Change Management

Shafa Alasgarova
Definition of organization

 An organisation is "a stable, formal ... structure that takes resources from the
environment and processes them to produce outputs." (Laudon & Laudon
2000:72)

 An organisation is "a collection of rights, privileges, obligations, and

responsibilities that are delicately balanced over time through conflict and
conflict resolution." (Laudon & Laudon 2000:72)CLASS QUESTION

 What is the difference of perspective between these two definitions?

 The 'Hard' Tradition of Organisational Theory
 Perspectives drawn from the hard tradition of organisational theory tend to be economics-, management science- or even
engineering-inspired views of organisations. They may emphasise the formal, the quantitative and the technical aspects of
organisations. They are often prescriptive, stating how the organisations should be.

 This is often called the classical or traditional or scientific-rational approach. Key figures historically include Frederick Taylor,
Henri Fayol and Max Weber.
 -Emphasis on structures, management of structures, and detailed analysis and control of methods. Emphasis on universals.
Viewed organisations as closed systems.
 Taylor and scientific management - study and measurement of work tasks; alteration of divisions of labour to seek out
productivity improvements; managers not workers are responsible for organisation of work; overriding emphasis on facts and on
rationality. Positive rise in productivity and rationality but also deskilling resulted.

 -Fayol and departmental approaches - focused on the organisation of tasks into jobs and, particularly, jobs into departments.

 -Weber and bureaucracy - a logical, rational form of organisation that was superior to other forms with: a well-defined hierarchy
of authority; a division of labour based on functional specialisation; a clear statement of personnel rights and duties; written
rules and procedures to deal with all decisions and situations; promotion and selection based on technical competence.
Deliberately depersonalised to minimise human unpredictability. Some form of
Main principles from traditional approach:

 hierarchy: vertical divisions and unbroken chain of authority/responsibility

from top to bottom; concept of line managers: a single boss for each member
of staff
 span of control: the number of subordinates who can effectively be
supervised (more for more routine tasks)
 specialisation and division of labour: traditional school emphasised the
value of this and the efficiency gains
 principle of correspondence: authority should be commensurate with
responsbility
The 'Soft' Tradition of Organisational Theory

Perspectives drawn from the soft tradition of organisational theory tend to be social science-inspired - particularly sociology-inspired -
views of organisations.

They may emphasise the informal, the qualitative and the human aspects of organisations. This is often called the human relations
approach.

Key figures historically include Elton Mayo (and the Hawthorne experiments on lighting levels and productivity), Abraham Maslow,
Douglas McGregor and Warren Bennis.

 Human Relations School – Derived from Hawthorne experiments (Mayo) into effect on productivity of heat, lighting, etc which
made clear that efficiency
 was also affected by characteristics of individuals and groups.

From this type of research some new concepts emerge – people are not motivated by money alone; an organisation is a social as well
as technical/economic system; informal groupings have an important role in determining attitudes and performance; management
requires social as well as technical skills; democratic leadership might have more to offer than authoritarian leadership; participation,
communication and the flow of information are important elements in effective organizations .
The soft tradition has three common propositions

 People are emotional rather than economic-rational beings. Human needs are far more diverse and
complex than the one-dimensional image that Taylor and his supporters conceded. People's emotional and
social needs can have more influence on their behaviour at work than financial incentives.
 Organisations are co-operative, social systems rather than mechanical ones. People seek to meet their
emotional needs through the formation of informal but influential workplace social groups.
 Organisations are composed of informal structures, rules and norms as well as formal practices and
procedures. These informal rules, patterns of behaviour and communication, norms and friendships are
created by people to meet their own emotional needs. Because of this, they can have more influence on
individual behaviour and performance, and ultimately on overall organisational performance, than the formal
structure and control mechanisms laid down by management." (Burnes 1996:47)

 Organisational elements emphasised here are informal structures, culture, politics, and individual objectives.
Third Tradition: The Systems/Contingent View of Organisations

 In practice, these two traditions have not been separated, but merely represent two
extremes on a continuum of perspectives:
 The systems perspective - which we will adopt in this module, and which we will use to build
up an organisational model - lies between the extremes. It recognises that organisations are
made up from both hard and soft, human and technical components.
 This approach is therefore sometimes described as a 'socio-technical' approach.
 To use Gareth Morgan's terms from his "Images of Organization" book - organisations are
machines and also cultures and also political systems: all at the same time.
‘Socio-technical' approach.

