourth intervention we chose to use is feedback/mirroring, which is part of the green

strategy. The motivation behind this decision is that Gillette needs more green approach in

their strategy and will create a learning environment within groups (Caluwe & Vermaak,

2003). Furthermore mirroring will help Gillette employees to strengthen and improve

relationships, first on the individual level and later on the group level.

In the following paragraphs the implementation of the intervention models will be discussed.

Confrontation meeting

Confrontation meetings aim to involve employees and interact in order to reach a common

ground on issues (just like in goal setting). The objective is to organize system-wide meetings

that will be centred around identifying problems (related to the work environment and the

effectiveness of the organization), establishing priorities and determining actions to undertake

in order to solve them (Caluwe&Vermaak, 2003: 267). Employees of different departments

and layers within the company will play a central role in these meetings. The employees that

are invited to participate get the opportunity to influence future work towards a work situation

that is more rewarding.

Although confrontation meetings can be held at any time we think it is particularly useful for

Gillette now that the change process is taking place and there is some build up stress within

the organization (Cummings & Worley, 2009). Furthermore, we believe that recurring or

follow up meetings should take place after six months to let this method be most effective.

Changes are taking place within Gillette which led to a financial turn over. As could be

identified with the IES model, there are different issues (focusing on the human resources)

that have to be addressed and improved. If these are dealt with, employees can be more

involved/engaged and ultimately be more committed not only towards the change process

but to the organization as a whole. Austin and Bartunek (2003) argue in the field of

organizational development that participation will allow employees to believe more in the

decisions (they helped reach themselves) and that in this manner they contribute to learning

processes in the organization. It is logical to think that there are many more problems that

have not surfaced based on our analytical models. By this intervention, problems can be

identified by the employees of Gillette and they themselves will work on solving them.

There are different steps that can be taken by Gillette to make sure that this approach will be

effective. Firstly, these meetings have to be designed and prepared. This step is meant to give

and answer to the who, what and when questions. As explained, we propose for employees of

different levels and of each department/unit participate in these meetings. Not only because

different perspective are able to come to light, but also since collaboration across units has

been a problem up to now employees can improve their communication/collaboration in this

manner. Since Gillette is an international company it would be best to organize these meetings

for the different global units. Employees have to be chosen that can represent their department

and verbalize the issues they have been dealing with.

Secondly, different groups are appointed which represent all departments of the company. By

this it is meant that the groups formed include diverse employees from different departments.

It is for example key to let the ‘local voice’/subordinates from different departments be

represented in the groups. To allow open communication within the groups, management has

to form its own group (so that the their subordinates would not be afraid to bring up issues).

Within the groups the different employees discuss and negotiate on what the problems are.

Thirdly, the groups list their findings. The groups are giving one or two hours to identify

organizational problems (Cummings & Worley, 2009). These are then reported to the

management and the other groups, after which a categorized list is created of the problems

that can be most easily worked on by the groups.

In the fourth stage, new groups are formed (based on sub-units, departments or specialization)

aimed at solving the listed problems. In this step the group should create an action plan and a

timetable for completing the process. If one of the problems listed for example was that the

employees do not get enough training, the HR employees with the support of the management

could work on solving this issue in specific group meetings, which are discussed later.

Following this step, the different groups report regularly to the management or team leader on

the progress in order to tweak the action plans if needed. To finalize the meeting, all plans are

put together with individuals agreeing to put them into practice. Since the top management is

aware and has support for these plans, they can also introduce these plans to their department

in order to have the employees work on those issues (within the goal setting meetings).

Advantages of a confrontation meeting

The most important advantage of this intervention is that it enables various perspectives to be

brought together and allow employees to discuss what the solutions could be, based on

discussions and negotiations (Caluwe&Vermaak, 2003). It are the employees that determine

which problems they find the most urgent and which should be resolved.

The employees working in diverse groups are able to discuss problems and in this manner

communication is improved. The meeting for example will help them gain an understanding

of what problems other departments are dealing with. If the meeting is carried out correctly,

the employees will come to the realization that their department isn’t the only one facing

troubles and they will come to the realization that the different departments should work

together to reach joint goals. As Caluwe&Vermaak (2003:225) argue, significant amounts of

“thinking power, acceptance, and energy” can be the outcome of this approach. Given the

close interaction of the groups working on identifying and solving problems a sense of unity

is created. Confrontation meetings can thus have a positive effect on individual level and

organization level. Furthermore organizing such a meeting shows employees that the

management is genuinely committed to solving the problems and improving work conditions.

