Change in an Organization

https://myclasses.argosy.edu/d2l/le/content/22563/viewContent/1041321/View

lectures

This week we'll discuss some techniques used by high-performance organizations. Employees in high-performance organizations use combinations of process interventions and OD interventions. Process interventions focus on understanding processes and how people relate to one another. OD interventions involve using specific interventions to solve problems. Both process and OD interventions are required to implement successful change management initiatives.

What are Process Interventions?

In an organization people communicate with one another either as a part of formal groups or through informal interactions. Often the dynamics of these interactions can create problems or prevent the group from resolving differences.

Process interventions are designed to understand various processes involved in formal group and informal interactions. When you are involved in process interventions your role shifts to that of a coach. For example, a coach works with a football team to help identify and assign various roles to players such as who should be the quarterback or wide receiver. While doing so the coach focuses on the abilities and skills of players in the team. The coach diligently observes players during the game.

To improve performance the coach works in tandem with players to build an effective team. The key responsibility of the coach is to enable players to make crucial decisions while on the field.

In an organization supervisors may observe the strengths and weaknesses of various team members. Supervisors also observe how team members relate to each other. Based on these observations the supervisors assign appropriate tasks to team members. The supervisors also help team members relate better to each other and contribute to improving team performance.

Process Interventions (2 of 2)

Process Intervention Techniques

Process interventions involve several steps—the primary and the most crucial is observing and listening. A process intervention technique that can be often used by you is to participate in team meetings with the purpose of obtaining process data.

You can track the following activities:

Who initiates discussions?

Who does the most listening?

Does anybody interrupt the conversation? If yes, who?

Who holds the leadership in the team? Is it the team leader or another person informally regarded as the leader by the group?

Who makes decisions? How are they made?

How do various individuals behave?

Who talks to whom?

You can gather such data by observing several group interactions and conversing with other employees. This data provides you an excellent insight into how the group interacts. You and the team members can analyze if current processes enable the team to be productive. The team can work towards the following ways to improve productivity:

How can quiet listeners contribute their ideas?

How can some employees stop dominating the conversation?

How can decision-making be more participatory?

While handling process interventions the idea is not to solve identified problems. Instead the entire focus is on improving processes.

Need for Process Interventions

Why should you be concerned with interpersonal processes? The reason is that ignoring processes can often result in the failure of change initiatives. If the team leader is dominating and overbearing it may result in quashing ideas contributed by team members. Talkative team members often ignore suggestions made by quieter peers. Decision-making that is not participatory may result in resistance from employees.

Process interventions are very important, but they cannot be isolated from OD interventions to solve organizational problems. A successful employee is one who simultaneously examines and conducts these interventions.

OD Interventions (1 of 2)

What are OD Interventions?

Earlier you learned about problem diagnosis. OD interventions specifically focus on resolving diagnosed problems. They focus less on processes and more on issues at hand. For example, Total Quality Management (TQM) is an OD intervention to improve quality and performance. Another OD intervention is to engage in job redesign to improve performance.

Continuing the analogy of a football team the coach works with the team to improve performance, not relationships. The coach shows how to make a better pass or score a goal. Practice sessions are held and the team works together to improve the play. The coach organizes practice matches and replaces players and equipment if necessary.

In an organization the supervisors seek resources to improve performance. At an organizational level restructuring or downsizing may be deemed necessary. Technology resources may need to be added or replaced. The motivation or morale of team members may be low and morale boosting techniques and strategies may need to be initiated.

OD Interventions (2 of 2)

OD Intervention Techniques

When engaging in OD interventions external help may often be sought. The external change consultant needs to possess function-specific expertise. For example, replacing the current technology system with enterprise-wide IT solutions such as Oracle or SAP will require the expertise of technology consultants. Another example is when an organization lacks vision and direction; a strategic planning expert may need to be called in.

During the implementation of change initiatives you should not lose track of the systemic view to organizations. You may recall from earlier weeks that all the systems in an organization are interrelated. A technical change implies that employees may need to learn new technologies, change their working styles, or report to new bosses.

You should bear in mind that there are several overt and covert issues that will need to be monitored during change initiatives. Overt issues are easily identifiable and often documented, such as attendance and absenteeism, production efficiency, and quality. Covert issues often go unnoticed such as interpersonal relationships, emotions, feelings, morale, identity, and commitment. Your task is to recognize such issues and ensure that they are taken into account during process changes.

Ultimately the success of any intervention lies in acceptance as much as fulfillment of expectations. So OD interventions and process interventions go hand in hand.

Several OD interventions can be used depending on the problem at hand. These interventions will vary depending on whether the change is targeted at the individual, team, inter-group, or organizational level. Job enrichment, TQM, role analysis, career planning, cultural analysis, survey feedback, appreciative inquiry, force field analysis, and so on are some examples of OD interventions.

Many of these interventions require considerable experience and expertise, and you can benefit from using a simple OD intervention—the technique of goal setting. Goal setting enables individuals to measure their performance and raise standards.

Summary

This completes Module 3!

In this week you learned about various techniques adopted by organizations for the successful implementation of change management initiatives. Employees in high-performance organizations use the combination of process intervention and OD intervention techniques to implement change management initiatives.

You learned that interventions focusing on understanding processes and team dynamics are referred to as process interventions. You also learned that using specific interventions to solve problems are called OD interventions.