Organisational Viewpoints Continuum

<–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––>
Soft Hard
Human relations Classical
Social science Engineering
Sociology Economics
Subjective "Objective"
Qualitative Quantitative
Human Technical
Participative Top-down
Organisations are Systems
Environment

Political Economic
Organisation

Strategies Structure
Resources

Technology Information &

Knowledge
Processes
Inputs Outputs
Time Money

People (Skills
Materials
& Motivations)
Politics Culture

Management
Socio-cultural Technological
 Organisations are Systems

 Processes - doing things; changing inputs into outputs - lie at the heart of the organisation.
Organisations are about activity not merely existence.
 Processes and resources are intimately linked: you can't do anything without resources.
 Organisations encompass both the formal and the informal. For example, both
management and leadership; both organisational mission and personal objectives; both
formal committees and informal friendships.
 Purposive processes: the activities undertaken within the organisation have a purpose.
Given the previous point, this purpose might be a formal one (to achieve organisational
goals) or an informal one (to achieve personal goals).
 Organisations are partially open systems that interact with, influence and are
influenced by their environments.
Defining Organisational Change Strategies

 Rational-technical: "Descriptions of management and organizations that focus on the

mechanistic aspects of organization and the formal management functions of planning,
organizing, coordinating, deciding, and controlling." "Emphasizes the precision with which a
task can be done, the organization of tasks into jobs, and jobs into production systems."
 • Behavioural: "Descriptions of management based on behavioral scientists' observations
of how organizations actually behave and what managers actually do in their jobs."
"Emphasizes how well the organization can adapt to its external and internal environment."
 • Cognitive: "Descriptions of management and organizations which emphasize the role of
knowledge, core competency, and perceptual filters." "Emphasizes how well the
organization learns and applies know-how and knowledge, and how well managers provide
meaning to new situations."
 (from Laudon & Laudon 2000:99-106)
  
Internal Drivers

Organic
Organisation
 • Structural: organisational shrinkage drives other changes
 • Political: the formation of a new 'interest group' in the organisations drives other
changes
Resources
 • People/Motivations: the desire of a manager to advance their career drives other
changes
 • People/Skills: the arrival of staff with new skills drives other changes
 • Information/Knowledge: a new understanding of the organisation drives other changes
Process
 • Failure to deliver intended services drives change
 
Change Breeds Change

In many cases these are deliberate 'change breeding change': change in one element
drives change in other elements
Organisation
 • Strategy: a new organisational strategy would drive many other changes
 • Structural: a restructuring of the department would be a driver to other
changes, e.g. in management, people and processes
Resources
 • Technology: the introduction of a new computing system drives other changes
 • Money: additional funding availability drives other changes
Processes
 • A new method for delivery of client services drives other changes
Organisational Change Constraints: The ASTICKUP Model
ASTICKUP

Atmosphere/Ambience (i.e. environment)

• Legislation restricting permitted changes to employment
• A lack of competiting organisations, preventing change from being taken seriously as a
need

Structures and Systems [and a reminder of Strategy]

• A strongly centralised organisational structure creating an impediment to decentralisation
• The absence of effective management systems, constraining the introduction of a TQM
system

Technology
• An expensive IT system linking the organisation to one supplier, making it hard to change
to a different supplier
• Lack of computers, making it hard to introduce new performance indicators

Individual Stakeholder Motivations: Their Objectives and Values

• The desire of one senior manager to see the current 'change champion' come to grief
• Lack of support for change among key organisational stakeholders
• A value norm of resistance to all management change initiatives amongst clerical staff