Challenges concerning the confrontation meeting

The first step of preparing and designing confrontation meetings can be time consuming since

it needs to be made sure that all participants can be present at the meeting and a lot of

arrangements are required. For Gillette this means organizing a meeting of two days where

employees are also able to work mobile on their day- to- day tasks or rather one intensive

meeting where the employees solely focus on discussing problems. Although it is time

consuming, this meeting is of great additional value and we therefore believe that it is worth

the investment in time.

Additionally, too much emphasis can be put on achieving concrete output instead of the

process towards reaching it. This might have as a consequence that quick-and-dirty

compromises are made and that eventually ambitious statements and plans would not be heard

of again. This challenge can be overcome by hiring a consulting who makes sure that the

process goes as expected.

Furthermore during the meetings different problems will be identified but not each and every

one will or can be worked on by the employees themselves. A good documentation of these

meetings has to take place so that these problems can be addressed by the top management at

a later stage.

Employee wellness

A lot of studies have proven that there is a strong relationship between employee wellness and

productivity (Cummings & Worley, 2009). In situations of crucial change in employees work

life, like it is the case within Gillette, it is very important that managers take into

consideration how to deal with the related stress within employees. Change is always

associated with stress and fear for the unknown future. Therefore, managers in Gillette have

to include stress management and wellness interventions as a separate part in the intervention

plan. Employee well-being depends on how satisfied the workers are with their life, their

work and general health and thus this intervention plan is focused on an individual level

(Cummings & Worley, 2009: 479).

Stress refers to the reactions of people to their environments (Cummings & Worley, 2009).

Stress at any dimensions of the organization, including relationships, roles, structure and

environment, is considered as a negative variable. Stress has been linked to many serious

diseases and it can cause many problems to employees both in their personal and work life. It

is a manager’s responsibility to invent a mean to reduce this stress. Once employees are not

afraid of the reasons of change, they will be more involved and committed to the change

process which will lead to more success within the whole organization.

In order to reduce stress within employees, managers have to conduct several interventions

(Cummings & Worley, 2009: 484). Firstly, the roles should be clarified. Every employee

should understand the demand of their work life. After the big change in Gillette and the

restructuring of the company, lots of employees got new duties. In order to clarify these

changes, new job descriptions have to be created and disseminated within the employees.

When employees are aware of what they are supposed to do and what their requirements are,

there will be no place for worries and stress. With the new job descriptions they can

understand the demand of their work in an easier way and this will commit them to the new

work environment.

Secondly, the relationships in the company need to be supportive in order to help employees

cope with stress. It includes the establishment of positive relationships with other employees,

bosses and subordinates. In case of Gillette, these relationships can be created by organizing

team building. This will strengthen the relationships within the company and it will also

encourage the contributions of team members. When the employees see themselves as one

whole, it will be easier to be committed to the changes within the organization without

occurrence of stress.

Another thing that has to be encouraged is employee leaves. Within Gillette it will be

appropriate for managers to encourage longer or more flexible work arrangements. This will

give the employees the opportunity to reduce stress and to feel more comfortable on the work

place.

Fourthly, providing exercise facilities can improve employee’s health which will lead to

reducing the stress and better performances at work. For Gillette this can be a very successful

intervention, since employees are exhausted and tired from the long working hours. Daily

physical exercises will open people’s minds and reduce the side effect from exhaustion.

Finally, employees assistance programs need to be introduced, which is a method to help

individuals directly.

A lot of studies show that reduced stress affect employees performance in a better way. The

Gillette managers have to be aware of their value in helping employees to cope with stress.

Managers should support and encourage their subordinates in order to create a new working

environment. By applying this intervention plan into Gillette, interpersonal relationships

among group members will be improved and employees will see the need to change in the

company. Therefore they will be more committed to the change process which will lead to a

successful implementation of the changes.

Advantages of employee wellness

First of all, employee wellness will have positive effects on the organizational development if

managers clarify the roles of their subordinates, support them and take into consideration

employee’s health and how to cope with stress in the work environment. When applying it to

Gillette, the employees will be more satisfied with their work which will be very beneficial to

the whole company.