Next week you'll learn about specific OD interventions, goal setting and MBO. You'll learn how to set goals and work towards achieving them. You will also learn that the MBO technique is an extension of goal setting that can be extended to the entire organization at all levels.

Module 3 Readings

Complete the following reading early in the module:

Module 3 online lectures

READING FROM ARGOSY TEXT BOOK. https://digitalbookshelf.argosy.edu/#/books/1260003663/cfi/6/40!/4/10/56/2@0:39.8

From the assigned textbook, Managing Organizational Change 3rd read:

Change Communication Strategies

Change Management, Processual, and Contingency Approaches

Note: While reading, make notes of pertinent and important facts. You will be required to reference your readings in discussions and apply them in the week's assignments.

Chapter 7

Change Communication Strategies

Learning objectives

By the end of this chapter you should be able to:

LO 7.1Identify key elements in the change communication process.

LO 7.2Understand how gender, power, and emotion affect change communication processes.

LO 7.3Understand the power of language in influencing responses to change.

LO 7.4Explain and assess appropriate strategies for communicating change.

LO 7.5Understand how successful communication processes vary with the type and stage of organizational change.

LO 7.6Assess the utility of a range of different change communication channels, including applications of social media.

LO 7.1The Change Communication Process

The ways in which changes are presented and discussed are critical to success. All of the approaches to change management explored in chapters 9 and 10 give communication a central role in the process. Understanding and commitment depend largely on how change proposals are communicated. From their review of the literature on change processes, Karen Whelan-Berry and Karen Somerville (2010) note that communication is one of the most frequently identified change drivers, by explaining the need for change and how change will be achieved. Poor communication is a leading explanation for change failure. The evidence also suggests that change communication should be two-way—telling and listening. Communication is thus important throughout the change process, and not just at the beginning—and it should be resourced accordingly, addressing resistance, encouraging individual adoption and support, highlighting key issues, and sustaining momentum.

Whelan-Berry and Somerville (2010, p. 181) define change-related communication as “Regular two-way communication specifically about the change initiative, its implementation, related successes, challenges and their resolution.” With regard to taking the corporate vision to groups and individuals, communication “facilitates employee understanding and engagement” and “addresses employees’ questions and concerns through two-way communication, which allows individuals to remain committed to the change. It also ensures that any obstacles are properly identified and removed” (p. 181). To sustain momentum, communication “signals the organization’s commitment to the change initiative, communicates successes and challenges, and ongoing change implementation” (p. 181).

Lars Christensen and Joep Cornelissen (2011) offer a novel, counterintuitive perspective on the significance of change communication. They first note that communication has attracted increasing attention due to a number of factors: the nature and consequences of stakeholder communications; the emergence of ideas such as corporate social responsibility, sustainability, and corporate citizenship; and the growing numbers of corporate communication professionals, procedures, and systems. They see communication as “an important force of organizing” and as “the building block of organizations” (p. 398) because the act of communicating constructs or defines the change in the understanding of those who are going to be involved. In other words, change communication is a key part of the process of collective sense-making (see chapter 9).

Change communication, they note, aims to influence the opinions of many different audiences, inside and external to the organization. This suggests that clarity and consistency are important. However, Christensen and Cornelissen (2011, pp. 402–3) argue that organizations have to work with many voices, with different views and ideas (technical term, “polyphony”). In other words, it may often be desirable for change communications to be ambiguous and inconsistent, for the following reason:

[V]ague and equivocal language allows organizations to talk about themselves in ways that integrate a variety of members and stakeholders without alienating anyone. Too much clarity and consistency in the formulation of “shared values” may actually prevent managers from establishing accord with some corporate audiences. Although writings in corporate communication and branding call for organizations to eliminate ambiguity, ambiguity is

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essential in promoting “unified diversity,” the ability for differences to coexist within the unity of the organization. Ambiguity and polyphony may even be a conscious management strategy designed to foster identification and reduce tension by allowing different audiences to apply different interpretations to what is seen as one corporate message.

The process of communicating change—what is going to happen and why—can therefore be more complex than it first appears. In this chapter, we explore the communication process and then discuss different communication strategies, before considering the evolving role of social media in corporate communication. First, however, we will consider how images of change management influence communication strategies, and the implications for change managers.

Communication Is Not a “Soft” Function

The American consulting company Towers Watson (2013) argues that communication is key to organizational performance. From a global survey of 650 organizations, they found that those with effective communication practices were three times more likely to show superior financial performance, compared with those that did not use those practices. The best practices were:

Helping employees to understand the business

Educating employees about organization culture and values

Providing information on financial objectives and organizational performance

Integrating new employees

Communicating how employee actions affect customers

Providing information about the value of individuals’ total compensation package

Asking for rapid feedback from employees about their opinions of the company

Borrowing from consumer marketing, Towers Watson also argue that effective organizations categorize employees into groups based on the value of their skills and on personal characteristics. This approach to employee “segmentation” means that communication strategy can be tailored to focus on behaviors that are critical to performance. The most effective companies pay close attention to employees when they are planning change, evaluating culture, and assessing employee readiness and the impact that change will have. Middle and frontline managers need to be good at articulating what employees need to do differently to be successful, communicating what change means to individual employees, and creating a sense of ownership about change initiatives.

