This document provides an overview of organizational change models and how Microsoft implemented changes. It discusses Lewin's three-stage change model of unfreezing, changing, and refreezing. It also examines Kotter's 8-step change model and Cooperrider's Appreciative Inquiry model. When the pandemic hit, Microsoft realized it needed to change to meet new customer and employee demands. It implemented changes using the PROPEL and ADKAR models, introducing new AI features and tools to enable remote work. This organizational change helped both employees and customers be more efficient and successful.

1. MGMT 3605 Management Of Knowledge And Innovation
Answer:
Introduction
Change management is a process that can be described as a movement taken by an
organization to transfer its affair from one state to another. Changes in an organization can
be massive or can be subject to smaller implementation depending on the requirements of
the organization. Change is a new form of business and requires efficiency and new
expectations from the business environment. Organizational Change can be subjected to
various factors related to bringing change in the structure of the organization to bring
implementation of cultural change, innovation, technology adaptation, and performance
(Calder, 2013). The following essay will analyze the organizational change and its
implications by comparing and contrasting various change models related to change
management and will also showcase the result of changes related to Microsoft by
addressing the opportunities with reference to the major restructuring of the organization.
Analysis Of Organizational Change Models
According to Cummings, Bridgeman and Brown (2016), organizational change can be
defined as changing the structure of an organization from one state to another through the
process of planning, controlling, executing, coordinating, and monitoring the environment
of the organization. Kurt Lewin's change management model is very famous for
implementing organizational change. Kurt Lewin proposed that the key to resolving
conflicts is through proper implementation of planned change to make individuals
understand and restructure their perceptions residing around them (Galli, 2018). Kurt
Lewin proposed a three-factor model of organizational change and this stage theory depicts
Unfreeze, Change or Transition, and Freeze. Lewin believed that to bring proper
implementation of planned change these three stages are very much important where at
first the perception of change required is needed and the moving towards the desired level
of change for optimizing behavior and finally solidifying the newest behavior as the current
norm (Cameron & Green, 2019).
According to Calder (2013), Kottler 8 step change models depict eight stages that help bring
change to an organization. The eight-step model's first step resembles a sense of urgency

2. which reveals that the organization has to reveal the need for change and motivate
employees for upcoming transformations. The second step is the formulation of the guiding
coalition which defines that a team should be prepared that has completely understood the
need. The third step reveals the creation of a strategic vision to provide a solution regarding
how the change will be implemented in the organization. The Fourth step reveals conveying
of vision to employees through transparent communication, the fifth step is the
empowering of employees to enact the action plan regarding the change. The sixth step
reveals the generation of short-term wins for motivating employees through early success.
The seventh step describes sustaining the acceleration by progressing into long-term goals
and finally incorporating the change into the culture of the organization. Kottler defines
organizational change as altering of culture and underlying technology or infrastructure for
bringing efficiency to its internal processes (Galli, 2018).
On the other hand, according to David Cooperrider (2018), Appreciative Theory depicts that
organizational change can be brought about by a key positive organizational approach and
collective learning and implementation. The 5Ds of the Appreciative Inquiry Model help in
approaching change at all levels within a system from mentoring, one-to-one coaching, and
wider system change. The five Ds are Define which reveals the focus of the inquiry and in
which system the change is required, Discover which states the findings of organizational
success, strengths, and excellence period, Dream which depicts imagining of past successes
and achievements to identify new possibilities in future, Design revealing the creativity of
dream to bring discovery and final is Destiny which indicates the process of delivery of
Design into organizations for successful implementation of the change strategy (Bushe,
2013).
Following the above models and theories of change in organizations the strategies used by
the organizations for bringing change include planning, honesty and transparency,
communication, employee participation, and redefining technologies. Through implanting
the Kurt Lewin Change Model organizations depicts effective communication strategy,
changing behaviors, processes, and ways of thinking, and at last, bring back to its original
stage by stabilizing and solidifying the new change strategy. Kotter's 8-step model help in
building leadership strategy for an organization by creating awareness among employees
and improving Employee skills to adapt to the new change through the implementation of
mission and vision. Leadership qualities can be improved in bringing change through the
Kotter model of change (Appelbaum et al., 2015). On the other hand, according to Bushe
(2013), Appreciative Inquiry by David Cooperrider has been used by AI communities to
build strategies about past achievements for rectifying future planning of change. This
theory help organization in building strategy like customer satisfaction, enhancing service
implementation, and participation of employee through five principles Constructionist,
Poetic, Anticipatory, Simultaneity, and Positive Change (Grieten et al., 2018).
The main cause of resistance to change is the lack of confidence in adapting to the new
change due to poor trust-building causing barriers for the organization in being change

