Hello Students,

For this Discussion, you need to read Part V “Dealing with Change Positively” in “Excellence in Supervision” in the Conlow (2001) text. Also read “The Future Leader” (Morgan, 2020) Part 2, Trends and Challenges Shaping Future Leaders pages 37-43 and Chapter 21, “The Technology Teenager” pages 241-243.

Week 7 focuses on Supervision during Change. Change happens at a very rapid pace in our modern technological society, and it can be very stressful and difficult for companies. Your job, as a supervisor, is to help manage the change and lead your company to a more productive era. Your initial discussion post will be a letter or brief the employees of Green Transportation.

Respond to at least two (2) of your peer’s answers by selecting the “Reply” link. Your replies should be from the perspective of a disgruntled (or happy) employee who does not think the company will keep everyone on once the plant is automated. Point out all the concerns you would have based on their brief (do not use any of the info from the scenario above, assume you only know what is in their letter. You can even have one reply to the discussion from someone who looks forward to the change in technology and one reply from the “not so thrilled” worker.

The Scenario – You have been chosen by your CEO to prepare a brief or letter for your company to explain the changes that the organization will be experiencing. The CEO chose you because you are known to have your finger on the pulse of the workers and embrace technology. He wants you to reassure the workforce of the coming changes.

The CEO told you that he has heard numerous rumors of low morale, employees looking for new jobs, possible strikes (your workers are union) and even threatening comments. Your company is ELO Transportation, a small local company that takes normal gasoline engine vehicles and transforms them into electric-powered vehicles. Your company so far has transformed a few buses, garbage trucks, tow trucks, and numerous other vehicles for your community (a town of 100,000 people) however, with automation, machine learning, and AI the company is looking to launch nationwide. This will happen in the next two years.

A large percentage of your workforce are older workers and are really concerned about learning new technology and losing their job to “dumb machines”!

You can “make up” facts to help your brief, just make sure your work is pertinent to the course material.

Post your work into the discussion board. A good guideline for your brief is the “Ten Commandments for Implementing Change,” (Conlow, 2001) section of your text. Also, another good tool to use might be the “Implications for Leaders” chart in “The Future Leader” (Morgan, 2020) page 43.