Three factors in particular now put a premium on “communication effectiveness”:

Workforce: Increasingly diverse workforce, with rising expectations of the employment deal

The stakes: The competitive advantage to be gained from “discretionary effort”—the willingness of employees to “go the extra mile” to improve company performance

Shorter timelines: The need to communicate rapidly, driven by developments in technology and globalization, tighter resources, and increased concerns for security

They conclude:

Today, top-performing organizations are building community—fostering the sense that employees at all levels are in it together. These organizations create the opportunity for social interaction using the latest new media technologies, display the appetite and courage to hear from employees, and establish ongoing forums conducive to collaboration rather than top-down communication. Those that do this well typically see better financial performance. (Towers Watson, 2013, p. 9)

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Dianne Gayeski and Jennifer Majka (1996) argue that one of the challenges for communicators concerns the expectation of what can be achieved. They argue that an outdated “director” image has dominated our understanding, linking corporate communication with control and manageability. They claim that communication is better understood in terms of chaos and complexity (a “nurturer” image). The nurturer image may decrease the frustration of not being able to control events in the way that a director image assumes. Change managers may be able to shape but not always control the communication of change. More generally, each of the six images of change outlined in chapter 2 is associated with a different strategy for communicating change; see table 7.1.

TABLE 7.1

Change Images and Communication Purpose

Image

Purpose of Communication

Director

Ensure that people understand what is going to happen and what is required of them. Answer the why, what, who, how, and when questions. Present the “value proposition” of the change. Modify leadership style and information to “fit” the type of change and organizational levels affected. Avoid “spray and pray” methods, which lead to message overload. Do not distort the message.

Navigator

Outline the nature of the change, paying attention to the range of interests affected, power relationships, and actions that could disrupt the change. Problems identified can thus be addressed, and the change “replotted” if necessary to generate the best outcomes in the situation. To win staff over, “tell and sell” communication methods are appropriate.

Caretaker

Let people know the “why” of the changes, their inevitability, and how best to cope and survive. This involves the use of reactive communication methods, recognizing employee concerns and responding accordingly (“identify and reply”).

Coach

Ensure that people share similar values, and understand what actions are appropriate to those values. Model consistency in actions and words. The director “gets the word out”; the coach “gets buy-in” to change by drawing on values and positive emotions. Team-based communications are effective (not top-down led by chief executive). Key messages are emphasized to check understanding and encourage two-way dialogue (“underscore and explore”).

Interpreter

Give employees a sense of “what is going on” through storytelling and metaphors. Recognize the multiple sense-making that occurs in different groups with regard to change. Present a persuasive account of the change to ensure that as many people as possible will have a common understanding. Recognize that not everyone will accept the change story. Aim to provide the dominant account using “rich” personal and interactive communications (media richness is discussed below).

Nurturer

Reinforce the view that change processes cannot always be predicted, and that creative and innovative outcomes can be achieved, even though few in the organization could have anticipated these.

We will first outline a classic model of the communication process, indicating how language, power, gender, and emotions are central to an understanding of how this operates. We will then consider how this model applies to change communication, and explore the dilemmas facing the manager designing a change communication strategy. Is it possible to communicate too much? How can communication strategy be tailored to the type of change, and to the phases of the change process? Should the aim be to “get the word out” or the “get buy-in,” or both? Where should responsibility for communicating change lie? The different images in table 7.1 are likely to offer different answers to these questions. Finally, as explained earlier, we will then assess the use of different media for communicating change, including the evolving use of different forms of social networking technologies.

Modelling the Communication Process

Interpersonal communication typically involves much more than the simple transmission of information. Pay close attention to the next person who asks you what time it is. You will often be able to tell how they are feeling, and about why they need to know—if they are in a hurry, perhaps, or if they are anxious or nervous, or bored with waiting. In other words, their question has a purpose or a meaning. Although it is not always stated directly, we can often infer that meaning from the context and from their behavior. The same considerations apply to your response. Your reply suggests, at least, a willingness to be helpful, may imply friendship, and may also indicate that you share the same concern as the person asking the question (“We are going to be late”; “When does the film start?”). However, your reply can also indicate frustration and annoyance: “Five minutes since the last time you asked me!” Communication thus involves the transmission of both information and meaning.

This process of exchange is illustrated in figure 7.1, which illustrates the main components of interpersonal communication. This model is based on the work of Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver (1949), who were concerned with signal processing in electronic systems, rather than with organizational communication.

FIGURE 7.1

Exchanging Meaning: A Model of the Communication Process

At the heart of this model, we have a transmitter sending a message through an appropriate channel to a receiver. We will consider the range of change communication channels later. It is helpful to think of the way in which the transmitter phrases and expresses the message as a coding process. The success of communication depends on209the accuracy of the receiver’s decoding; did the receiver understand the language used, and also tone and implications of the message. Feedback is therefore critical, to check understanding. Communicationoften fails where transmitters and receivers have different frames of reference and do not share experience and understanding, even if they share a common language. We make judgements—which may or may not be accurate—about the honesty, integrity, trustworthiness, and credibility of others, and decode their messages and act on them accordingly. When communicating details of a major changeinitiative, therefore, it cannot be assumed that all of the recipients of the message will have the same understanding as each other, and as the transmitter.

Perceptual filters also play a role here, particularly affecting our decoding. This can involve, for example, a readiness or predisposition to hear, or not to hear, particular kinds of information. Preoccupations that are diverting our attention can also filter information. Past experience affects the way in which we see things today, and can influence what we transmit and how, and what we receive. In an organizational setting, people may have time to reflect, or they may be under time pressure, or experience “communication overload,” which again means that some content may be filtered out.