Capabilities: Staffing Numbers and Skills [and a reminder of Culture]

• Insufficient staff members to implement change initiative
• Insufficient staff skills to implement change initiative

Knowledge and Information

• Insufficient staff knowledge to implement change initiative
• Lack of information about change initiative, leading to staff suspicion and resistance
• Poor information gathering about impact of change

Used Resources: Time and Money and Materials

• Insufficient time given for change initiative to work effectively
• Insufficient money available for change initiative

Processes [and a reminder of Politics]

• The inertia of current working practices
• Wrongly-selected change processes
Force Field Analysis
Figure 1: Force Field Analysis Diagram

Perceived Drivers Perceived Constraints

Pressures of New Govt. Legislation Lack of Relevant Change Skills

Personnel Manager as Project Resistance from One Section of

Champion Senior Management

Inertia of Current Computing

Systems

Force field analysis provides a diagrammatic means of representing the perception of forces supporting
change (the drivers) and forces opposing change (the constraints). Perceptions of driving forces can be
listed on the left-hand side of the diagram, with the length of arrow matching the relative perceived
strength of the driver. Perceived constraints are listed on the right.
Force-Field Analysis

Supporting Forces Opposing Forces

Steps:
Identify all relevant Senior Management Support

stakeholders Middle Management Resistance

User Support to „Clean Up“

Identify forces for
and against change Staff Resistence
Some Enthusiastic Users
Prioritise the forces
Develop strategies to Staff Cynism About Hidden Agendas

strengthen supporting Other BU Already „Done It“

forces Lack of Resources

Develop strategies to
reduce, weaken or Kübler-Ross Users

isolate opposing
forces.
Understanding the Success and Failure of Change

 
 Total Failure: The situation in which no workable change is ever produced, or the change is never adopted
 Partial Failure: The situation in which there is a change but it fails to attain the objectives set for it, or it
produces undesirable outcomes. E.g. a costly change that produces only limited productivity improvements;
or a change that is seen through but at the cost of having many of the most effective staff leave
 Sustainability Failure: The situation where there is a change that initially appears to succeed, but where
the change has disappeared after just a couple of years. Sometimes happens when change champion moves
on, or when donor money comes to an end.
 Replicability Failure: The situation where a change is successfully introduced to one organisational unit,
but cannot be spread to other units. E.g. a change in one local govt. district that cannot be spread to the
other districts.
 Moral Failure: The situation where change benefits the 'haves' in the organisation and in society, and not
the 'have nots'.
  
Why Change Initiatives Fail: Change Inputs and the DRiVeS Model

If change is a journey, we can lay the cause of an outcome of failure down to a number of
obvious reasons that we can incorporate into a DRiVeS model.

Destination/Direction: Where? [and why?] - The Goal of Change

A failure of fundamental change content: because managers chose the wrong focus or goal
for change.
e.g. tried to make the organisation more efficient when they should have been focusing on
making it more effective; or focusing on making it more automated when they should have
been focusing on making it more 'informatised' or 'transformed'.

Route: What? - The Strategy of Change

A failure of intermediate change content: because managers chose the wrong strategy
(route) for achieving change
e.g. undertook an empowerment initiative in order to make the organisation more effective
when they should have been focusing on improving customer services to make the org. more
effective.

Vehicle: How? [and who?] - The Tactics of Change

A failure of the process of change: because the managers chose the wrong tactical means
(vehicle) to go about change
e.g. tried to use non-participative methods in a fundamentally participative organisation; or
tried to use a small project team instead of involving everyone.

Stages: How Much? [and when?] - The Operational Details of Change

A failure of the 'momentum of change': because managers tried to change too much and/or
too fast
e.g. tried to get a massive reorganisation to work within a six-month time span. In particular,
a combination of the extent of change and the pace of change that we will call the
'momentum of change'. Momentum = mass x velocity.
Too much momentum causes a crash, either because there is too much mass, i.e. you tried
to change too much; or because there is too much velocity, i.e. you tried to change too fast.

