Summary-book-managing-organizational-change.pdf 3k701u

lOMoARSD

Summary - book "Managing Organizational Change"

Organisational Theory & Dynamics (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam)

Distributing prohibited | ed by Burak Kale ([email protected])

lOMoARSD

OTD Managing Organizational Change Chapter 7 - 11

Chapter 7: Implementing Change: Organization Development, Appreciative Inquiry, Positive Organizational Scholarship, and Sense-Making Approaches Of the six images of change, the caretaker and nurturer have their foundation in the field of organizational theory. The other four images (director, coach, navigator, and interpreter) have stronger foundations in the organizational field.  Caretaker & Nurturer: have in common an assumption that changes managers receive rather than initiate change  Director, coach, navigator and interpreter: assume the change manager has an important influence on the way change occurs in organizations. Traditional OD Approach: Fundamental values Organization Development (OD) as a change intervention technique has developed over time, being influences by a number of different trajectories  there is no single, underlying theory that unifies the field as a whole. The classic OD approach has the following characteristics:  It is planned and involves a systematic diagnosis of the whole organizational system, a plan for its improvement, and provision of adequate resources  The top of the organization is committed to the change process  It aims at improving the effectiveness of the organization in order to help it achieve its mission  It is long-term, typically taking two or three years to achieve effective change  It is action oriented  Changing attitudes and behaviours is a focus for change  Experiential-based learning helps to identify current behaviours and modifications that are needed What unifies the OD field, at least traditionally, is an emphasis on a core set of values. These values build upon humanistic psychology and emphasize the importance of developing people in work organizations and helping them to achieve satisfaction. Three values are involved:  Humanistic values  Democratic values  Developmental values Traditional practice of OD has its focus people and is not necessarily meant to be solely focused on the interests of managers or the profitability of the firm The OD Practitioner  May be either external or internal to the organization

Distributing prohibited | ed by Burak Kale ([email protected])

lOMoARSD

 





Typical OD consultant helps to “structure activities to help the organization solve their own problems and learn to be better” Involves a variety of steps: o Problem identification o Consultation with an OD practitioner o Data gathering and problem diagnosis o o t Problem Diagnosis o t Action Planning o Change Action o Further data gathering Cummings and Worely argue that OD practitioners need a variety of skills, including: intrapersonal skills, interpersonal skills, general consultation skills, organization development theory Underpinning the OD practitioner interventions is the classic change process model developed by Kurt Lewin. He developed a three stage model of how change occurs: UNFREEZING  CHANGING 

  

REFREEZING

Unfreezing: how the organization operates Changing: in specific ways Refreezing: the changes into the operations of the organization

Criticism of OD Problems in the field:  OD definitions and concepts: establishing the relationship between OD and its ability to enhance organizational effectiveness is difficult  Internal validity problems: whether the change that occurred was caused by the change intervention or a range of other factors  External validity problems: this is the generalizability question and relates to whether OD and its techniques are appropriate to all organizational settings  Lack of theory: there is no comprehensive theory of change to assist researchers in knowing what to look for in what they study  Problems with measuring attitude changes:  Problems with normal science approaches to research Current Relevance of OD´s Traditional Values OD has lost some of its power, its presence and perhaps its perspective  Occurred particularly as practitioners have been placed in a position od advising on and implementing management strategies such as downsizing and reengineering despite their potential to hurt individuals and therefore go against fundamental values of OD  Nicholl argues that OD practitioners need to remind themselves of the dilemma they face, of assisting both individual development and organizational performance – characterized as contradictory elements  Some OD writers challenge managers to make their organizations more inclusive, to create ability, to reinforce interdependence, to expand notions of time and space, to ensure the wise use of natural resources, and to redefine the purpose of organization in of multiple stakeholders

Distributing prohibited | ed by Burak Kale ([email protected])