The physical, social, and cultural context in which change communication takes place is also significant. In organizations where staff are widely dispersed across a number of locations, the ability to share and compare views is more difficult than when everyone is in the one place. The logistics of communicating with a large number of dispersed staff can be complex and costly. The casual remark by a colleague across a café table (“We could all be laid off by the end of the year”) could be dismissed with a laugh. The same remark made by a manager in a formal planning meeting could be a source of alarm. If an organization’s culture emphasizes openness and transparency, staff may become suspicious if communication is less informative than expected. However, staff may also become suspicious if management (without a good explanation) suddenly start to share large amounts of information openly in a culture that has in the past been less transparent.

Context is particularly important when considering change communication, as this can influence how receivers will decode a message. One aspect of an organization’s context that is critical in this respect is past history. Change communication is more likely to be welcome in an organization with a track record of successful changes than in one where past changes have been seen as ineffective or damaging. Current circumstances are also a key feature of the communication context. Is change a positive response to business growth and development, or a defensive approach to problems that will lead to budget and staffing cuts? If staff feel that they have been misled by management in the past concerning the goals and consequences of change, that perception is likely to have an influence on the decoding of further communication concerning change proposals.

When designing a communication strategy, it is therefore important to assess how aspects of the context could affect the coding and decoding of the message, and to design the message content and channels accordingly. Terry Nelson and Helene Coxhead (1997) highlight three particular problems to consider when designing change communications:

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Message overload: More new information is provided more quickly than recipients can process.

Message distortion: Intentional or unintentional misinterpretation when transmitting or receiving the message.

Message ambiguity: As noted earlier, ambiguity allows different interpretations, but this should not exceed recipients’ ability to tolerate ambiguity (which can be reduced by anxiety).

These problems can be avoided by adopting a common language with regard to the change, and where top management consistently model the desired behaviors. Enhancing employee involvement and self-esteem, and using specialist staff to monitor the change process, can also help to reduce communication errors.

Anything that interferes with a communication signal is called noise by electronics experts, and this applies to interpersonal and organizational communication, too. This does not just refer to the sound of equipment, or other people talking. Noise includes coding and decoding problems and errors, perceptual filters, and any other distractions that damage the integrity of the communication channel, including issues arising from the context. Relationships can introduce noise, affecting the style and content of conversation (formal or informal) and what we are prepared to share. Status differences can introduce noise; we do not reveal to the boss what we discuss with colleagues. Motives, emotions, and health can also constitute noise; coding and decoding are affected by anxiety, pressure, stress, and also by levels of enthusiasm and excitement. This last point is particularly significant, as change communication itself can, of course, generate anxiety and stress, or stimulate excitement.

LO 7.2Gender, Power, and Emotion

The basic communication model that we have discussed can help to explain why communication sometimes breaks down. However, we also need to understand the impact of gender, power, and emotion on communication in general, and on change communication in particular.

Gender

Gender differences also affect the communication process. Here are two examples:

Confidence and boasting. Women tend to emphasize their doubts and uncertainty, but men tend to express greater confidence and play down their doubts.

Asking questions. Women are more likely to ask questions than men; the downside is that male managers may interpret women as knowing less than their male peers.

An assessment by a male manager of how well a woman is coping with change, compared with male colleagues, may thus conclude: “She seems very uncertain since she is always asking questions.” However, this assessment may have more to do with gender differences related to a willingness to question (about the change) than to real differences in attitude toward the changeitself.

Deborah Tannen (1995, p. 141) also observes that even the apparently simple choice of which pronoun to use can influence who gets the credit:

In my research in the workplace, I heard men say “I” in situations where I heard women say “We.” For example, one publishing company executive said, “I’m hiring a new manager. I’m going to put him in charge of my marketing division,” as if he owned the corporation. In stark contrast, I recorded women saying “we” when referring to work that they alone had done. One woman explained that it would sound too self-promoting to claim credit in an obvious way by saying, “I did this.” Yet she expected—sometimes vainly—that others would know it was her work and would give her the credit she did not claim for herself.

Other gender differences relate to how feedback is given and received, how compliments are exchanged, and whether the communication is direct or indirect. Kate Ludeman and Eddie Erlandson (2004) argue that many senior managers are “alpha” males: fast thinkers who have opinions on every topic, who are analytical, data-driven, impatient, and think that they are smarter than most other people. As a result, their communication style can intimidate those around them. Alpha males are not good listeners, they miss subtleties, and they put others under extreme pressure to perform.

The alpha male communication style can be softened with coaching (see exercise 7.2), but this is not an easy transformation. When a male manager changes to a communication style that is not direct, competitive, confrontational, and authoritative, they can be seen as “going soft,” becoming “touchy-feely,” and “losing their grip” (Linstead et al., 2005, p. 543). The change manager may therefore need to find a balance between maintaining credibility with colleagues while adopting a communication style that is appropriate to the change context and to those who are involved.

Power

The use of language can also reflect underlying power and gender relationships—factors that can also interfere with the change communication process (as with communications in general). For example, the manner in which change managers seek staff comments on proposals can reinforce power differentials. Telling staff to provide input may result in responses different from those obtained when the request conveys respect for their opinions. Power differences are normally a barrier to communication. Those who are more powerful may not wish to disclose information that could make them appear to be less powerful or that could weaken their power base. Those who are less powerful may not wish to disclose information that could potentially be used against them.