Challenges concerning employee wellness

A challenge of this intervention model is the fact that encouraging employees leaves in order

to reduce the stress can have a negative impact on their performance as well, which may

distract employees from their work. Moreover, providing employees with exercise facilities

could cause abuse of working time.

Goal setting

Previous literature has stressed the relationship between goal setting and organizational

commitment. As Tziner and Latham (1989: 145) stated, feedback followed by goal setting

resulted in significantly higher work satisfaction and organizational commitment than

feedback alone. Due to this proven relationship between goal setting and organizational

commitment, we do believe that applying this intervention method to Gillette will provide

additional value.

As it is broadly discussed before, employees within Gillette are not committed towards the

change process due to a lack of involvement in this process. Since goal setting involves

managers and subordinates in jointly establishing and clarifying employee goals (Cummings

& Worley, 2009: 422), employees would get more aware of the goals that are set, about the

reasons why they are set and about the targets/goals that need to be reached. This would

eventually make them more committed towards the process, since they know where they are

going and why they are going there.

Within this process of goal setting, it is of great importance that the goals are set feasible

(Cummings & Worley, 2009). As long as goals are feasible, they can be set high while

employees would still feel committed and reach a high performance. This is confirmed by

previous literature, since Klein, Wesson, Hollenbeck and Alge (1999: 885) stated that the

setting of difficult goals can lead to higher levels of performance relative to vague or easy

goals. Gillette can thus set their goals high, however it is important to be aware that the goals

are not set too high. In that case employees would lose their direction and they believe in

reaching the goal, which would decrease the commitment and lower the performance. Within

Gillette it is thus of enormous importance to involve employees in the process of goal setting

and in establishing the right goals on the right levels to keep these employees committed and

to keep their performance high.

The implementation of goal setting is executed by two major processes, namely the

establishment of challenging goals and the clarification of goal measurement (Cummings

&Worley, 2009). First of all, it is important to establish the right goals for the right

employees. This goal setting process within Gillette would take place in group meetings

between the employees that are going to work on a specific goal and their direct managers

which will supervise and coach these employees in reaching these goals. This intervention

model is thus executed on the group level of Gillette. The creation of teams in which goal

setting will take place is based on the work and tasks of employees within Gillette. Employees

that are working on a common task (for example a specific team within the manufacturing of

razors within Gillette) would form a group, since they are working on the same task and thus

would work towards a common goal. The group can state their goals, the relevance and the

possibilities on how to jointly reach the goal. Eventually the group goals should contribute to

the overall goal of Gillette, as is defined in the confrontation meeting. Since we do believe

that it is important to organize these meetings regularly, we advise to organize them monthly.

In case employees long to more frequent meetings they should always be able to ask their

manager.

Secondly, at goal measurement group members discuss within the group meetings the

objectives of the goals, how they can be measured and which resources are needed

(Cummings & Worley, 2009: 423). Group members should know how the goals will be

measured, in order for them to know where they are working for and thus eventually improve

their commitment. Furthermore, the group and the supervisor/manager will agree on the

resources that are needed to reach the goal and on the accessibility of employees towards

these necessary resources. The manufacturing team of razors, for example, needs to have

access to the necessary machines and resources in order to fully complete their task.

Employees would feel less committed if they do not have access to these means to complete

their task.

Finally, the process of goal setting should be reviewed and feedback should be provided

towards the employees. This process of reviewing will help both the employees as well as the

organization to see the positive aspects in the process as well as points of improvements.

Later on we will elaborate on this feedback/mirroring aspect.

Advantages of goal setting

Next to the advantages that are already discussed before, goal setting will energize employee

behaviour. Since employees know where to go with goal setting, they would feel motivated

and become more active towards reaching their goal. Furthermore, goal setting can motivate

employees in reaching difficult goals. Since employees have set these goals explicitly and

they made a plan on how to reach this difficult goal, they might feel triggered to reach this

goal instead of being afraid of failing towards reaching this goal.

Challenges concerning goal setting

Although there are numerous advantages, goal setting also faces some challenges. As

discussed before there is the danger that goals are set too high which would lead to a lower

performance and commitment. Therefore it is of great importance that the managers within

Gillette keep a close eye on the goal-setting level. Besides, there is the danger that employees

are too focused on the goals that are set and that they forget about other circumstances. This

danger should be overcome by including contextual factors within the goal setting process

(Cummings & Worley, 2009).

