Case Study: Marie Jackson: Revitalizing Renfield Farms by Anthony Mayo and Heather Beckham
Part 1: Analyze the situation
At the end of the case, Jackson reflects that "Better resource management was one of my transformation-declaration initiatives for 2014, but that has been lost among the more burning issues of vision formulation. We need to look closer at how our structures, systems, and incentives support the new vision. Also, we need to figure out how far beyond the natural food market we can expand with our current brands. Our dessert mousse was a huge hit with consumers, and I think that is just the tip of the iceberg. The trade and our end-consumers love our new focus on consumer connection and enhanced product offerings. Internally, I know there are still some who are not convinced. We can't read our full potential with this kind of mindset. The year 2014 was about creating the vision; 2015 must be about living it."
Looking at this through a change management lens, why is Jackson experiencing difficulty aligning the company to the new vision? You should draw on frameworks/theories/concepts from the course to analyze the problem.
Part 2: Propose a solution.
What should Jackson do now? Write a change plan for Jackson. Your proposed solution should be based on the frameworks, ideas and interventions that we discussed in class. Be sure to consider how you will ignite change and how you will make change stick.
Some things to consider:
- You may format your response however you wish. However there is a strict word limit of 3000 words.
- Refer to and use conceptual tools explicitly. This will help convey your understanding of the material and will economize on time and space.
- Make a point and provide reasons/evidence to support it. Try to go beyond description (a narration of what happened) to analysis (an explanation of why it happened) using information and analytic tools from class.
- Demonstrate your ability to apply the readings, lectures, and class discussions in accurate, selective, and creative ways to diagnose, analyze, and remedy change problems. Accurate means using the conceptual tools in a correct and consistent manner. Selective means using the conceptual tools that give you the most leverage, rather than core-dumping all possible ideas. Creative means extending or applying the material in new ways.