Change Management
“We trained hard to meet our challenges but it seemed as if every time we were beginning to form into teams we would be re-organized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating an illusion of progress while producing confusion, ineffectiveness and demoralization.”
Gaius Petronius
Change
• Clearly, not a new subject
• The “hot topic” in management today
• Leadership wouldn’t be needed without it
BLUR• Stan Davis & Christopher Meyer - 1998
• Business today characterized by:– Speed– Connectivity– Intangible values
• Pace of change has accelerated beyond our human comfort zone - a “BLUR”
Changes in the Macroenvironment• Technology
• Economy
• Society/Culture
• Political/Legal
In Search of Excellence
• Peters & Waterman - 1982 best seller
• 34 Excellent companies
• By 1992 half no longer qualified– Environments had changed– They hadn’t
A World of Change
• Do we ride with it?
• Do we manage it?
• Or let it manage us?
Blur• Forces interacting so complexly
they blur our understanding and ability to cope
• Davis and Meyers counsel joining the Blur.
• Becoming more facile changers
What is change?
• OED - the act or instance of making or becoming different
• Jick - planned or unplanned response to pressures and forces
• Definitions raise the “chicken or egg” question
There are three kinds of people
in the world
Those things happen to.
Those who make things happen.
Those who sit around and wonder what happened?
Types of Change
• Personal
• Organizational
• Externally imposed
• Internally generated
Ways of Handling
• Proactively
• Reactively
• Feasibility of proaction in an Open system
Connectivity
• Businesses are “Open Systems”
• Humans and their organizations meld
• We are defined by the company we keep– ie. Our organizations
Mindset
• Based on personality, education, and experience
• Governs reaction to and readiness for change
Conventional Wisdom
• Human beings resist change
• True?
• False?
Negative Entropy
• Biological concept – Living organisms fight to live
• Organizations exhibit the same tendency
Paradox of Organizational Change
• Negative entropy creates mindset to resist change
• Reality may dictate change to preserve the organization
Barger & Kirby
• The Challenge of Change in Organizations - 1995
• Example of the American pioneers– Many boldly sought change– Others accepted it– Many resisted it
Jungian Psychology
• Different psychological “types”
• With different mindsets toward change
• Meyers Briggs Type Indicator
MBTI “Types”
• Extroverts
• Introverts
• Sensors
• Intuitors
• Thinkers
• Feelers
• Judgers
• Perceivers
So What?
• People and organizations have “mindsets”– Based on personality– Based on organizational culture
• They respond differently to change
• Understanding this a must for change managers
Types of Change
• Developmental - improving what is
• Transitional - changing to a known state over a controlled period of time
• Transformational - emergence of a new state, unknown till reached, usually following chaotic death of a previous state
Thomas Vollman
• The Transformation Imperative - 1996
• Claims numerous companies & industries are dying
• Unable to sense paradigm shifts– They attempt developmental or transitional
change– “Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic”
Paradigms Video
• Where is your organization on the paradigm curve?
• What should you be doing to prepare for the “inevitable paradigm shift?”
Approaches to Change
• Laissez Faire - let it happen
• Directed - goal, direction, means provided
• Guided Change - pointing, counseling, leading
Factors In Choosing
• People and their mindset
• Organizational culture
• Situational urgency
• Your abilities
John Smither: Change Agent
• Situation– Telwork launches TQM program– Smither ambivalently agrees to be one of
two site instructors
What went wrong?
• What were the mindsets of the people and the organization?
• To what degree were people involved in the change effort?
Barriers to Change?
Other Questions
• Was there a need for change?
• What should have happened?
• Were “politics” a factor?
• What are Smither’s choices at this point?
• What are Telworks’ choices at this point?
Lessons
The 36 Hour Work Day
• Situation– A lawyer’s daughter dies in a NY teaching
hospital following a “routine ear infection”– Grand jury concludes that inadequate
treatment by a tired, unsupervised intern and resident contributed to her death
– State commission is addressing the problem
Obvious need for change?
• Yes? • No?
Forces for Change?
Forces Against Change?
What would you do?
• Change?
• Status Quo?
• Compromise?
Why is it so difficult?
Results