Feedback/Mirroring

We found it critical for Gillette to rebalance its colour strategies as they are focusing too

much on blue and yellow aspects. This means that the company needs more white, green, and

red thinking. Therefore the final intervention we opt to use is feedback/mirroring which is

part of a green strategy. The main idea behind this intervention is learning, where impulses

come from outside and the organization has to adapt to it. As stated in the article of Norris-

Watts and Levy (2004) the aim of the feedback session within a company is influenced by

different variables present within the work setting. Feedback researches emphasize on the

importance of mirroring on organizational and individual performance. Although the

intervention is on individual level the organization will benefit as it improves employees’

performance and therefore increases the overall effectiveness of the organization. Referring to

Gillette, the feedback environment will lead team members to perceive that the company

values them. The employees will feel valuable and thus they will be more fair and supportive

and as outcome the organizational commitment will increase.

While exploring Gillette, we found the urgency to improve the feedback communication. The

struggle is that the top management team does not give enough credibility to their employees

and therefore they experience fear of getting feedback on their performance. According to

David Bashaw, European group director of business development, the company has a

credibility problem not only with their employees but also with their customers. There was an

extreme pick when Kilts ended the trade loading practice. It is clear that employees found it

difficult to implement the change in their behaviour. However, this change could be achieved

through learning and understanding of the necessity to end this old practice of loading.

As described by Caluwe and Vermaak (2003), the chosen intervention will facilitate the

current situation as it will create some specific feedback rules which will be applied to

establish a nonthreatening environment. The aim is to raise up “a mirror” with no judgments

on people or desire to change their personality. The idea of the latter is the participating

individuals are able to see the effects of their behaviour which could be both positive and

negative and thus they can evaluate their personal effectiveness and find a way how to accrue

their performance.

Mirroring will help Gillette employees to strengthen relationships first on the individual level

and later on the group level, as it is applied to the group meetings. It will create a learning

environment in the group (Caluwe&Vermaak, 2003).

The intervention could be orchestrated as a feedback session providing a forum for discussing

issues, drawing adequate conclusions and fabricate advance action plans (Cummings &

Worley, 2009). A vital aim of the mirroring process is to accrue that employees own the

feedback data. If there is an ownership of the data, organizational members will not resist

towards the change process as it adverts people’s desire to take responsibility on the data and

their consequences of implementing this information to the change strategy.

Advantages of feedback/mirroring

A positive outcome of the mirroring intervention can be that people will feel promoted by the

feedback and the belief that the wanted changes will be effectuated from the feedback session.

Furthermore, the meeting could help people feel free to raise issues and to find solutions on

their burden, which will lead them to including it in the change process.

The mirroring intervention can promote stronger relationship between members of the team.

Dysfunctional operations are observed by which the boundary differentiation amongst groups

and members is strengthened and therefore their capacity to adapt to the organizational task1.

Challenges concerning feedback/mirroring

A challenge related feedback is that such a meeting can be extremely stressful for employees,

especially within Gillette, as it is evaluating participants’ behaviours. People can feel fear to

receive the feedback. Moreover, this situation is characterized by anxiety and fear, which will

reflect on organizational members’ behaviour in that they will become defensive in rejecting

the data or giving rationales.

Plan evaluation In short we can say that the whole of the interventions’ aim is to change the current mind-set

of the employees towards the change process (negative and dissatisfaction) and transform it

into positive action (commitment). The intervention methods proposed in the previous section

1https://rapidbi.com/organizationalmirror

are thus expected to solve the core problem. The way in which this will be done is by

specifically tackling the issues as identified by the diagnostic models. We believe that after

the necessary steps to deal with these problems, this will also have a positive influence on the

overall commitment of employees. As presented in Appendix 2, the intervention methods are

aligned with the aspects they will improve.

Three of these methods (namely goal setting, confrontation meeting and mirroring) are

centred around the improvement of communication of the employees and involving them in

decision-making and evaluation processes. Whereas decision making currently follows a top

to bottom approach, these methods will also give the employees the opportunity to introduce

valuable ideas that will help improve their performance and that of the company. Furthermore

it will lead employees towards reaching cognitive internalization. If their ideas are heard there

is a greater chance that they will believe in that idea and be committed to the change process

it follows. Although involvement can be closely linked to commitment, not in all instances

does involvement necessarily imply that there is commitment. We do consider a good manner

in which commitment can be reached. After all, according to Wiener & Gechman (1977) job

involvement and commitment can be viewed as interchangeable labels that pertain to the same

job behaviour. To reinforce this, and to keep employees happy, better working conditions are

presented as well. This is done through the intervention method of employee wellness. This

aspect is not only aimed at the change process but also at establishing affective commitment

towards the company.

