Remember the Titans Analysis

Remember the Titans

Summary:

The movie takes place in a small town in Virginia, where schools and town are segregated. When one school shuts down, they are forced to combine a primarily black and primarily white school together. The movie shows the turmoil over the forced combination from students, parents, and coaches alike. The movie is centered on the high school's football team and how they learn to accept the changes. The head football coach is replaced by the coach who was hired to coach the football team at the black school. You see the transition of segregation into a group of close friends ("brothers") and how they help to change the public's view as well.

Role of Change:

The main plot of Remember the Titans is of the strategic role of change and how it impacts people. There are two different types of change; you have incremental then there is also radical change. Incremental change is a slower process, where as radical change is a sudden, quick, abrupt change to the way things were before. In Remember the Titans, we see radical change take place. Schools were used to being segregated just like most of the town was. There was a federal mandate that forced the two separate schools to integrate. When this happened the football teams were forced to integrate. The change didn't happen slowly over time. Once the schools combined there was a quick decision to place Coach Boone (from the primarily black school) in the head coaching position and Coach Yoast (from the primarily white school) was forced as the assistant coach, or to leave the position all together. The players would have to fight for their positions on the field, and to learn to accept one another so that they could play as a team. As soon as the integration took place, the team was off to a two week long football camp. The characters in the movie definitely had to deal with radical change. They didn't gradually move into the integration, it came fast and sudden, with many changes.

Successful Change:

There are five different elements of successful change: ideas, needs, decision to adopt, implementation, and resources (Daft, p.436-437). Towards the middle of the movie you can see how successful change has been for the players, coaches, parents, and community. I believe that, although it was not their idea, the implementation of integrating the schools and the need for change helped in their decision to adopt. The decision to adopt comes when the key players in the process decide to go ahead with the proposed idea (Daft, p.438). I think the players and coaches had an easier time adjusting to the radical change, but it took longer for the parents to come around. However, everyone knew that they had to find a way to accept the change and implement it into their everyday lives. Coach Boone played a significant role in forcing the players to implement the changes. All the resources needed to implement the change were available to the players. I think the two week camp most definitely helped the initial change.

Dual Core Approach:

A dual core approach is an organizational change perspective that identifies the unique processes associated with administrative change compared to those associated with technical change (Daft, p.452). This approach focuses on a change to the design and structure of an organization itself, including restructuring, downsizing, teams, control systems, information systems, and department grouping (Daft, p.452). In the film, there is a lot of administrative change. Two school systems combined to make one, integrating the different races for the first time. Two football teams combined to make one. This meant that some players would be let go (downsized) and they would break the remaining players off into position groupings ("department grouping"). There would also be a restructure as the two schools combined. When the football team came together there could only be one head coach, and the position was given to Coach Boone. Therefore the rest of the coaching staff would need to be restructured.

Forces of Change:

At the beginning of the integration process, there were a lot of forces against the change. You had the community in an uproar over the integration. You had the students at the school opposed to the integration. Coach Yoast was opposed to integrating the football team. The players felt