lOMoARSD

Engaging in Large-Scale Change Traditional OD techniques focused on working with individuals and group dynamics through process such as survey and team building. Organization Development is said to have moved its focus from micro-organizational issues to macro, large-system issues, including aligning change to the strategic needs of the organization. Some techniques assume that organizational participants can shape and enact both their organization and its surrounding environment, others are based on the assumption that the environment is given and that organizations and their participants together democratically to identify appropriate adaption processes. Appreciative Inquiry: From Problem Solving to (Building on) What Works Well Represent a shift from an emphasis on problem solving and the conflict management, common to earlier OD programs, to a focus on t envisioning to the future  Discovering: Appreciating the best of what is currently practiced  Building on this knowledge to help envision (or dream) about what the future could be  Deg or co-constructing (through collective dialogue) what should be  Sustaining the organization´s destiny or future o Benefits of appreciative inquiry: “release an outpouring of new conversations”, “unleashes a self-sustaining learning capacity within the organization”, “creates the conditions necessary for self-organizing to flourish” and “provides a reservoir of strength for positive change” Emergence of Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) POS as a new organizational science emerged in early 2000 to encom approaches such as appreciative inquiry and others, including positive psychology and community psychology  It is an umbrella term that categorize previous research and provides an organizing frame for current and future research on positive states, outcomes and generative mechanisms in individuals, dyads, groups, organizations and societies  POS can be depicted as coaching organizations to identify their best plays, to understand the behaviours and dynamics underlying them, and then to work out how to spread them to other parts of their “game”.  Adopting a critical perspective, Finemann raises four issues that question whether POS can really live up to its positive aims: o First: he questions whether we can really agree on which behaviours are positive o Second: he questions whether the positive can be separated from the negative or whether they are really “two sides of the same coin inextricably welded and mutually reinforcing” o Third: he points to how what are regarded as positive behaviours and emotions differ, not just in different organizational environments but across different cultural environments o Fourth: suggest that there is an unarticulated dark side to positiveness. This occurs where is a lack of recognition that there are different interests in organizations and that not all people respond well to so called positive programs like empowerment and emotional intelligence or practice that impose a culture of fun in the workplace  Proponents of POS wish to change organizations with “ an implicit desire to enhance the quality of life for individuals who work within and are affected by organizations”  Critical Scholars do not lay out an alternative call to action for agents of change so much as caution them if they assume that they will be successful in their positive ventures, instead,

Distributing prohibited | ed by Burak Kale ([email protected])

lOMoARSD

they are urged to recognize how underlying power relationships and interests in organizations will limit their actions Interpreter Image of Implementing Change: Sense-Making Approaches Weick´s point of departure is to argue against three common assumptions:  Inertia: under this assumption, planned, intended change is necessary in order to disrupt the forces that contribute to a lack of change in an organization so that there is a lag between environmental change and organizational adaption  A standardized change program is needed: this assumption is of limited value since it fails to activate what he regards as the 4 drivers of organizational change: o Animation o Direction o Paying attention and updating o Respectful, candid interaction  Unfreezing: unfreezing is based on the view that organizations suffer from inertia and need to be “unfrozen”, however , if change is continuous and emergent then the system is already unfrozen, If there is deemed to be ineffectiveness in the system then this position is that the best change is as follows: FREEZE  REBALANCE  UNFREEZE

Chapter 8: Implementing Change: Change Management, Contingency, and Processual Approaches   

Director image: this image underpins the change management approaches that are often associated with the work of many large consulting companies Adherents to this approach (director) take a strategic view of how to go about achieving lasting organizational change Contingency change theorists and practitioners take an “it depends” approach I which the style of change, especially the style of change leadership, is dependent on the scale of the proposed change and the readiness of staff to receive it.

Director Image of Managing Change: Change Management and Contingency Approaches Common to the various change management approaches is that they provide multistep models of how to achieve large scale, transformational change. These and other models differ not just in of the number of steps but whether all steps need to be followed, whether they need to be followed in sequence, and whether they need to be adapted to specific settings.  Discontinuous change: more likely to be associated with static environments and in this situation all keys “need to be applied scrupulously”, whereas

Distributing prohibited | ed by Burak Kale ([email protected])

