Leadership and Change - Individual Critical Incident Analysis

Task

All participants of the Leadership and Change course are required to complete an individual assignment, which consists of a paper of 3000 words (inclusive of references, appendices and executive summary).

The assignment requires you to present and analyse a mini case based on a critical incident or organizational issue using the readings and/or class discussions. The objective of the assignment is to provide you with practical experience in applying the leadership and change tools, principles and theories discussed during the course.

Step 1. Select a critical incident or a leadership and change issue from your work that involves and can be analyzed using more than one of the topics from the course (e.g., interpersonal interactions, leadership, power, group/team dynamics, culture, commitment and/or engagement).  The following are three approaches that you can consider:

• A past critical incident is a personal, work-related experience that you have had at work recently that started negatively or poorly and (1) after much work, struggling and/or sacrifice ended positively or (2) ended negatively with conclusions or consequences that you are disappointed with.
• A current critical incident is a personal work-related experience that you are having at work now. That is, an on-going, work-related issue that is absorbing a significant amount of your time, energy and/or resources.
• A current organizational issue is a work-related issue that you can analyze with a view to improving effectiveness, fairness, and alignment with strategy, culture, and/or other general and specific policies. This issue can be specific to one part of the company (e.g. a certain unsatisfactory process or policy needing a response) or can be of broader strategic concern relating to leadership links with the strategies of your company as a whole.

Step 2. Describe the background and context of the incident or issue. Below are some ideas and questions to consider for this step. This step is not the focus of the assignment.  Give only as much detail as is needed to understand the overall context of the situation.  This section should only be approximately 15 – 20% of the assignment (400 words) or less.  

Critical Incident:  Reconstruct the event in your mind by going over when it happened, over how long of a period did it last, what was going on around you, who was involved and how it began. Recall it in as much detail as you can. 

(a) Frame the situation: when did it happen, why did it happen, who was there?

(b) Describe the observable events: What happened? What was the order of the event? Who said/did what? What were the immediate outcomes?

(c) Describe your thoughts during the events: What were you thinking and feeling but didn’t say?

Organizational issue: Briefly describe the current situation. Describe the critical details that are necessary to understand the context in which the issue is taking place.  

(a) Frame the situation within the business context. What is the issue and how does it relate to strategic issues within the organization? Try to explain how the current situation came to exist.

(b) Describe the specifics of the issue, policy, procedure, etc.  Briefly describe the “facts” of the situation or the requirements of the policy or procedure. What is keeping the current situation as it is?

(c) What are the pros and cons of the situation? What are the consequences of the issue?

Step 3.Write an analysis of the incident or issue. Use concepts (e.g., theories, frameworks, models, etc.) from the readings and/or class discussions to discuss the incident or situation. A useful framework or model will help you to extrapolate from the specific “facts” of the incident or situation. That is, “to extrapolate” means “to infer (an unknown) from something that is known.”[extrapolate. (n.d.).Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved April 29, 2009, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/extrapolate] In this case, the “known” are those things described in Step 2. Use the concepts from the class to infer new understanding or meaning about the incident or situation. For example:

(a) Are there new terms or definitions that help you better understand what happened or what is happening?

(b) Do the frameworks give you possible “missing pieces” that give a more complete picture of the context and/or dynamics of the situation?

(c) Do the frameworks help you look at the situation from another point of view?

(d) Do the frameworks make predictions of alternative outcomes that are possible if other actions, behaviours, policies and/or strategies had been pursued in the situation?

Be sure to use models and frameworks from the Leadership and Change course to analyze the situation. The main purpose of the assignment is for you to demonstrate an understanding of the frameworks and to apply them to your current work.  You are encouraged to read independently.

Step 4. Using the information written in Steps 2 and 3, describe how the situation could have been handled differently that may have been an improvement. Are there things that you could have done to improve the situation or outcome? If the situation is a current policy or way of working, then what needs to be changed and why?  What are your final conclusions based on your analysis?

Note: Steps 3 and 4 should be the main focus of the assignment.  I will be looking for how well you use class materials and concepts to analyze the situation. Do not simply “tell me the story”.  It is very important that you integrate concepts, frameworks, theories, etc. into an analysis.  Show that your analysis in Step 3 leads to your conclusions and/or recommendations in Step 4 based on concepts from the course.