Change Management Case Studies & Practical Application 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A telecom company is consolidating 10 regional call centers into 2 national hubs. Which stakeholder group requires the MOST tailored change management attention?
- Senior executives who approved the consolidation
- Frontline call center employees facing relocation or job loss (Correct answer)
- External customers who use the call center services
- IT teams migrating telephony infrastructure
Correct answer: Frontline call center employees facing relocation or job loss
Employees directly affected by relocation or job loss face the highest personal impact and require individualized support, communication, and transition planning.
Question 2: A health insurer's change initiative stalls because different departments received conflicting messages about the project's goals. This is a failure of:
- Change saturation management
- Integrated and consistent change communication (Correct answer)
- Organizational readiness assessment
- Benefits realization planning
Correct answer: Integrated and consistent change communication
Conflicting messages from different sources erode trust and create confusion; integrated communication ensures all stakeholders receive consistent information.
Question 3: A manufacturing company notices that productivity drops sharply in the first 60 days after a new quality management system goes live. This is MOST likely explained by:
- A fundamental flaw in the new system design
- The J-curve effect of performance dip during transition (Correct answer)
- Inadequate executive sponsorship prior to launch
- A failure to conduct a stakeholder analysis
Correct answer: The J-curve effect of performance dip during transition
The J-curve (or Valley of Despair) describes the predictable productivity dip during the learning phase of any significant change before performance improves.
Question 4: A law firm implementing knowledge management software finds that partners refuse to document their expertise. The underlying barrier is MOST likely:
- The software is too complex for professional use
- A belief that sharing knowledge reduces individual power and competitive advantage (Correct answer)
- Lack of awareness about the software's existence
- Insufficient IT infrastructure support
Correct answer: A belief that sharing knowledge reduces individual power and competitive advantage
In knowledge-intensive firms, expertise is power; change managers must address the cultural belief that sharing knowledge diminishes individual status.
Question 5: A city government rolling out a new permitting system trains 500 staff members two months before the go-live date. Six months later, few employees remember the training. The root cause is:
- The training content was inaccurate
- Training was delivered too far in advance of when skills were needed (knowledge decay) (Correct answer)
- The system was too complex to be learned in training
- The trainers were not sufficiently qualified
Correct answer: Training was delivered too far in advance of when skills were needed (knowledge decay)
Training delivered long before go-live leads to knowledge decay; just-in-time training closer to the implementation date significantly improves retention.
Question 6: An organization implements change successfully but six months later employees revert to old behaviors. According to Lewin's model, which phase was skipped?
- Unfreeze
- Change (Transition)
- Refreeze (Correct answer)
- Assessment
Correct answer: Refreeze
Lewin's 'refreeze' phase involves embedding new behaviors into culture, processes, and reinforcement systems; without it, old habits return.
Question 7: A retail company asks its change manager to rush a 6-month change program into 6 weeks due to competitive pressure. The change manager should FIRST:
- Agree immediately to meet the business deadline
- Conduct a risk assessment and present trade-offs to leadership (Correct answer)
- Refuse to lead the program under those conditions
- Eliminate the stakeholder engagement phase to save time
Correct answer: Conduct a risk assessment and present trade-offs to leadership
Presenting a structured risk assessment allows leadership to make an informed decision about timeline versus quality trade-offs rather than proceeding blindly.
Change Management Case Studies & Practical Application 4
A telecom company is consolidating 10 regional call centers into 2 national hubs.
Which stakeholder group requires the MOST tailored change management attention?