lOMoARSD



Dynamic environments: where change is continuous, keys two (mobilize), three (catalyse), seven (handle emotions), eight (handle power) will be less vital since staff will be more accustomed to change Nadler depicts discontinuous change as being a continuous cycle rather than a linear process and identifies three core elements that need to be managed during the transformational process  Need to manage organizational power  Need to motivate people to participate in the change, in particular dealing with the anxieties associated with change  Need to manage the transition itself Ghoshal & Barlett, argue for the importance of sequencing and implementation of activities in a change process. They identify 3 distinct but interrelated transformational change phases:  Rationalization: streamlining company operations  Revitalization: leveraging resources and linking opportunities across the whole organization  Regeneration: managing business unit operations and tensions, while at the same time collaborating elsewhere in the organization to achieve performance  Muddling along and taking one stage at a time may be the most appropriate means of handling complex changes  Although managing change will never be easy, with the right attitude and approach, it can be most gratifying adventure  One of the best-known change management models, now widely regarded as a classic in the field is John Kotter´s eight step model  Kotter argues that successful change follows a see-feel-change pattern in which problems need to be presented in a compelling way that captures the attention of others; this awakes in them the feeling about the need for change, and the change itself reinforces new behaviours OD Change Management Debates Change management as a field is depected by OD writers as the brash child of the large consulting companies. While drawing on a number of OD´s techniques, change management is said to have supplanted rather than extended OD as a new field. This has occurred in 3 ways: 1. This new field has a broader scope than OD, considering human performance and development as one feature of organizational change efforts but related to other issues such as technology, operations and strategy 2. The role of the classic OD practitioner is as a third-party facilitator or coach. Contrary to this, the change management consultant operates with technical knowledge and as part of a team consisting skill sets that cover a range of strategy and organizational areas 3. OD is presented as changing individual attitudes and ideas as a prelude to wider structural changes in organizations. Change management is contrasted with this on the grounds that it is through structural changes that new behaviours are assumed to emerge Contingency Approaches While change management models contain variation and flexibility, an underlying assumption is that there is one best way of producing organizational change – although it is not clear which of the various models offered is the best one for the manager of change to follow.  Contingency theorists challenge this assumption and argue that the style of change will depend upon the scale of the change and the receptivity of organizational for engaging in change  The style of change as well as the scale of change has to be matched to the needs of the organization

Distributing prohibited | ed by Burak Kale ([email protected])

lOMoARSD







Dunphy and Stace identify 5 main change approaches: 1. Development transitions: refer to situations in which there is constant change as a result of the organization adapting itself to external, environmental changes 2. Task-focused transitions: change management style is directive with the change leader acting as a captain seeking the compliance of organizational to redefine how the organization operates in specific areas 3. Charismatic transformation: people accept that the organization is out of step with its environment and that there is a need for radical, revolutionary change. A charismatic leader is able to operate symbolically to gain emotional commitment of staff to new directions 4. Turnarounds: aimed at frame-breaking changes. Turnaround change leader operate as commanders utilizing their positions of power to force required changes through the organization. Coercive/directive change style is argued to be needed where there is little staff for change and little time available to the organization to seek their engagement 5. Taylorism: associated with fine-tuning, paternalistic approaches to managing change Medium to high performance organizations are likely to be using consultative and directive change management styles, while those using fine-tuning or Taylorism are likely to be least successful, especially given the hypercompetitive business environment Huy categorizes change into four ideal types: o Commanding change intervention: one where the tie period is short term, abrupt and rapid. Change is usually implemented by senior executives o Engineering intervention: oriented toward a medium-term, relatively fast change perspective and often assisted by work design analysts who assist in changing work and operational systems o Teaching intervention: takes more a gradual, longer term OD change perspective. Assisted by outside process consultants o Socializing intervention: is also gradual and long-term. Sees change as developing through participative experiential learning based on self-monitoring

Why Contingency Approaches are not dominant  The notion of “fitting” an organizational change program to the type of change required may be easier to articulate in theory than to deliver in practice.  Compared to the “off-the-shelf” neatness and simplicity offered by the change management models, contingency approaches are more ambiguous and require greater choice and decisions by managers about what type of change situation they are facing and therefore which avenue to pursue  The main focus of contingency approaches is on the specific style of leadership, matched to the scale of required change, rather than on a specific set of change action steps  If an organization is to adopt differing paths of change and employ differing styles of change leadership at differing times and in association with differing changes, this raises the question about the credibility or sincerity with which staff view senior management actions  There is a question about what is contingent to managing change

Navigator Images of Managing Change: Processual Approaches Adopting a political and cultural view of change for Pettigrew means recognizing “that intervening in an organization to create strategic change is likely to be a challenge to the dominating ideology,

Distributing prohibited | ed by Burak Kale ([email protected])

lOMoARSD

culture, and systems of meaning and interpretation, as well as the structures, priorities, and power relations of the organization. What does Managing Change mean from a Processual Approach?  Creating strategic change is in essence a long-term conditioning, educating, and influence process designed to establish the dominating legitimacy of a different pattern of relation between strategic context and content  Means that managers of change need to examine the context of change in order to identify sources of continuity as well as performance gaps and misfits  “context and continuity shape the starting point in which change processes emerge, falter, and proceed o External context (economic, political and competitive) o Internal context (strategy, structure, culture and power relations) o Context provides both opportunities and constraints for managers of change  Number of stages to engaging in the management of change: o One is a problem-sensing stage o Development of concern about the problem o Gaining acknowledgement and understanding of the importance of the problem o Planning and acting stage involves clarifying future directions and objectives o Stabilizing change, or making things which happen stick

