Pierre Frankel in Moscow: Unfreezing Change Essay

The case describes the conundrum of Pierre Frankel, a devoted employee of H-IT which is a global IT company. He was sent to the Russian adjunct of H-IT in Moscow, to improve the marchers performance and increase profitability. The environment that greeted Pierre on reaching the Moscow office is non at tout ensemble welcoming (i) Lebedev, who is the MD for the Russian subsidiary tried to hire a human activity two for himself but his move was rejected by the upper management. He knew that Pierre was the replacement and considers him a threat. (ii) The subsidiarys 450 odd workforce considered Pierre as an outsider who is trying to bring with him a lot of structural changes and break the status quo. (iii) Many guidelines were in place, to ensure efficient functioning of the transcription and were followed globally.But they were hardly ever implemented here, in the Russian subsidiary. (iv) The atmosphere that had been a result of Lebedevs micromanagement discouraged teamwork and expr ession of new ideas. Not a single file could move from one desk to separate without the knowledge of the MD. (v) All this can also be seen as a direct cultural import of the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, as a result of which, the Trust, but verify ideology had been instilled into the Russian way of thinking. Essentially, Frankel had to act as a change catalyst and unfreeze the current stir of affairs at the Russian subsidiary. If he is able to change the status quo, he will be able to reveal the drawbacks of the current situation. This is necessary because if the Russians were to improve their ways, it was necessary for them to believe that change is needed.Some inferential steps that he took to submit the Russian ways were (i) In the first few weeks, he met all the relevent leaders in the organization including the line of business leaders to learn more round the subsidiarys operations and laying the ground work for change. (ii) He tried to get into the not bad (predicate) books of Nadia Abramova, the chieftain of HR and who was rumored to be very close to Lebedev. (iii) He tried to identify people who were open to learn and willing to change. (iv) He tried to hire a native Russian to assist him with his agenda for change. He was opposed by Lebedev in this endeavor butFrankel managed to get some resumes with the help of Nadia Abramova.Suggested SolutionThe precession areas identified by Frankel were increasing business predictability, improve sales efficiency and focus on strategic internal processes. To bring about a change in the organization, he had to change the way the employees image and worked. He had to make the work environment full of energy, collaboration and trust for each other. To bring about this, Frankel had to change himself because the Russians were not going to mould their ways at the command of an outsider. It was just how they had become culturally. To do this, Frankel was correct in looking to hire a Russian guy wh o could help him connect with the other employees better. He should then try and communicate with Lebedev with a clear-cut agenda and get him on board. Lebedevs change of outlook is key if productivity is to be increased at H-ITs Russian subsidiary, otherwise, his function can be done away with. However great his connections may be and however good his communication skills may be, if his management style is proving detrimental to the company, he is no good.