>>So we can summarise failures mainly as being those of content and those of process and
those of momentum.

[Road Conditions: What Outside?

i.e. the environment: maybe just argue that road conditions affect momentum and vehicle
choice, but don't per se cause success or failure.
>>Could then be the DRiVeRS model.]
The DRiVeS Model of Change
 Understanding Success and Failure via a Framework Model

We can use an adaptation of Leavitt's (Leavitt 1965) well-known diamond of

change. Leavitt's model of change focuses on four main organisational variables
Task

People Technology

Structure

• People: managers and workers

• Technology: tools and techniques
•Structure: pattern of authority, responsibility, communication and workflow
• Task: the reason for the organisation's existence [i.e. strategic objective
Strategies for change:

 a) Change task: difficult because involves changing the whole of what the
organisation is about.
 b) Change technology: popular but hard to do successfully - clear
interdependencies needing change in people and structures
 c) Change structure: also popular - changing job definitions, roles,
decentralisation, etc.
 d) Change people: also popular - training done by most organisations - but
harder to change attitudes and values than skills.
Responses to Change
“Negative Responses to change”
Acceptance
Active Anger

R
e Bargaining
s
i Stability
s
Denial
t
Testing
a Immobilizatio
n n
c
e
Depressio
n

Passive Time
 Individual Change Response

Denial
P Commitment
r
o
d
u
c
t
i
v
i
t
y

Resistance Exploration

Adapted from Kubler -Ross

Recognizing the Individual Change Response

Denial
P Commitment
r What you
What you Hear
What you See
o see Silence
What you hear
It will never happen Future
d Indifference Orientation How can I contribute
It wont affect me
u Disbelief Initiative Lets get on with it
c Avoidance Self-efficiency
t Confidence
i What you see
v What you see What you Hear Energy What you hear
i Anger It wont work Risk taking Optimism
t Complaining It used to be… Tentativeness
I’ve got an idea
Impatience
y Glorifying the The data is Lets try…
past flawed.. Activity
without focus What if ….
Skepticism
Unwillingness
to participate Resistance Exploration

Adapted from Kubler -Ross

Force-Field Analysis Steps
 Perform exhaustive
stakeholder analysis.
Take notes about the
interests of each
stakeholder.
 Prioritise the forces
 Develop strategies to strengthen or leverage
supporting forces
 Develop strategies to weaken or isolate
opposing forces.
Kotter’s Eights Steps to Change
1. Create a sense of
Urgency
2. Build a Guiding
Coalition
3. Form a Strategic Vision
and Initiatives
4. Enlist a Volunteer Army
5. Enable Action by
Removing Barriers
6. Generate Short-Term
Wins
7. Sustain Acceleration
8. Institute Change
Kotter’s Eights Steps to Change
1. Create a sense of Urgency
Craft and use a significant opportunity as a means for exciting people to sign up to change their organization

2. Build a Guiding Coalition

Assemble a group with the power and energy to lead and support a collaborative change effort

3. Form a Strategic Vision and Initiatives

Shape a vision to help steer the change effort and develop strategic initiatives to achieve that vision

4. Enlist a Volunteer Army

Raise a large force of people who are ready, willing and urgent to drive change

5. Enable Action by Removing Barriers

Remove obstacles to change, change systems or structures that pose threats to the achievement of the vision

6. Generate Short-Term Wins

Consistently produce, track, evaluate and celebrate volumes of small and large accomplishments – and correlate them to
results

7. Sustain Acceleration
Use increasing credibility to change systems, structures and policies that don’t align with the vision; hire, promote and develop
employees who can implement the vision; reinvigorate the process with new projects, themes and volunteers

8. Institute Change
Articulate the connections between the new behaviors and organizational success, and develop the means to ensure leadership
development and succession
Thank YOU!