3. Review Attachment Chapter 4 - Foundations of Organizational Change: Williams & Norton Insurance: Sustaining Customer Engagement and answer the following questions:

a. What external and internal factors influenced Williams & Norton's decision to implement a change initiative like FOCUS 2015?

b. What was the role of communication during the change initiative?

c. What leadership challenges were experienced during FOCUS 2015? What factors influenced resistance to change?

d. Which change model would have been preferable to use to drive the success of FOCUS 2015?

Shari Kane, the head of retail distribution at Williams & Norton Insurance had just returned home to Durban, South Africa, on a humid Saturday morning in June 2015 after spending 4 weeks attending an executive program at Stanford University in the United States. Kane felt inspired and energized by the experience and was keen to convey key insights to her organization in the coming week. She was particularly excited to share the experience with her leadership team who had been overseeing the implementation of a new change initiative across the retail distribution division called FOCUS 2015. The vision of FOCUS 2015 was largely concerned with increasing proactive and meaningful engagement with existing customers for the purpose of understanding their particular insurance needs and introducing Williams & Norton's much improved customer value proposition. The rst 3 months of the 201572016 nancial year had yielded incredibly positive performance data in terms of customer engagement. The process of engaging with existing clients through ongoing, meaningful, personalized interactions was premised on improving their experience with Williams & Norton Insurance. Customer relation consultants garnered customer feedback with an intention to provide better, more immediate service. The underlying rationale for this engagement was to deepen brand loyalty and increase sales. The almost 400 customer relationship consultants spread across retail distribution in Williams & Norton's three regions had all appeared to embrace the vision of the change initiative. The positive impact of increased customer engagement across retail distribution's key financial performance drivers had been clearly displayed in the data collected during the months from March to May. Kane was expecting an update on June's data related to the change initiative and was busy downloading her Friday afternoon e-mails when she received an e-mail from John Mazibuko, her predecessor and the current Williams & Norton CEO: Hi Shari. Welcome home! I hope you enjoyed a productive time in the US. You have a 15 minute timeslot on Tuesday at the executive committee meeting and I would like you to come and present on Williams & Norton's progress over the past 4 months. Please incorporate feedback on your team's progress year-to-date with respect to customer engagement in your presentation and the impact of that engagement on customer behavior and the nancial performance of the retail distribution division. I look forward to it! John Kane was busy responding to the e-mail from Mazibuko when she received a voice mail notification on her phone. The voice mail was from the head of retail distribution in Cape Town, Hashim Behardien: Hi Shari, I don't know if you've received my e-mail related to this month's data, but the gures aren't great! The customer engagement activity levels are down 40% compared to our average for the first 3 months of the year. I have called the other regional heads and they assure me that the data accurately reect the activity levels in their regions, but we're all unsure why we're suddenly experiencing such a massive decline in activity. It would be good to meet on Monday to strategize a way forward because at this rate we won't come close to our target of engaging with the majority of our customers in this nancial year. Let's speak when you have a moment. Kane listened in disbelief to the voice mail as she frantically searched among the plethora of e- mails in her inbox for the FOCUS 2015 monthly update. She could not understand how the division had experienced such an unbelievably weak month in terms of customer engagement. She had felt certain when she left for the United States that the communication during the planning, launch, and implementation of FOCUS 2015 had struck a chord with the customer relationship consultants across the organization. She believed that the consultants had understood and adopted the organization's rationale for pursuing customer engagement as a matter of strategic imperative for the division. Kane reclined in her chair and reflected on the change process she and her team had overseen over the previous 6 months. She wondered whether she had dropped the ball from a leadership perspective. She questioned whether she had effectively communicated the rationale underscoring the change initiative. She needed to identify where she and the regional heads had potentially underestimated the magnitude of FOCUS 2015. ABOUT WILLIAMS & NORTON INSURANCE Williams & Norton Insurance is an international insurance company and manages a diverse range of insurance products and services to a niche customer base in three principal markets-South Africa, East and West Africa. Williams & Norton began as a small financial services company in Durban in 1963. The company had experienced tremendous growth over the more than 50 years since its inception and currently employed 4,305 people in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana. In South Africa, regional offices were established in Johannesburg and Cape Town with the head office based in Durban. The South African retail distribution division comprised 396 customer relationship consultants who serviced around 22,000 customers across South Africa. LEADERSHIP AT WILLIAMS & NORTON Kane had joined Williams & Norton Insurance 9 years earlier in 2006 after a short period at a small investment company in the United Kingdom. Kane was hired as the customer relationship manager in the Johannesburg office due to her outstanding interpersonal andbusiness skill set. She spent 5 successful years there before being appointed head of retail distribution for the Durban regional office. Kane was appointed into her senior role during an incredibly challenging period. Williams & Norton had been reeling over three prior financial periods, partly due to the aftershock of the global financial crisis of 2007-2008. Kane commented, "The Durban head office was a different place when I arrived in 2011. The whole place was far too relaxed. In fact, the Cape Town division lost R65 million [Rand, the South African currency] that year. It was horrible." Kane enjoyed 2 successful years as the head of retail distribution in Durban, returning the region to profitability in her first year, achieving profitability of R23 million and R100 million in the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 financial years, respectively. The retail distribution division had turned a corner over the same period under the leadership of Mazibuko, then the national head of retail distribution. The company had returned to profitability and improved their return-on-capital from 2% to 16% over the 2-year period. Williams & Norton had, over the period, become a paragon of excellence in the insurance sector. Mazibuko assumed the role of Williams & Norton CEO in 2014, and Kane was appointed national head of retail distribution in April 2014. The exceptional performance of Williams & Norton was influenced by various enhancements to the customer value proposition. This improved value proposition offered customers a diversified framework through one consolidated platform and focused service. This offering gave South African customers integrated access to all of Williams & Norton's services. The company had made a number of innovative improvements to their services over the period. This included an enhanced online experience. This and other significant changes to the Williams