3. management. According to Darmawan and Azizah (2020) resistance to change occurs due to
employees' perception of not having enough confidence in believing that the following
change will have a positive effect on the organization. The second cause is low self-stability.
The low-self Stability makes employees unable to control their emotions resulting in
conducting poor behavior and harming others' performance and the organization's
reputation. The third cause of resistance to change is intense stress. The employees can feel
stressed due to changes occurring in the organization putting pressure on employees' work
performance. The fourth cause of resistance to change is due to lack of communication and
transparency in sharing proper information which resists employees to bring change to the
organization. Besides this resistance does not always occur for the organization but also
occurs of its consequences too for example loss of secure comfort environment, salary, and
status of the individuals (Hackman, 2017). The factors that result in resistance to change
are lack of motivation resulting in degradation of performance and can also pursue lack of
need for achievement which tends employees accustomed to old change and is not ready to
participate in new organizational change strategies. Although These factors can cause
resistance to change, other factors are depending upon situations and organizations'
stability, and employees' mentality for resistance to change (Shimoni, 2017).
Implementation Of Change In Microsoft
Microsoft has been a leading software company in terms of producing AI tools and
technologies to help global customers in performing effective operations. In 2020 when the
pandemic hit the global market and employees and customers were forced to stay at home
Microsoft decided to bring technological and structural change to its system to help both its
employees and customers to meet the demand of customers and also to bring efficiency to
its operations department. By identifying the trends in the market due to the pandemic
Microsoft realized that the workforce diversity of every organization is changing as every
worker and employee are having a different expectation in engaging with its organizations
while working remotely (Vitalyst, 2022). Businesses are going global creating a significant
need for new tools and technologies that can provide a seamless experience in teamwork
and operation handling across different languages while at the same time helping
employees to work efficiently. Microsoft has decided to enable new AI features in its
Microsoft 365 tools to help customers in meeting their challenges with technology and
bring innovative development to their businesses (Akbar et al., 2019).
The main opportunity for Microsoft in bringing change in its organizational culture through
AI implementation is because of bringing digital transformation to the global market and in
its workplace. The methodology used by Microsoft in bringing change is called PROPEL.
PROPEL has been deployed by Microsoft in Microsoft 365 office and other tools like
Yammer, Teams, and SharePoint. Microsoft developed proper comprehensive
communication of Local state governments to provide support and enhance training to state
employees. The PROPEL change implemented with Yammer campaigns and targeted email
that reached many influential groups created a wide range of opportunities across social

4. media pages and intranet sites (Vitalyst, 2022).
The change management in Microsoft 365 brought by Microsoft for digital transformation
in covid times has been adopted by teams and agencies in different states. The cloud
implantation in Microsoft 365 through AI has helped healthcare organizations in
monitoring employees' status during the covid times. The change in technology in its
system by Microsoft has also helped Global Financial and Payment Technology providers.
The change management brought by Microsoft in its technologies has helped financial
providers to build a live multi-faceted platform for the training purposes of the employees
remotely. The next level of customers that Microsoft decided to impact through a change in
innovation are Global retailers (Hong & Park, 2020). To increase the adoption of AI
technology for transformation Microsoft has developed a series of different exciting days
significantly to introduce their global workforce to Microsoft chat support and teams. In
order to increase the motivation of employees, Microsoft introduced excite days where
employees can involve in activities like a scavenger hunt and can create team bonding and
collaboration. Microsoft 365 has been used by global businesses and introducing AI in its
software combined with new technologies has helped its customers in bringing efficiency in
the performance of employees in covid times and also helped Microsoft employees to
engage in getting proper communication and motivation increasing the performance of the
organization (Lewis, Chatfield & Johnson, 2019).
Leadership in Microsoft has been prominent in bringing change management to the
organization. Satya Nadella has been the CEO of the company for the past few years. The
company decided to follow three core pillars helping the employees of the company in
viewing one vision of achieving the goal. The core pillars Satya Nadella implemented to
bring change in its management are Customer Obsessed, Diverse and Inclusion, and One
Microsoft. Customer Obsessed indicates that the company is going to implement new styles
and changes in its technologies and structure to provide better solutions to its customers
(Tang, 2019). Diverse and Inclusion indicates that in a covid situation the company
managers should diversify their thoughts in bringing new engagement in technology while
preserving one mission and vision in achieving the goal at the same time serving every
customer segment through innovations. The company decided that value offering should
not be discriminated among customers and should be served equally to all the customers.
One Microsoft has been implemented as the core mission of the company which states that
the company stakeholders are like a family that believes in collaboration and togetherness
of everyone providing their valuable time in the organization regardless of boundaries and
hierarchy to serve customers as a part of the whole team known as Microsoft (Evans, 2020).
Microsoft has implemented its change management through the ADKAR model of change
implementation. The era of tools implemented in Microsoft 365 and the adaptation of new
tools in global business have created an impact on the performance of the organization.
According to Vitalyst (2022), Microsoft has applied the ADKAR model for the proper
implementation of change management. ADKAR model refers to five steps Awareness,

5. Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and reinforcement. Microsoft has used awareness to create an
environment where customers can adopt new tools to change the course of dynamic
business capabilities and enhance resources at the same time. The desire indicates that
Microsoft has seen the trend of digital revolutionization and desired to bring change in its
organizational structure and technology to help customers and its employees. Microsoft and
its teams gained knowledge about the desired requirement of change by collecting data
from different customer segments contributing to gaining insight into global market
requirements (Harrison et al., 2021). The ability section includes the implementation of
tools in Microsoft 365 and has been used by employees to report the effect of better
performance of the technology in team management and performing tasks within the
organization. the reinforcement state when Microsoft finally started to roll out its new
technology to the global market for customer satisfaction. The company by implementing
new changes in technology and implementing new tools has created a huge change in
innovation for the future business (Gotsch, Lienhard & Schögel, 2019).
The new change management brought by Microsoft in its technology adaptation and change
in the structure of the organization by motivating and providing training to employees to
upskill their limits and providing them valuable resources to bring performance efficiency
and created a huge success space for the company. The change management workshop
brought by Microsoft has helped customers in adopting technology five times better than
the previous performance. This organizational change has also helped Microsoft employees
in bringing new ideas and experiences onboard and at the same time bringing acceleration
in their digital journey which is the future of the world (Mansaray, 2019). The Microsoft
cloud database implementation in Microsoft 365 has also helped businesses in fostering
teamwork and also at the same time encouraging them in making new investments in future
technology. Microsoft's main aim is to transform the traditional method of business into a
futuristic transformation empowering organization in the global market to be more agile in
future workplace circumstances (Delaini, 2022).
Microsoft in 2021 has further used changed management best practices to bring more
innovations in its work efficiency by implementing one solution that can cater every
solution to every department working within the organization. The MSXi solution with the
help of a new project team called project v-team has changed the old system of the
company’s risk management and coaching conversations. The new tool used as a single
version can create a solution for a range of users starting from salespersons, managers,
company leaders, finance, and operations across Microsoft (Delaini, 2022). As each team
report in the older version has to be gathered from different data sources the new system
will bring all departments to one page providing flexibility and effective communication and
sharing of data to different sources at the same time helping in handling security and
standards and mitigating the risk of Data privacy. Microsoft has always looked for new
changes that can create an impact on the performance of the organization as well as on
customers. The company by taking advantage of the rise of digitalization due to the
pandemic has created an image in the market by providing innovations catering to every

6. section of society and guiding its employees to build a team of technological empowerment
to stay ahead of its competitors in terms of technology and innovation (Rosenbaum, More &
Steane, 2018).
Conclusion
The above essay has described Organizational change and the strategies made by the
organization in implementing change. Organizational change can take many forms starting
with a change in strategy, procedures, policies, technology, and culture. Organizational
change can be brought to bring efficiency to the organization by maximizing resources and
capabilities. Employees are sometimes resisting change due to changes in culture and the
adoption of new methods forcing them to not participate in bringing change. Microsoft
through proper planning and upskilling employee motivation and training has successfully
planted change which is beneficial for both employees and customers meeting the
requirements of digital transformation in global business. Through proper strategy
formulation and collecting trends in a crisis, Microsoft is constantly rebuilding itself in
terms of providing the world with innovations and building a work culture that follows one
mission and vision of achieving the goal through constant transformation.
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