Chapter 9: Linking Vision and Change

     



You need to get the vision right if you want to have any chance of achieving a successful organizational change Having a strategic vision is linked to competitive advantage, enhancing organizational performance and achieving sustained organizational growth Clear vision enable boards to determine how well organizational leaders are performing and identify gaps between the vision and current practices Lack of vision is associated with organizational decline and failure Lacking vision is used to explain why companies fail to build their core competencies despite having access to adequate technical resources to do so Problem is to avoid a vision that is either too abstract, with platitudes and grandiose statements that provide little in the way of detail about what the future should look like, or too specific and encourage inly incremental improvements, focusing on short-term goals, metrics and targets Whether a vision is meaningful will depend on 3 features: o Content or the attributes of the vision (what it is and says) o Context in which the vision is utilized (where it is used and by whom) o Process by which the vision is developed (how it emerges and who has input into it)

Distributing prohibited | ed by Burak Kale ([email protected])

lOMoARSD

Content of Meaningful Vision Effective visions are focused enough to guide decision-making yet are flexible enough to accommodate individual initiative and changing circumstances Vision Attributes  Most visions include references to future or ideal to which organizational change should be directed  The vision itself is presented as a picture or image that serves as a guide or goal  It is referred to as inspiring, motivating, emotional and analytical  According to Boal & Hoijberg, effective visions have a: o Cognitive component (focuses on outcomes and how to achieve them) o Affective component (helps to motivate people and gain their commitment to it)  Backoff identify 4 generic features of visions that are likely to enhance organizational performance: o Possibility: meant that visions should entail innovative possibilities for dramatic organizational improvements o Desirability: they mean the extent to which it draws upon shared organizational norms and values about the way things should be done o Actionability: mean the ability of people to see in the vision actions that they can take that are relevant to them o Articulation: mean that the vision has imagery that is powerful enough to communicate clearly a picture of where the organization is headed  Pendlebury, Grouard and Meston´s vision has three components: o Why the change is needed (the problem) o The aim of the change (the solution) o The change actions that will be taken (the means)  Three components are also identified by Scott-Morgan o Aspiration (picturing what the future organization will be) o Inspiration (creating excitement about heading there) o Perspiration (highlighting what needs to be done) Relationship of Vision to Mission and Goals Nutt & Backoff regard vision as being similar to mission and goals in providing direction and identifying change actions that are needed. However, they do not necessarily articulate the actions that are needed to produce this result. Vision usually paint a picture of the future and is inspirational, mission statements are more purposive and instrumental in outlining what needs to be done. Relationship of Vision to Market Strategy To create competitive advantage, vision and strategy must be unconventional, often counterintuitive, and differentiated from those of other companies. Vision has an external and internal dimension:  External dimension: shared view within the organization of what are the market, customer, competitors, industry dynamics, and likely macroeconomic impacts on the market  Internal dimension: organizational beliefs and values. It is through this that meaning is created throughout the organization about what it is that the organization does - and from here other strategic actions are taken

Distributing prohibited | ed by Burak Kale ([email protected])

lOMoARSD

How Context Affects Vision Nutt and Backoff evaluate four organizational contexts in of their ability to produce visionary change:  Rigid organizations: classified as those that have little in the way of available resources and lack acceptance of the need for change  Bold organizations: have low resources but high acceptance of the need for change. Characterized by more organic structures and being less rule-bound.  Overmanaged organizations: high resource availability but little acceptance of the need for change. More stable environment and dominated by past practices that are seen to have worked well and to remain relevant.  Liberated organizations: those where visionary processes are likely to be most successful. High acceptance of the need for change and high availability of resources.

Process by Which Visions Emerge Crafting the Vision  Vision technique: telling, selling, testing, consulting, co-creating  Letting the vision emerge from debates among multifunctional groups in an organization has the potential to lead to more creative visons and actions  Nutt and Backoff identify 3 processes for crafting a vision: o Leader-dominated approach: CEO provides the strategic vision for the organization o Pump-priming approach: CEO provides visionary ideas and gets selected people and groups within the organization to further develop these ideas within the broad parameters set out by the CEO o Facilitation approach: draws more directly on participative management philosophies by engaging a wide range of people in a process of developing and articulating a vision. CEO who acts as a facilitator, orchestrating the crafting process  Holpp and Kelly identify 3 differing approaches or sets of questions through which vision may be acquired: o Intuitive approach relies on the use of imagination and imagery to encourage staff to participate in vision development o Analytical approach, visions are not so much imagined as defined in relation to organizational or departmental missions and roles o Benchmarking approach a vision statement is developed by focusing on the actions and standards utilized by the organization´s toughest competitors. o Intuitive and analytical approaches are more internally focused, the benchmarking approach is more externally focused. There are several downsides to all these approaches Connecting the Vision to the Organization´s inner Voice  Search for inner voice of the organization is needed to find visions that resonate within the organization and narrow the gap between the talk and the walk  Vision is as much about insight as far sight