The term “power tells” describes the various signs and clues that indicate how powerful someone is—or how powerful they want to be (Collett, 2004). The power tells of dominant individuals include:

· sitting and standing with legs far apart (men);

· appropriating the territory around them by placing their hands on their hips;

· using open postures;212

· using invasive hand gestures;

· smiling less, because a smile is an appeasement gesture;

· establishing visual dominance by looking away from the other person while speaking, implying that they do not need to be attentive;

· speaking first, and dominating the conversation thereafter;

· using a lower vocal register, and speaking more slowly;

· being more likely to interrupt others, more likely to resist interruption by others.

The power tells of submissive individuals include:

· modifying speech style to sound more like the person they are talking to;

· more frequently hesitating, using lots of “ums” and “ers”;

· adopting closed postures;

· clasping hands, touching face and hair (self-comfort gestures);

· blushing, coughing, dry mouth, heavy breathing, heavy swallowing, increased heart rate, lip biting, rapid blinking, and sweating are “leakage tells” which reveal stress and anxiety.

We can thus “read” the power signals of others. More importantly, however, change managers may need to control their own “tells” in order to appear less dominant and less powerful, particularly when communicating change in a manner that will encourage staff feedback, engagement, and support.

Emotion

Communication models have been criticized for ignoring the role of emotions in organizational change, focusing instead on the rational and cognitive dimensions of communication. Nevertheless, change managers need to be aware of, to understand, and where appropriate to respond to emotional responses to change. Emotions can interfere with the communication process, but emotions can also be a positive resource, contributing to staff willingness, commitment, and support for change.

Shaul Fox and Yair Amichai-Hamburger (2001) emphasize the need for congruence between cognitive understanding of change and emotional perceptions. Emotional appeals communicate vision and urgency and can aid the formation of powerful change coalitions. Table 7.2 summarizes the range of practical steps that can help establish the “positive emotions” that generate “excitement and anticipation” around a change program. Michele Williams (2007) suggests that the anticipation that change will be personally threatening or harmful can generate negative emotions and a loss of trust in management, thus making cooperation and engagement difficult to achieve. Change managers can avoid this situation by:

Perspective taking: Thinking about how others are likely to think and feel about a change.

Threat-reducing behavior: Engaging in intentional, interpersonal interactions with staff to minimize their perceptions that changes are likely to lead to harm for them.

Reflection: Self-evaluation to reduce the emergence of negative emotions and to identify corrective actions where necessary.

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TABLE 7.2

How to Get Emotional Commitment to Change

Address These Issues	How This Is Done
The Core Message
Emotional arguments	Positive words signal future success; negative terms indicate what will happen if change fails
Metaphors	The use of familiar metaphors can help staff to picture the future and make it appear less strange or unusual
Packaging the Message
Emotional mode	Capture attention with music, color, slogans, pictures—but avoid excessive use of any one mode
Humor	Humor can reduce the gap, and tension, between manager and staff
Display emotion	Use feelings, tone of voice, body language, and facial expressions to generate warmth and confidence
Change leader characteristics	Messages are perceived as more credible and attractive when they are consistent with leader behavior
Change Manager Behavior
Fairness and justice	Decisions should be seen to be fair and follow legitimate, recognized procedures, with opportunities to raise issues
Setting
Group dynamics	Use groups and teams to strengthen commitment to change
Ceremonies	Stimulate emotions and reinforce the benefits of change with celebrations that also signal departure from the past
Atmosphere	Speak in warm, informal terms, to produce positive feelings toward the change (not formal and cold)

Source: Based on Fox and Amichai-Hamburger (2001, pp. 87–92).

Understanding the emotional side of change is important. However, whether change managers can produce positive emotional responses to change is open to question for four reasons. First, there is an underlying assumption that emotions are produced and contained within the organization. The impact of external factors (how friends and family talk about a change, how change is presented in the media) can be overlooked. Second, an underlying assumption is that all people respond in the same way to the same emotional appeals. This view overlooks differences in work motivation, and how these influence perceptions of change. With increasing workforce diversity, we also have to be aware of cultural differences in modes of emotional expression and response. Third, not all change managers have the skills or the credibility to manage the emotional responses of staff to change, and to achieve positive emotional responses. Finally, it may be easier to achieve positive emotional responses to some (exciting, developmental, progressive) changes and not others (routine, tedious, defensive).

Table 7.3 summarizes the main barriers to successful organizational change communication.

TABLE 7.3

Barriers to Effective Organizational Change Communication

Language	Choice of words and tone of message can lead to misunderstandings and misinterpretations
Gender differences	Men and women use different communication styles, which can lead to misunderstanding; men tend to talk more; women tend to listen, and ask more questions
Power differences	Research shows that employees distort upward communication, and that superiors often have a limited understanding of subordinates’ roles, experiences, and problems
Context	Organization culture and history, as well as physical setting, can color the way in which change communications are transmitted and interpreted
Cultural diversity	Different cultures have different expectations concerning formal and informal communication; lack of awareness of those norms creates misunderstanding
Emotion	Emotional arousal interferes with message transmission and receipt, and emotional responses to change communication can be negative (anxiety, anger) or positive (exciting, stimulating)

The communication process appears to be simple, but it is prone to errors arising on both sides of the exchange. We cannot confidently assume that receivers will always decode our messages in a way that gives them the meaning that we intended to transmit. Communication is central to organizational change, but this claim has practical implications. It seems that organizations function better where:

· communications are open,

· relationships are based on mutual understanding and trust,

· interactions are based on cooperation rather than competition,

· people work together in teams, and

· decisions are reached in a participative way.

