Change Management & Leading Turnarounds in Entrepreneurial Ventures and Small Businesses

  • LECTURER: Daniel F. Duran
  • AFFILIATION: Whittier College, USA

Outline

Entrepreneurial ventures and small businesses face acute vulnerability to market shocks, cash constraints, operational breakdowns, founder transitions, and strategic misalignment. Unlike large corporations, smaller firms often lack financial slack, formal systems, and specialized turnaround teams —making leadership agility and disciplined change management essential for survival. Turnarounds in entrepreneurial ventures and small businesses are rarely about grand strategy alone —they are about disciplined execution, courageous leadership, and credibility under pressure.

This seminar is designed to prepare leaders to act decisively when the survival of the enterprise depends on it. This three-day seminar provides graduate students with an overview of frameworks, diagnostic tools, and leadership strategies to manage change and execute turnarounds in entrepreneurial and small business contexts. This course will draw on the instructor’s hands-on experience leading change manage initiatives and executing turn-arounds. The course will also draw on foundational theory such as Leading Change by John Kotter. Students will work in teams to develop a 90-day turnaround blueprint tailored to entrepreneurial ventures and small enterprises.

Syllabus

  1. Diagnosing Distress & Establishing Urgency: Why Entrepreneurial Firms Falter
    • Growth traps and premature scaling
    • Founder dependency and leadership bottlenecks
    • Market misalignment and strategic drift
    • Early warning financial indicators
    • Applying Kotter’s 8-Step Model in small firms
    • Building urgency without panic and Managing resistance in close-knit teams
    • Turnaround lifecycle stages
  2. Leadership & Operational Execution
    • Business model pivots
    • Process redesign in lean teams
    • Product rationalization: pivot vs. persevere
    • Psychological safety during layoffs/Communicating bad news transparently
    • Rebuilding trust with employees and customers
    • Managing founder-board or owner-lender tensions
  3. Presenting the 90-Day Turnaround Blueprint
    1. Diagnosis summary
    2. Immediate stabilization priorities (0–30 days)
    3. Operational reset initiatives (30–60 days)
    4. Strategic repositioning actions (60–90 days)
    5. Stakeholder communication plan
    6. KPI dashboard

Assessment Method

Attendance and participation. Case Participation [50%], 90-Day Turnaround Blueprint (Team) [50%].

Lective hours

6

Recommended Reading

John P. Kotter: "Leading Change", Harvard Business Review Press, 2012.

Timetable

  • 09 April, 16:00-18:00
  • 13 April, 16:00-18:00
  • 16 April, 16:00-18:00

Lecture Theatre

  • H-1002

Tuition Language

English.