Plan timeline & logistics

In order to reach an ultimate outcome out of the proposed interventions, it is important that

the interventions within Gillette are executed in a chronological order. Here we will suggest

the order and timeline for this intervention plan together with related logistical considerations.

The overall time horizon of our intervention idea will be eighteen months, since we do believe

that this time frame provides enough time to execute these interventions. At the start of these

eighteen months we propose to organize a big confrontation meeting, as is discussed before.

We propose to organize this confrontation meeting immediately at the start of the intervention

to get all employees aware of the issue within Gillette and to make them aware of the

necessary changes. Since this confrontation meeting requires a lot of organization and

arrangements, we suggest to reorganize the meeting every six months. By organizing this

meeting again after half a year, we believe that both the developments as well the faced issues

can be discussed again after this time period. Since the time gap in between the confrontation

meetings is rather big, real results or issues can be shown.

Since the employee wellness is an aspect that needs to be integrated into the life of employees

within Gillette, we believe that this is an immediate and continuous process. Therefore, it is

important that the operation of and the improvements within the employee wellness

programme are measured throughout the entire eighteen months.

Since the confrontation meeting is not the only meeting that we suggest to integrate within

Gillette, we advise to organize the goal setting meetings more regularly, ideally once a month.

Within these meetings the team members can discuss the improvements made towards the

goal and the issues that are faced. At the start of these groups meeting, feedback concerning

the process will be provided as well. Since these goal setting meetings are organized with the

work team and the manager/coach only, it is easier to organize this meeting than to organize

the confrontation meeting. Therefore these goal setting meetings can also be used to discuss

the points of interest of the confrontation meeting. In case it becomes clear that meeting once

a month is too often or too less, the team can, in consultation with the manager, always decide

to organize the meeting more or less often.

As is mentioned before, the mirroring/feedback are integrated within both the goal setting

meetings as well as in the confrontation meetings. It is important to continuously provide the

employees with feedback, which stresses the importance of organizing these meetings

regularly. The provision of feedback will thus take place within the goal setting meetings.

This can for example be done at the start of the follow-up meeting. Next to these feedbacks

will also take place within the confrontation meeting. Since we do believe that receiving

feedback is important to the employees to improve their performance and commitment, we

think it is important to immediately start with these feedback sessions. The meetings are

organized in order to help employees to learn from the issue and to keep them involved in the

process.

As mentioned, the overall time period of the interventions is set at eighteen months. At the

end of these eighteen months, a fourth confrontation meeting will be organized. Within this

confrontation meeting a follow up plan will be discussed. Together with all the present

employees, the developments made concerning the issues within the past eighteen months are

discussed and the need whether and how to continue with these interventions can be

discussed. It can be that some interventions do not need to be executed that extensively

anymore or that other interventions are required at this point of time. This last confrontation

meeting thus serves as the start for a follow up plan.

References

Austin, J. R., & Bartunek, J. M. 2003. Theories and practices of organizational development.

Handbook of psychology.

Caluwe, L.I.A.,& Vermaak, H. 2003. Learning to change: a guide for organization change

agents. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications Inc.

Cummings, T.G., & Worley, C.H. 2009. Organization Development & Change. Mason:

Thomson South-Western. 9th

edition

Klein, H.J., Wesson, M.J., Hollenbeck, J.R., &Alge, B.J. 1999. Goal commitment and the

goal-setting process: conceptual clarification and empirical synthesis. Journal of Applied

Psychology, 6: 885-896

Meyer, J.P., Hecht, T.D., Gill, H., & Toplonytsky, L. 2010. Person–organization (culture) fit

and employee commitment under conditions of organizational change: A longitudinal study,

Journal of Vocational Behavior. 76 (3): 458-473

Norris-Watts, C., & Levy, P. E. 2004. The mediating role of affective communication in the

relation of the feedback environment to work outcomes. Journal of Vocational Behavior,

65(3): 351-365

Robinson, D., Perryman, S. & Hayday, S. 2004. The drivers of employee engagement.