These features are not universal, and are not present in all countries, cultures—or organizations.

LO 7.3Language Matters: The Power of Conversation

As we discussed at the beginning of this chapter, communication does not just involve a transfer of information or ideas. The language that we use to describe reality also helps to create—or to constitute—that reality for others; communication thus involves the creation and exchange of meaning. For example, Deborah Tannen (1995) points out that language reflects and reinforces underlying social relationships. She offers215the following illustrative statements, which each require the same response but signal different information about the relationship between those involved:

There’s Nothing Like a Good Story

As chief executive at Hewlett-Packard (HP), Mark Hurd wanted the company to develop a more sales-oriented culture. To reinforce this message, he told the story about how, in his first week as a newcomer at NCR, he made a successful sale to a San Antonio tractor maker for some printing equipment. However, he failed to fill in the order form correctly and the person in the NCR billing department refused to process the order because of a minor mistake that he had made in the paperwork. When Hurd informed his manager about the situation, his manager phoned the guy in billing:

“Hey, did my man just come down here with an order?” asked the manager as Hurd listened. “The next time he does, I want you to get your ass out from behind your desk, and I want you to shake his hand. And I want you to thank him for keeping your ass employed. If there’s anything wrong with the order, I want you to fix it so that he can get about the job of continuing to keep you employed.” (Lachinsky, 2006, p. 93)

“Sit down!” This signals higher status of the person uttering the statement, perhaps indicating anger, and informal conversation is not appropriate.

“I would be pleased if you would sit down.” This signals respect, or possibly sarcasm, depending on the tone of voice and the situation.

“You must be so tired. Why don’t you sit down?” This signals either a concern and closeness for the person, or condescension.

Language is particularly important in organizational change contexts due to the sensitivity of the issues (“Will I lose my job?”) and the possibility for confusion (“That is not what management said last week”). The choice of language that the change manager uses can therefore affect whether proposals will be seen as exciting or routine, as clear or muddled, as progressive or mundane, as threatening or developmental. These meanings can be shared in documentation and through formal meetings. However, for the change manager, the understanding of change is typically shared in a range of formal and informal meetings and conversations. Even brief, unplanned, casual conversations can be powerful channels for exchanges of ideas and understanding between the change manager and those who are involved in the proposals. Silence during a conversation also sends signals.

Managing change also involves different conversations at different stages of the change process. Conversations across those stages, however, must have “linguistic coherence,” and managers should try to align their use of language with the type of change that is being implemented. It is also important to create a shared language of change among the stakeholders who are involved.

Talking in Stages

Jeffrey and Laurie Ford (1995) do not see communication simply as a tool for producing intentional change; rather, it is through communication that change happens. In216other words, “the management of change can be understood to be the management of conversations” (p. 566). Drawing on “speech act theory,” they argue that change takes place through four types of conversation.

Initiative conversations draw attention to the need for change, whether reactive or proactive, and can take the form of:

assertion “We have to bring the finances under control.”

request “Can you restructure your division to achieve greater operating efficiencies?”

declaration “We are going to increase market share.”

Conversations for understanding help others to appreciate the change issues and the problems that need to be addressed, through three main elements:

specifying the “conditions of satisfaction” that will make the change successful: “We need to make sure that there are no more than two customer complaints per thousand units produced”

enabling the involvement of those affected by the change

confirming interpretations and enabling shared meaning and understanding

Conversations for performance focus on producing the change, and involve the action stage when:

promises are made

obligations are entered into

accountabilities are established

deadlines are set

Conversations for closure signal the completion of the change, and facilitate the movement of people into new projects and initiatives. These conversations involve:

acknowledgements

celebrations

rewards

Breakdowns in change and conversations occur when:

· Initiative conversations are held with people who are not in a position to proceed with the change.

· There is a lack of shared understandings about the intended changes and the expectations for the “conditions of satisfaction.”

· There is shared understanding, but performance conversations do not take place, so people do not know who is accountable for specific actions.

· Requests for action and performance are not rigorous and fail to specify intentions regarding results and deadlines.

· Closure conversations do not take place, and people feel that they are still involved with the change, while being asked to move on to new initiatives.

Ford and Ford (1995) emphasize that change managers need skills in handling change conversations, while recognizing that not all change conversations take place in a linear PG.217

manner; some stages may be skipped during the process. The practicing change manager thus needs to consider the following:

· Where managers are engaged in multiple change processes, there will be issues relating to how smoothly they are able to transition themselves among the different conversations.

· The stages of the conversations may be open to multiple interpretations among participants. Where managers assume that some conversations are complete and that it is appropriate to move on to another stage in the change conversations, others may have differing views.

· It is not clear that all managers are able to be trained or are able to exhibit all of these conversation skills successfully. For example, some managers may have more affinity with initiative conversations rather than performance conversations, and so on.

· Change managers need to confront the notion of power. The willingness of participants to be involved meaningfully in each of the four change conversations may be affected by significant power imbalances. Some understandings may thus need to be enforced rather than shared.

