When you reply to two classmates' posts, respectfully agree/disagree to the post and explain why, while offering an opinion with an example to support it.

Classmate 1:

Often in times of large organizational changes, the change is communicated but not necessarily the reason behind the change or what it aims to accomplish. For this reason, fear can set in among employees and with the lack of information, rumors and conspiracy theories can occur. It is natural for people to fill in gaps of information with their own often worst case scenarios. I know from a personal standpoint this is very true in all aspects of my life when information is missing, I make up the answer and usually it is the worst thing I can think of. An example of this in my work was when my department hired another person for my same role. I was told this would not affect me in any way however it was not communicated to me why this person was being brought into the same role. Of course I was worried for my current book of business and did not understand the change. I began to panic and called the market manager with my concerns. I was extremely upset and confused, especially since I was not told ahead of time and found out at a meeting in front of peers. I made up all so many scenarios in my head that I was not good enough or he would take all of my business. It turned out the company was hiring multiple people across our footprint for my same role and changing the way we received our referrals. I was never told about this change and it did affect me negatively although I have adapted. The lack of communication caused so much undue stress.

The implications for managers with this SFD concept is that with the lack of information employees can panic and become resisters to change due to making up scenarios where information is missing. What can happen then is resistance to change, people quitting, and loss of productivity as well as the change being unsuccessful. The best way to mitigate these SFD's as Brown described, is to communicate regularly and clearly explain the change, how it will affect people directly, and the reason for it. According to Walton (2016), "The common maxim for most change situations is communicate, communicate, communicate. Most people get this point intuitively, but the pitfall is that leaders often fear communicating anything before they can answer all the questions. While it is hard to take back statements once they are said, bear in mind the change starts as soon as people start talking about it, not when management first communicates it. Moreover, in the absence of factual communication, people often assume the worst". Even when change is mandatory, the best way to bring about a change is to communicate early, often, and be transparent. People are far more likely to accept the change and adapt more quickly when change is understood and explained.

Classmate 2:

Often, many people succumb to having to tell a whole story, make up for a fault, and feel good about themselves. Or even provide false information to make themselves look good before a leader, which is why when issues arise with people, there are always different versions of the story. People will provide the information that sits well with them and how they feel about the situation instead of the exact account of what occurred. When introducing change into an organization, many different feelings and opinions are in the air. Depending on the person's personality, the person might resist or accept the change with open arms. Many people who oppose the change will make up a story of why the change being introduced is a horrible idea and how the way things are is the best option, and it's because they want to remain doing things the way they are, even if the change will make their job easier. The worst thing anybody can ever do is lie or provide false information, especially at work. It will come back to haunt you. I prefer to be honest; if I don't know, I let them know I will get back to them. I like getting into trouble for honesty rather than getting caught in false information. It isn't delightful, especially at work.

One day, when I was working in the quality field, we had our daily tier meeting in which we talked about priorities and how many we physically had. There was a supervisor who liked to make herself look good in front of the director, and she decided to say that she had not met her numbers of the week because quality had yet to inspect 6 LTAMS that were sitting in QEIV queries according to her that valued each at 2 million dollars. But yet, she just decided to blame quality rather than do her research. Quality had inspected each of the LTAMS and rejected every single one of them because they were nonconforming, and they were sitting in her Query waiting for them to assign them to an employee. But, she was in panic mode when her boss asked her why she had failed to meet her goal, and she blamed others instead of reviewing the correct data before her meeting and doing her job. It wasn't very comfortable for her, especially in front of all those people. Thank god I attended the meeting and could defend my team and me. If we did, we would have looked better, and our manager would have gotten an email about us failing to perform our tasks.