Report-Institute for Employment Studies.2

Tziner, A., & Latham, G.P. 1989. The effects of appraisal instrument, feedback and goal-

setting on worker satisfaction and commitment. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 10: 145-

153

2http://www.employment-studies.co.uk/pubs/summary.php?id=408

Wiener, Y., & Gechman, A. S. 1977. Commitment: A behavioral approach to job

involvement. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 10(1): 47-52.

Wing, L. S. 2005. Leadership in high-performance teams: a model for superior team

performance. Team Performance Management, 11(1/2): 4-11.

Appendix 1: Analysed IES Model

Training development and career

Decrease in coaching and developmentt of employees (p13)

Focus on performance targets through benchmarking (p5)

Change of mind-set of salesforce from pushing sales to driving consumption by hands-on

coaching (not through formal training) (p6)

Centralized backroom service : training side oh HR (p13)

Learning/understanding through top-down communication for elimination trade loading (p6)

Managers leading turnaround efforts were generally long-tenured and experienced (p2)

A few outsiders were employed (p2)

Some old hands moved to new jobs (p3)

Regional managers began a process of weeding out those who did not have the capabilities to

employ the new methods (of trade loading) (p7)

Little time left for coaching and development of people (p13)

Immediate management

Centralized management →

Direct reporting of regional divisions to operating committees (p2)

Reporting of directors to regional presidents (p2)

Reporting of general managers to regional presidents (p2)

Senior management did not believe it was unusual in an organization in transition for

employees to feel overwhelmed, since the organization was seeking the right balance (p14)

Performance and appraisal

Change to appraisal system based on performance instead of effort (p 10) to create

performance culture (p1)

Fun and internal competition (p7)

Fear factor to the performance culture by those that didn’t spend much time with Kilts (p12)

Communication

Less social cohesion (p13)

Weekly business overview sent to Kilts and his operating committee by functional groups (p3)

Out of synch (p3)

Postings based on a market flow consumption model, which required good retail audit data, not

always available (p3)

More room for local voice (p13)

Frequent meetings and reporting (p13)

Joint discussions across units (for example Duracel with other units) (p6)

Numerous meetings to deal with cross-matrix issues (p10)

Conflicts due to differing objectives across units (p9)

Problems and conflicting priorities reported and dealt with via IT central service centre (in

Kronberg)(p9)

Close interaction within matrix to solve problems (p9)

Kilts has sought dialogue throughout the company (p1)

Pay and benefits

Some employees were disgruntled about what felt like a downgrade in their rating (p11)

Some managers asked to increase performance ratings (p11)

People need to see the rewards (p14) (the work itself is not the problem)

Co-operation

Lot of regional differences hinder cooperation between units

Strains in aligning objectives across units due to differing priorities (p10)

Some people thought about what was best for themselves rather than the whole (p11)

Gillette had become more centralized (p13)

Global coordination was a Gillette hallmark (p3)

Slow cooperation because of joint discussions (example Duracel with other units) (p6)

Some cross-matrix collaborations worked well (p9)

Matrix tensions between GBU’s and commercial operations over advertising

and promotions (p9)

Job satisfaction

Employees are looking for more individual leeway and satisfaction (p14)

In general, people are less happy(p13)

People feel overwhelmed (p13)

Employees were not convinced the new system was the right thing (p11)

The job itself could be in jeopardy, which was threatening to some people (p11)

Now it’s not the time to leave, but if circumstances get better, people will leave (p14)

People do not know if they want to do this for some more years (p14)

Problem with the (rapid) pace of change (p13)

Family-friendliness

No availability of data concerning this aspect

Health and safety

No availability of data concerning this aspect

Equal opportunities and fair treatment

No availability of data concerning this aspect

Note that the page numbers in this table are referring to the related pages in the data-

document that we received from Gillette.

Appendix 2: Alignment of intervention models

Intervention

Method IES Model

Team

Conditions For

Success

Goal Setting Communication Clear goals

Coordination Joint Responsibility

Training and

Development

Job Satisfaction

Confrontation Meeting

Training and

Development

Open

Communication

Job Satisfaction (unity) Joint Responsibility

Cooperation

Employee Wellness Job satisfaction

Feedback/Mirroring

Performance and

Appraisal

Open

Communication

Mutual respect