Talking Coherently

John Sillince (1999) also emphasizes the role of language in change conversations, focusing on the coherence of change conversations. Drawing on linguistic and political science theories, he outlines four dominant language forms that are found in organizational change conversations:

ideals	which express preferences
appeals	which seek support
rules	which seek to direct the behavior of others
deals	which serve as a form of bargaining and exchange

An overreliance on one of these language forms can lead to problems. For example, a focus on deals rather than ideals may encourage an individualist culture. Sillince (1999, p. 492) argues that “motivating change during the early stage of organizational change requires the communication of appeals for support and statements of goals or ideals, and that the later stage requires the communicationof rules and the negotiation of deals.” He illustrates this with the restructuring at AT&T in the 1970s and 1980s. Sillince (1999, p. 499) concludes that, despite the absence of a planned communicationprocess, a logical sequence of language forms can be detected:

moving from attacking current ideals in 1973 (corresponding to the “unfreezing” stage in Lewin, 1951), to supporting new ideals in 1973–1978, to attacking current rules or the lack of rules in 1979–1980, and increasingly supporting new ideals and new rules after 1981 (the “change” stage in Lewin, 1951). The few deals referred to occur after 1981. Appeals tend to be promises and warning before change takes place and requests for support and exhortations to action during and after change.

In comparing successful changes at AT&T with less successful changes at Chrysler, Sillince notes that the former had a linguistic coherence that was lacking at Chrysler. He PG 218

concludes that linguistic coherence in the use of different forms of language at different stages is a hallmark of successful change. (See box, “IBM’s Script for Offshoring Jobs.”) Sillince gives us a macro-level analysis, in which different change phases unfold over lengthy periods of time. It is therefore interesting that he sees these phases as underpinned by Lewin’s (1951) model of unfreezing, moving, and refreezing. As we have discussed in previous chapters, however, change is rarely a tidy, orderly, sequential process, and it may be difficult to maintain coherence across different chaotic and nonsequential stages. Nevertheless, this perspective alerts the change manager to the different linguistic modes that are available when communicating change, and highlights the option of switching from one linguistic mode to another if appropriate when, for example, one approach is not having the desired effect.

IBM’s Script for Offshoring Jobs

Internal IBM documents reported in The Wall Street Journal in January 2004 suggested that IBM was planning to move high-cost programming jobs offshore to countries such as Brazil, India, and China, where labor costs were lower (Bulkeley, 2004). Rather than pay $56 per hour in the United States, the documents indicated that a comparable programming job would cost only $12.50 per hour in China. The documents also revealed that IBM was aware that this “offshoring” process was a sensitive issue and provided managers with a draft “script” for presenting information to affected staff.

One memo instructed managers to ensure that any written communication to employees should first be “sanitized” by communications and human resource staff (“Do not be transparent regarding the purpose/intent”), and also directed that managers should not use terms such as “onshore” and “offshore.” Part of the “suggested script” for informing staff that their jobs were being moved offshore was to say, “This is not a resource action” (an IBM euphemism for being laid off), and that the company would try to find them jobs elsewhere. This script also proposed that the news should be conveyed to staff by saying, “This action is a statement about the rate and pace of change in this demanding industry. It is in no way a comment on the excellent work you have done over the years.” And, “For people whose jobs are affected by this consolidation, I understand this is difficult news.”

Aligning Language with the Change

Robert Marshak (1993) argues that change fails when the imagery and metaphors used by managers are not aligned with the type of change being implemented. This lack of alignment confuses those who are involved in the change. He describes a situation where a large corporation had to reposition fundamentally its business due to a decline in the government contracts that had been a mainstay of the company. Unfortunately, when communicating the need for this change to middle management, the chief executive’s explanation was based on the need to build on the company’s past success, as a way of developing into the future. Instead of shifting the company in radically new directions, middle managers continued to develop past practices. The imagery of “developing” was not aligned with the “transformational” change that was necessary. PG 219

To avoid such problems, Marshak advises managers to align their language closely with the planned change. He identifies four different images of change and the language appropriate to each:

Machine imagery

Based on a “fix and maintain” view, portraying the organization as “broken,” and the change as a “fix.” The change manager is the repairperson; terms such as repair, adjust, and correct are aligned to this type of change.

Developmental imagery

Based on a “build and develop” view, in which the organization has to improve performance by building on past and current practices. The change manager is trainer or coach; terms such as nurturing, growing, and getting better are aligned to this type of change.

Transitional imagery

Based on a “move and relocate” view, in which change is designed to alter how the organization operates, for example by introducing online sales and services. The change manager is guide or planner; terms such as moving forward and leaving the past behind are aligned to this type of change.

Transformational imagery

Based on a “liberate and re-create” view, where change involves reinvention, or radical change to the nature of the business or market in which the organization trades. The change manager is visionary, helping to discover new possibilities; terms such as reinvention, re-creation, and adopting a new paradigm are aligned to this change.

These insights concerning the need to align language and change highlight how change managers can easily communicate mixed signals with regard to what is required. Change managers are thus advised to reflect on how their metaphors for describing and communicating about their organizations and changes may be trapped and influenced by dominant or root metaphors. New insights, actions, and unanticipated directions can be generated by adopting new language and new metaphors (see “The NASCAR Model”). We must also recognize that managers may not always be able to introduce metaphors that will necessarily resonate with staff throughout an organization. New metaphors often compete with dominant logics, embedded ways of operating, ingrained ways of perceiving the organizational world, and formal policies and procedures. Change managers need to focus on redesigning policies, systems, and processes that conflict with the language of the change. For example, if change concerns “leaving the past behind,” then transformational metaphors may be weakened if, say, compensation and performance appraisal systems remain based on past practice.