When Vision Fail Change visions may fail when the objective is:

Distributing prohibited | ed by Burak Kale ([email protected])

lOMoARSD

       

Too specific Too vague Inadequate Too unrealistic Blurred Are rear view mirrors Too complex Irrelevant

Ability of the vision over time Visions fail when:  The walk is different from the talk  It is treated as the holy grail  Too disconnected from the present  Too abstract or too concrete  Developed without using a creative process  Little participation  Complacency Presence of Competing Visions  Vision collisions: the presence of multiple and conflicting visions  Can occur where the vision is crafted by organizational strategists who are convinced about the need for change – but this need is not shared by change implementers or change recipients, who may still be completing earlier changes already introduced in the organization

Linking Vision to Change: 3 Debates Does Vision drive Change or Emerge during Change? Vision drives Change:  Vision is one of the first steps that is needed in organizational change  Without a vision, changes introduced by managers may seem arbitrary and unneeded Vision emerges during Change:  May be something that is not possible to articulate early on during transformational or discontinuous change  Only after discontinuous change has commenced that such information will be available to assist in vision development  Those leading discontinuous change often soak in the problems facing them, observe the results of their ongoing efforts and the make changes as needed on a real time basis Does Vision hinder or help Change? Vision helps change:  Tangible benefits are said to be associated with organizations that have skilful visions  Lipton identifies 5 key ways in which skilful visions can enhance organizations: o Enhancing performance o Facilitating organizational change o Enabling sound strategic planning

Distributing prohibited | ed by Burak Kale ([email protected])

lOMoARSD

  

o Recruiting needed talent o Focusing on decision making Strategic vision helps to produce stretch in an organizations; that is, it creates a feeling of incompetence resulting from the gap between the future and the current reality It helps leverage these resources, that is, identify new, innovative ways of utilizing them Stretch and leverage can be used to identify new strategic ways of achieving the vision, including change actions such as: o Flanking (exploiting a weakness in a dominant competitor) o Encircling competitors (by gaining greater control of the market) o Destabilizing a market (by changing the competitive rules that operate)

Visions hinder change:  Can occur when visionary or charismatic leaders use an emotional appeal as the basis for engaging in change actions and neglect the necessary attention to operational detail that is needed to make the change work  Problem that vision directs attention ore to the future rather than to dealing with where the company is at present  Vision can hinder change where the wrong vision drives change, where leaders overstimulate perceptions of crisis, or where the vision fails to produce what was promised and followers become disillusioned and lose confidence in the leader and the organization  Vision development approaches that do not involve the people who will be affected are thought to have negative consequences for producing successful organizational change  Identity will always be somewhat unclear and people will always want to talk about it  Some authors argue rather than use vision, use coherence: they refer to acting in a manner consistent with who you are given your present spot in the business landscape  Changes in visions may disrupt organizational identities, thereby producing resistance to change. In introducing a new vision, care needs to be taken in assessing, first, whether it enables or disables identity forming processes and, second, what will be the likely impact on the willingness of individuals to become involved in the change? Vision an Attribute of Heroic Leaders or of Heroic Organizations? Vision is an attribute of heroic leaders:  Effective charismatic or visionary leaders create desired identity images including trustworthiness, credibility, morality, innovativeness, esteem and power  Charismatic leaders secure such images in their follower and enact their visions through four processes: o Framing o Scripting o Staging o Performing  To be an inspirational leader, vision is necessary but not enough by itself  In addition to vision and energy, the following is also needed: o Ability to reveal personal weakness to followers o Ability to sense how things are in both the organization and the wider environment o Ability to display tough empathy with followers o Daring to be different

Distributing prohibited | ed by Burak Kale ([email protected])

lOMoARSD





Another variant suggests that visionary leaders are needed at an everyday level throughout the organization not just at the top. These people provide supervision. They use interactions, role modelling, and conversations with staff to enable them to gain or realize: o Perspective o Purpose o Processes o Possibilities o Potential o ion In this perspective, vision needs to be renewed daily in order that staff remain engaged and motivated

