Introduction to Change Management: Organizational Change and Driving Change

Introduction to Change Management

CHAPTER 1- INTRODUCTION TO CHANGE MANAGEMENT

• successful change management is both challenging and intense
• especially in a tumultuous, global environment, characterized by technological advancements and a dynamic workforce
• implementing change is a task fraught with complexity and challenge.
  • cannot be rendered simple with the application of a linear, stepwise approach, a clever principle, or a new way of thinking.
  • uncertainty of cause and effect

Change Goals

Two main categories of change goals:

• • Performance improvements: change is usually associated with increased organisational effectiveness.
  • Increased organizational efficiency: creating a structure, strategy, set of systems, group of human resources, and a culture that is 'better' customised to the organisation's mission and environment.

the purpose of change is to make an organisation more productive by finding ways of supporting or developing its competitive advantages it is normal for people to feel uncomfortable about change and either try to avoid it or actively discourage it, inertia is the norm

• it is also possible to worsen the situation
  • an inaccurate perception in the first instance can preclude a change attempt from success.
  • inability to imagine an organisation's place in the future
  • refusal to accept the importance of undesirable information
  • clinging to old ways of thinking
  • communications barriers
  • resistance by organization members or lack of motivation
  • high costs of change
  • past unsuccesful attempts
  • personal interests
  • potential loss of systemic comforts
  • problems may also arise in the implementation stage
    • trying to implement a vague notion ar an impractigal goal
• change leaders are pivotal to the success of organisational change because they not only devise the content of change, but also formulate and adjust the method of its introduction
• it is not always obvious that organisational change has worked, mainly because fi nancial performance measures are slow to reveal the existing situation
  • financial and other typical business metrics are important, they rarely refl ect the human side of the business and the psychological effect that change has caused.
• CHANGE DILEMMA: leaders and managers are constantly faced with the imperative to change to meet environmental demands, but must accommodate the human sensitivities that, if improperly managed, can lead to a worse situation than before.
• attempting to change the established ways of operating without calculating for the powerful infl uence of culture is dangerous.
• choices organisations make are not independent and must be considered as a whole rather than as independent parts.
  • change management requires a comprehensive understanding of an organisation's practices as well as the values and beliefs that drive those practice

-- The change process is characterised by a vast range of alternative tools, techniques and methods (most of these approaches are situation specifi c and will work for some organisations but not for others)

• economic, regulatory, political and technological factors are headlined as the key drivers of organisational change.

Organizational Change Management

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT

• DRIVING CHANGE: recognising when change is necessary
• CHANGE LEVERS: highlights the tools, techniques and practices that are employed to facilitate planned change.
• CHANGE ENACTORS: these factors ease or obstruct the operation of the change lever
• MAINTAINING CHANGE: necessary and sufficient requirements for ongoing change, exploring the process of measuring and evaluating change.
• AFFECTERS: illustrates the role of the key variables in influencing all constituents of the change process.

1. culture - the set of values and beliefs common to an organisation
2. context - the market and environment in which an organisation operates
3. knowledge - the set of learning processes and 'wisdom' that an organisation has accumulated
4. technology - the operating systems, physical machinery and equipment that an organisation employs to deliver its products or manage its internal processes

Perspectives on Managing Change

CHAPTER 2- PERSPECTIVES ON MANAGING CHANGE there is not really an accepted and conventional definition for organisational change

• • Can be seen as the movement away from a present state towards a future state
  • modification within an organisation involving individuals, groups and, at the collective level, the entire organisation
  • sum of differences over time in one or more parts of an organisation.
• Van de Ven and Poole suggest that there are four main types of change management perspectives
  • Life-cycle: growth and development that organisms undergo during their lives.
  • Teleology: emphasises the goals of an organisation and its activities towards their realisation
  • Dialectics: focuses on the interaction between competing political forces within an organisation
  • Evolution: draws on biology to illustrate that change is a process of adaptation within environmental constraints, where the best adapted survive and prosper

Kezar's Six Types of Perspectives

Kezar proposes six types of perspectives on organisational change:

• • Evolutionary
  • Teleological
  • Life-cycle
  • Dialectical
  • Social Cognition: assumes that change is linked to learning and mental processes such as sense making and mental models, ndividuals see a need to grow, learn and modify their behaviour
  • Cultural: change occurs naturally as a response to alterations in the environment,

Any perspective highlights some specific information about organizational change

• Change perspectives describe the fundamentally different event sequences of change intervention
• 10 perspectives of change (listed somewhere on the book)
  • Biological perspective
    • Population ecology:. the organizational forms and operating mechanisms are those selected by the industry itself or the external environmental industry itself ( ???? )
      • focus on change within a whole industry

Nature of Industry and Organizational Evolution

. The nature of the industry operates a natural selection

• Certain individual organisations make minor changes, which confer upon them competitive advantages leading to greater market share. In time, these new advantages are picked up by other organisations and are established as industrial standards.

