Grass Roots Change

What’s the latest buzz in organizational behavior and

change?

Presentation Objectives1. Define what is meant by the term

“grass roots change.”

2. Describe the importance of understanding the grass roots change concept.

3. Relate the term to current organizational behavior and change.

4. Provide some examples of grass roots change.

Obvious SourcesCourse Texts

Jick, Todd D. Managing Change Cases and Concepts. McGraw-Hill. 1993.

Nadler, David A., Nadler, Mark B. Champions of Change. Jossey-Bass. 1998.

Obvious SourcesCourse Texts

Schermerhorn, Jr., John R. Hunt, James G., Osborn, Richard N. Organizational Behavior. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2000.

Other SourcesOn-line

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. http://www.yourdictionary.com

Other SourcesProQuest

Candaele, Kelly., Dreier , Peter. Commentary; Labor Makes a Stand in Los Angeles; Unions: The AFL-CIO is on target in reaching out to like-minded grass-roots groups to revitalize the movement. Copyright, The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times. 1999.

Other SourcesProQuest

Smith , David Horton. The effective Grassroots association II: Organizational factors that produce external impact. San Francisco. Fall 1999

Other SourcesProQuest

Master, Melissa. Making it work. New York. Sep. 1999.

Define “Grass Roots”

Define “Grass Roots” Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary

defines “Grass Roots” as Function: noun plural but singular or plural

in construction Date: 1901 Usage: often attributive 1 : the very foundation or source 2 : the basic level of society or of an

organization especially as viewed from higher or more centralized positions of power

Define “Grass Roots”

Grass Roots change implies that an organization is or has to implement or alter its behavior starting at the lowest level.

In politics', this refers to the voter level.

In Organizational Behavior (OB), this refers to the front line or individual worker and work group level.

Define “Grass Roots”

“Organizations are collections of people working together to achieve a common purpose”

(Schermerhorn et al, 7).

As such, they have developed distinct personalities, beliefs, rituals, and such.

Define “Grass Roots”

Today, organizations are moving away from hierarchical and bureaucratic models to “task-driven organizations”

(Jick, 265).– This restructuring is a change.– Sometimes it is a

incremental discontinuous

– It requires a “new way of thinking” at every level

Define “Grass Roots” Two items that have moved

organizations in this direction are:– The importance of tapping employee

expertise and knowledge is now well-recognized.

– There has been an increased need for employees to manage themselves as organizations have downsized and restructured for greater competitiveness.

(Schermerhorn et al, 28)

Define “Grass Roots” Terms in today’s organizations

– Empowermentallows individuals or groups to make decisions that affect them or their work.

– Self-directing work teamsare teams that are empowered to make decisions about planning, doing, and evaluating their work.

Define “Grass Roots”

– Distributed leadership is the sharing of responsibility for meeting group task and maintenance needs.

– Self-managing teamsare empowered to make decisions about planning, doing, and evaluating their daily work.

Define “Grass Roots”

– Cross-functional teams bring together persons from different functions to work on a common task.

– Polychronic culture is a culture where people tend to do more than one thing at a time.

Define “Grass Roots”Summary

Grass roots change involves implementing a change starting at the lowest level of the organization.

Understanding the Importance

Why is it important to understand “grass roots change?”

Understanding the Importance

“Grass-roots change presents senior managers with a paradox: directing a “nondirective” change process”

(Jick, 265)

Understanding the Importance

“Trying to change people’s values from the top down without also changing how the organization operates and recognizing the importance of individuals does not work very well”

(Schermerhorn et al, 275) Putting people into new organizational

context powerfully shape individual behavior

(Jick, 267)

Understanding the Importance

The hierarchical/bureaucratic to “task-driven change changes the organizational structure starting at the lowest level with upper levels following.

Once grass-roots change reaches a critical mass, upper management must follow in a timely manner.

Understanding the Importance Organizational structure Old

•New

Understanding the Importance When the supervisory management

has been replace with self-managing teams, certain tasks are reallocated to the team.– Planning and scheduling work– Assigning of work tasks– Training of workers– Performance evaluation– Quality control

Understanding the ImportanceSummary

It is important for middle managers to understand what is happening and be able to support such changes where needed.

Relevance to OB We now know the following

– Organizations are changing.– The change contains organizational

restructuring– The change must start with the lowest

level of the organization and work up– The change presents a paradox to

management– Traditional work units must be replaced

with self-managing teams

Relevance to OB

– Employees are becoming more cross-functional and polychronic

– Employees are becoming more empowered as members of self-managed groups

Relevance to OB

We now have a better grasp of the scope of the change that is occurring

Examples of Grass Roots ChangeTexas Instruments @ Malaysia

Has many workers and no traditional supervisors

Uses self-managing teams on the “honor system”

Has – increased productivity– improved product quality– Reduced staff absenteeism

Examples of Grass Roots ChangeTexas Instruments @ Malaysia

An TI senior executive remarked “Teams bring about better sharing of

ideas and learning.“ “Better decisions are made and

implementation of ideas takes less time”

(Schermerhorn et al, 208)

Examples of Grass Roots ChangeMaster, Melissa. Making it work

Knowledge sharing incentives or programs fail because of a cultural issue and not a software or design issue

“Employees are more receptive to an informal, grass-roots movement encouraging them to share what they know”

Examples of Grass Roots ChangeMaster, Melissa. Making it work

“We have deep cultural traditions that ten to discourage sharing, so when we get into the workplace, encouraging people to do it is not what they expect”

Chris Bogan, CEO Best Practices LLC

Examples of Grass Roots ChangeMaster, Melissa. Making it work

The chairman of KPMG announced a new policy for employees to submit valuable information that they learned in the course of their work.– It worked. Why?– The corporate culture is a tax

organization– Frequent new policies are a part of the

corporate culture

Examples of Grass Roots ChangeMaster, Melissa. Making it work

The corporate culture was used to motivate a change in sharing habits

Examples of Grass Roots ChangeToyota Motor Co.

The suggestion system at Toyota involves managers taking an active role in coaching employees about their suggestions

Examples of Grass Roots ChangeToyota Motor Co.

Because manager interact with employees– The company has an atmosphere of

openness and communication– The participation rate is over 90%– It has generated more than 20 million

ideas

Summary & Conclusion Define what is meant by the term

“grass roots change.”– Grass roots change involves

implementing a change starting at the lowest level of the organization.

Summary & Conclusion Describe the importance of

understanding the grass roots change concept.

– It is important for middle managers to understand what is happening and be able to support such changes where needed.

Summary & Conclusion Relate the term to current

organizational behavior and change.– We now have a better grasp of the

scope of the change that is occurring– We understand that this will involve a

major change – possibly a complete deviation from previous norms and culture

Summary & Conclusion Provide some examples of grass

roots change.Three examples:

– Texas Instruments in Malaysia– KPMG– Toyota

Insight

Insight

During my tenure at DeVry I’ve found the following items difficult to get rolling– Teaming at the intra-department level– Teaming at the inter-department level– Group assessment efforts– Information sharing

Insight

Why, what and how?– It is not a common practice in the

corporate culture Responses to emails from the TCM directory

are a indication of this

– A grass-roots change has tooccur to begin a cultural shift

The few that are willing tocontribute should form a self-managing team with uppermanagement support

Insight

The team can be small, but must be cross-functional

What I thought could be done in a couple of term – will really take longer.

Attitudes in information sharingwill take a grass-rootschange

Insight

Questions?