Chapter 10: Strategies for Communicating Change

The importance of communicating during change has been linked to facilitating vision, enhancing, , providing social , and helping to modify change as it unfolds. Communication has been linked to the success of research and development project groups, to establish the trustworthiness of managers, and to persuading individuals to be involved in change innovations. Change managers may be able to shape but not always control the communication of change. The Communication Process Modelling the Communication Process The communication “mix” covers a variety of areas including content, voice, tone, message, audience, medium, frequency and consistency. Nelson and Coxhead outline six components in a communication process: 1. Message: verbal and nonverbal attempts to trigger meaning 2. : providing a response to the sender in order to see if the intended meaning was conveyed 3. Channel: medium through which message was send (e-mail, letter, face-to-face, etc.) 4. Sender/receiver: individuals who, respectively, send or receive messages 5. Encoding/decoding: creation, transformation and deciphering of message. 6. Noise: distractions that exist in the communication environment and may act to interfere with the transmission of meaning Three potential problems during the communication process:  

Message overload: occurs when information acquisition is overbalanced compared to an individual’s response capabilities Message distortion: occurs when meanings are misinterpreted through intentional or unintentional problems relating to the sending or receiving of the message

Distributing prohibited | ed by Burak Kale ([email protected])

lOMoARSD



Message ambiguity: occurs when an organization has vision but is not prescriptively clear on how to achieve it  Avoiding such problems will occur when a common language about the change is adopted and when top management consistently models the desired behaviours

Influence of Language, Power, Gender, and Emotion Gender, Language and Power  

Language doesn´t just communicate ideas but reflects and reinforces underlying social relationships Alpha male: fast thinkers, having opinions on every topic, being analytical, data-driven, impatient, and thinking they are smarter than most other people  as a result their communication style can intimidate those around them, they do not listen well, they miss subtleties, and they put others under extreme pressure to perform

Emotion and Communication  

The emotional side of change is an alternative view  potential tool for securing the willingness, commitment, and efforts of subordinates Bringing about positive emotions that produce excitement and anticipation entails paying attention to 4 areas: 1. Core message regarding the change a. Emotional arguments b. Metaphors 2. Packing the message a. Emotional mode of communications b. Humour c. display emotions d. characteristics of change leaders 3. Behaviour of change managers staff a. Fairness and justice 4. Setting a. Group dynamics b. Ceremonies c. Pleasant atmosphere

Three techniques that change managers can use to avoid this situation and the negative emotions that are associated with it are:    

Perspective taking Threat reducing behaviour Reflection – self-evaluation of their actions to lessen the emergence of negative emotions While the emotional side of change needs to be acknowledged, not all change managers will be equally adept in achieving positive emotional response to particular changes

Strategies for communicating change: Beyond spray and pray

Distributing prohibited | ed by Burak Kale ([email protected])

lOMoARSD

Spray & pray strategy and the withhold & uphold strategy are least likely to be effective in achieving organizational performance, whereas the underscore & explore strategy maximizes organizational potential by creatively synthesizing executives initiatives and employee concern.

Contingency Approaches to communication strategies Your Communication Strategy Depends on the Type of Change  





Developmental or incremental transitions aim for widespread involvement and emphasize face-to-face communication and the use of change teams Task-focused transitions endeavour to align behaviour with top-management initiatives and are primarily top-down in nature with greater emphasis placed in formal communication processes Charismatic transformations seek to gain emotional commitment to a new way of proceeding and entail more personalized forms of communication that enable top-down communication Turnarounds occur at times of organizational crises and draw on formal, top-down modes of communication that endeavour to force people to comply with the new direction

Your Communication Strategy Depends on the Stage of the Change Reardon and Reardon identify 4 leadership styles, which entail different communication processes and strategies:  In the commanding style, leaders are performance and result oriented and communication mainly entails directing people toward various tasks  In the logical style, leaders employ strategic actions as a result of discovering the range of alternatives available to them through analysis and reasoning  In the inspirational style, the leader develops a vision of the future and seeks to encourage cohesiveness of organizational around the vision  In the ive leadership style, the leader is concerned with creating consensus and an open working environment They identify 5 main stages of change: 1. Planning stage: focus is on identifying what needs to change and a combination of logical and inspirational leadership styles is most appropriate 2. Enabling stage: people are selected and trained for the change process, a combination of logical, inspirational, and ive styles is needed 3. Launching stage: change commences and entails a series of steps and goals that are best met by logical and commanding styles 4. Catalysing stage: inspirational and ive leadership styles are needed to help motivate people to become engaged in , and assist with the change effort 5. Maintaining stage: people are encourages to continue with a change effort even in the face of obstacles that confront them.