. Industries evolve to best fit their environment

• Managers have no ruling in this, the external environment makes an organizational standard emerge over time

. The only possibility for managers is to adapt to it . Conformism emerge

• Life-cycle approach
  • exclusively concerned with individual organisations.
  • organisation goes through start up, expansion, maturity and divestment.
  • Organisational change is merely the transition along this curve of natural progression.
  • Revamping can happen to avoid the decline phase, starting a new cycle
  • Similar to product life cycle
  • In this perspective change is a natural and often occurring phenmenton (to move from one phase to another)
  • punctuated equilibrium model
    • the model suggests that evolution is generally incremental or static, but is punctuated by radical short-term change
• Rational perspective:
  • concerned with the alignment between an organisation's structure/competencies and its environment
  • this alignment is within the power of managers to manipulate because they are charged with the best use of resources to achieve organisational objectives.
  • change is held firmly in the hands of organisational leaders, its success a reflection of their capacity to translate objectives into piecemeal actions
  • any kind of change must be planned and effectively implemented by using rationality
  • change comes about in a linear and straightforward way, the predictable result of the planned interventions of change managers.
  • Strictly monitoring
  • Empahsises active role of managers
• We use this approach on this course apparently
• Institutional perspective
  • most interested in industries rather than organisations
  • Interlay among institutions not only on the industry level but on a more general level (all institutions in the external environment)
  • pressure to conform might come from other organisations as well as social, governmental, legal, cultural or other pressures
  • Organisations change because external forces make them take certain forms
• Resource perspective
  • Need to control resources coming from the outside
  • takes the view that the acquisition and deployment of resources is the critical activity for survival and prosperity.
  • Change is the process through which organisations acquire, grow and utilise resources.· oganisations are unable to generate internally all the different types of resources they need in order to survive and prosper, the consequence is the necessary reliance on external environment to acquire critical resources
• RBV
• Contingency perspective:
  • Focuses on considering the different contingencies that produce transformational change
  • explains organisational change from a behavioural viewpoint where managers should make decisions taking into account the circumstances of change
  • Internal and external contingencies
  • Organisational change within a contingency perspective is based on the alignment between three main factors: technology, structure and size.4
• Psycological perspective
  • Focuses on individual variables and psycological aspects of change
  • principally concerned with the human side of the change experience.
  • Draws on psycology theories and practices
  • organisational development (OD): understand individuals' experiences of change through action research and appropriate intervention, esistance to change can be understood, and its repercussions reduced
  • change transition implies that organisational change is psychologically and emotionally traumatic for employees
• Political perspective
  • organisational change from the viewpoint of power and conflict.
  • explains change as the fi ght for control of organisations in order to bring about a specifi c ideological or positional agenda (politics)
  • Can realte to psycological perspective since single individuals my act in a very political way
  • It does not deal with politics but in acting in a stategic way in order to push single individual interests (acting at an individual level)
  • Politics in this case relates to power
  • The use of power to pursue individualistic iterests is very detrimental to the organization (conflicts may arise)
  • common change-related activities include bargaining, lobbying, persuasion, propaganda, manipulation, influence, intimidation, posturing and the application of various types of power.
• Cultural perspective
  • change perspective that considers the study and interpretation of behavioural and social patterns of individuals within an organisation, and their responses to the environment
  • change from the cultural perspective is seen as a quite normal reaction to changing environmental conditions
  • Culture from this viewpoint is seen as a collection of fundamental values and attitudes that are common to members of a social group, the bahavioral standards or norms for all members
  • Employee motivation, innotavinesess, proactivity
  • Core values
  • Chaning culture is one of the most difficult tasks and it requires a strong change in attitudes, motivations and behaviors of individuals
  • As cultural values are deeply held and shared by members of a social group, change is problematic and time-consuming.
• System perspective