Communication Media: Media Richness 

“richness”: the extent to which the communication style entails interpersonal

Distributing prohibited | ed by Burak Kale ([email protected])

lOMoARSD



Nonroutine, difficult management problems are best dealt with using rich media communication sources such as face-to-face meetings  routine issues should use leaner forms

Quirke suggests that there are 4 types of target change audiences with some people needing:    

Waking up: people who will be impacted by the change but really haven´t taken notice of it yet Engaging: people who will be impacted by the change and are rightly concerned and therefore interested in it Educating: people who are only marginally affected by or interested in the change and so only really need to be educated about what is going on Reassuring: people who are only marginally affected by the change but are nevertheless concerned that it might affect them in a variety of ways

Chapter 11: Skills for Communicating Change

 Different interests of managers and staff can be resolved in a change process (Collins).  The previous assumption is best associated with the director and the coach image of managing change  The pluralist perspective suggests that managers should realize that no matter how good their communications techniques are, it is always necessary to be able to detect differences in interest.  This perspective is best associated with the navigator and the interpreter image managing change  When changes are inevitable or when the result of change are unpredictable, it is important that listening skills are applied  Caretaker or nurturer image of managing change

Communication skills for engaging others in the change process Listening as communication skill Gerard and Teurfs argue that it is through listening, dialogue, and community building that change occurs. Transformation ensues when a collaborative culture emerges based on shared meaning and mutual understanding of thoughts and feelings. This involves skills such as:    

Suspending judgement ( in order to produce an open atmosphere of trust) Identifying assumptions (to reveal misunderstanding) Listening (to enable learning) Inquiring and reflecting (in order for new collective understandings to emerge)

They claim that creating community through dialogue leads to three types of cultural transformations:  Behavioural transformation (involving g new norms and behaviour)  Experiential transformation (whereby groups learn community might be achieved)

Distributing prohibited | ed by Burak Kale ([email protected])

lOMoARSD



Attitudinal transformation (in which individualism is replaced by collaboration)

Jacobs and Coghlan state: rather than listening to staff in order to achieve a convergence of viewpoints, they suggest that the importance of listening lies in the ability to acknowledge different points of view:  Change agent learn about the differences through the process of listening  Acknowledging differences, rather than ignoring or not listening to them creates understanding as a basis of taking coordinated and coherent social action Telling Stories People tell stories in conversations to keep the organization from repeating historically bad choices and to invite the repetition of past successes. Selling Change upward  New ideas for change can be pushed upward through the organization from staff and various modes of argument can be used to gain managerial attention in of change ideas  Issue selling: the process whereby individuals seek to present to senior managers specific changes that they would like to see occur  Dutton studied the idea of selling. They divide packaging into 2 groups: o First relates to how the ideas are presented:  Linking the idea to the logic of the business plan  Raising the proposal continuously  Packaging the issue incrementally so that the size of the change does not appear to be too large o Second relates to what they termed bundling, linking it either to other ideas and issues. Achieved by tying the issue to goals that are highly valued such as:  Profitability  Market share  Organizational image  Concerns of key stakeholders  Organizational cultures that do not encourage people to practice open communication may be the result from 3 interrelated rationales held by staff, not based on facts or data: o Myths o Assumptions o Beliefs Toxic Handlers  Toxic handlers to describe people whose skills extend to helping others deal with the organizational pain that can be associated with change  Change can be toxic to staff through either unrealistic expectations or targets, internal competition, or belligerent and angry bosses, all of which can result in confusion, fear and anguish among employees  Toxic handlers act as sponges, soaking up the ill-effects of change processes and acting as intermediaries between staff and toxic organizational policies and bosses

Change Conversation Skills Talking in Stages

Distributing prohibited | ed by Burak Kale ([email protected])

lOMoARSD

Ford and Ford believe that it is within and through communication that change occurs. Management of change can be understood to be the management of conversations. They drew upon speech act theory to argue that change can be thought of as occurring through 4 types of change conversations. Initiative conversations bring attention to the need for change, whether reactive or proactive. It may take the form of:  An assertion  A request  A declaration 





 

Conversations for understanding provide an opportunity for people to gain greater appreciation of the change issues and problems that need to be addressed. 3 crucial elements: o It specifies the conditions of satisfaction o Enables participation and involvement by those affected by the change o Confirms the interpretation that decision makers place on the change and enables confirmation and sharing of meanings and understandings Conversation for performance focus on producing the actual change required: o Promises are made o Obligations are entered into o abilities are established o Deadlines are set Conversation for closure signal the completion of the change and may involve: o Acknowledgements o Celebrations o Rewards Ford and Ford recognize that not all change conversations occur in a linear manner; come stages may be skipped along the way Several issues to consider for practicing change managers: o Where managers are engaged in multiple change processes, there will be issues relating to how smoothly they are able to transition themselves among different conversations o The stages of the conversations may be open to multiple interpretations among participants o It is not clear that all managers are able to be trained or able to exhibit all conversations skills successfully o Change managers will need to confront the notion of power

Talking coherently Salience outlines 4 dominant language forms used to convey organizational change conversations:  Ideals (express preferences)  Appeals (seek )  Rules ( seek to direct the behaviour of individuals)  Deals (serve as a form of bargaining and exchange)  Overreliance on one or another of these forms can lead to problems Aligning Your Language with the Desired Change

Distributing prohibited | ed by Burak Kale ([email protected])

lOMoARSD





Maintains that one reason why change fails is because the imagery and metaphors that managers use are out of sync with the type of change they desire  leads to confusion among staff about what is really requires Marshak urges managers to ensure that their languages aligned to the type of change they require. He identifies 4 different images of change and the language appropriate to each type: o Machine imagery of change: based on fix and maintain view that depicts the organization as being broken. Words such as repair, adjust, and correct are used o Developmental imagery of change: build and develop in which the organization needs to enhance its performance. Change agent is viewed as a trainer or coach and words such as nurturing, growing, and getting better are aligned to this type o Transitional imagery of change: move and relocate view in which the change is designed to alter how the organization operates. Change agent acts as a guide or planner and words such as moving forward, leaving the past behind are utilized o Transformational imagery of change: based on liberate and re-create view of the needed change such as reinventing itself fundamentally changing the nature of the business or market in which the organization operates. Change agent acts as a visionary to help discover new possibilities and language appropriate to this type of change includes reinventing, re-creating and adopting

Creating a common Change Language Managers often use and phrases in a way quite different from the meaning originators applied to the . Moosbruker and Lofton argue that business process reengineering has often failed due to different use of words and language when business process practitioners and organization development practitioners attempt to work together.  Where the practitioners involved in implementing change themselves fail to adopt a change language with common meaning, the change they are seeking to implement is likely to be problematic

Communicating Change with the outside world Selling internal Changes to external Stakeholders Selling internal changes to external stakeholders is an important issue that can affect the impact of the change on organizational organisational share performance. Arndt & Bigelow identified 4 key defensive impressions management practices that were used to protect themselves from negative reactions by their stakeholders:  Excuses attributed the need for the change to forces beyond the actor such as the external environment  Justifications took responsibility for the decision but presented it in a positive light without referring to any possible negative consequences  Disclaimers provide reassurance by pointing to careful planning that preceded the restructuring decision  Concealment statements downplayed the innovative nature of the change and thereby decreased the perception of risk attached to it Fiss and Zajac identified 2 sense-giving strategies that were used to legitimate the change:  Acquiescence sense-giving: frames a change as acquiescing to current norms and processes. Strategic changes are presented as being aligned with current understandings and standards.

Distributing prohibited | ed by Burak Kale ([email protected])

lOMoARSD



Balancing sense-giving: frames a change as deviating from current standards, for example, by selling the change as a way of meeting the needs of not just stockholders but divergent organizational constituents

Crisis management and corporate reputation Organizational crisis are defined as being events that: o Are highly ambiguous o Are low in probability but high in threat to organizational survival if they eventuate o Provide little time to react o Are often surprising to staff o Provide a dilemma about the type of change decisions that are needed  Corporate reputation is defined as a “collective representation of a firm´s past actions and results that describe the firm´s ability to deliver valued outcomes to multiple stakeholders”  Maintaining, re-establishing, or legitimating corporate reputation during times of corporate crises is therefore a crucial part of managing these types of changes  3 apology strategies: o Persuasive s: of what had happened in order to provide a competing story to the publicly circulating one o Statements of regret: about what has happened, but one that acknowledged only minimal responsibility o Dissociation: by which the company attempted to distance itself from the source of the wrongdoing, sometimes by scapegoating specific individuals o by maintaining that the source of the problem was peripheral to the mainstream operations of the company  5 crisis management change strategies: o Mortification o Corrective action o Bolstering o Denial o Shifting the blame

Distributing prohibited | ed by Burak Kale ([email protected])