The NASCAR Model

Apparelizm (pseudonym) is a Fortune 500 retailer, with over 1,000 stores nationwide, which began a major organizational change effort resulting from a review of its strategy. As part of the effort to build support, the change team drew from a NASCAR analogy, NASCAR being a sport well understood and liked by many of the staff. The change team argued that store staff were like a NASCAR race crew. Past store practice was likened to a race crew member driving the car, pumping the gas, and changing the tires during the race. A “pit crew” would do the ordering and receiving of goods and put them on the shelves after they arrived. The “drivers” would be responsible for helping customers as they moved around the store. The “racetrack manager” would monitor the traffic flow in the store, removing the “multicar pileups” that happened when sales associates/“drivers” congregated together (rather than servicing customers). The metaphor was further extended to a parallel between the need for NASCAR racing teams “to be fast, responsive, and knowledgeable” if they were to be successful. A similar point was made with regard to the need for excellent communication between the “drivers,” “pit crew,” and so on.

The metaphor worked well. Staff understood and accepted the analogy and saw how the changes would help them to work more like an effective racing team (based on Roberto and Levesque, 2005).

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Creating a Common Change Language

Managers are not alone in using—or misusing—terms and phrases in ways that cause amusement and confusion. It is important to check the assumption that different individuals and groups involved in change have a shared view of the terms—the language—being used. (See “Misused Terminology?”)

Choice of terms has a significant impact on the way in which an issue such as organizational change is understood by others. Problems will thus arise when those who are responsible for managing a change cannot among themselves adopt a “common language.” Checking the shared meanings of concepts in use is thus important in order to avoid confusion and conflict. For example, Loizos Heracleous and Michael Barrett (2001) attribute the failed implementation of an electronic risk management system in the London insurance market to the lack of shared language and meaning among the parties that were involved. Over a period of five years, they studied the language of the main stakeholders, including market leaders, brokers, and underwriters, and also observed how the language of those stakeholders changed over time.

Misused Terminology?

Term

Meaning?

Emergent strategy

Justifies a lack of strategic thinking; if a strategy does emerge, we do not have to do anything

Learning organization

We were right to neglect training; all we have to do is tell employees that we like them to learn for themselves

Empowerment

A magic word which, if we repeat it often enough, will make a downsized and delayered structure work without any further effort from us

Culture

Culture is what we say we will change when we cannot think of anything else to do

Source: Based on Hussey (1998).

Heracleous and Barrett distinguish between “surface-level” communication and the underpinning “deep discursive structures.” Deep structures include interpretive schemes, central themes, root metaphors, and rhetorical strategies. A focus on the different discursive structures explains the resistance of brokers and underwriters to the new system, and the failure of the project:

[W]e saw stakeholder groups talking past each other, rather than to each other, because of their almost diametrically opposed discourses, at both the deeper structure levels and communicative action levels, and their lack of common ground on which to base a dialogue. (Heracleous and Barrett, 2001, p. 774)

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Culture, Language, and Change in General Motors Poland

General Motors (GM) began to develop its Opel Polska car plant on a greenfield site in Poland in 1996. One of the key tasks for management was to develop working practices consistent with a car plant that could be competitive in the twenty-first century. Although part of the challenge was due to the lack of exposure to competition during decades as part of the Soviet bloc, there seemed to be a more fundamental issue rooted in hundreds of years of Polish culture. A high value was placed on fantazja (imaginativeness), which was directly opposed to the idea of being systematic or well organized—the latter being equated with boring and unnecessary. Fantazja was also associated with independence and freedom from subjugation—the opposite to following standard operating procedures.

The practices designed for the new plant clearly required a high level of discipline and coordination. Managers were concerned that while fantazja could contribute to the continuous improvement processes that were to be part of the plant’s operating model, the cultural tolerance for disorder could be damaging. There was no shortage of Polish workers: 46,000 applied for 1,800 positions in the new plant, which meant that the company was in a very powerful position (but threats of job loss for noncompliance were not to be used). The European managers met with their new employees (along with translators). Although cultural values and linguistics appeared to lie at the heart of employee resistance to GM’s working practices, the solution was also found in the same roots. As in English, the term “development” in Polish can mean “to start something” and also “to progress.” In turn, “to progress” is the opposite of stagnation. For the Poles, stagnation is something that lacks fantazja. Through discussion, “disciplined organization” was positively reframed using concepts and values that were already part of Polish culture. By 2000, the plant had the best quality and performance figures of all GM plants worldwide (based on Dobosz-Bourne and Jankowicz, 2006).

Change managers thus need to understand the deep discursive structures that underpin the surface communication of different stakeholders, in order to support major organizational and technology changes. Surface agreement may be artificial and tenuous where there is a lack of understanding of those deeper structures that may explain inertia or resistance. Although they acknowledge that understanding the interpretive schemes of different stakeholders will not guarantee success, Heracleous and Barrett (2001, p. 774) conclude that “Uncovering and appreciating other stakeholders’ deep structures, however, can be of help in avoiding dead ends and self-defeating compromises in change implementation.”

LO 7.4Change Communication Strategies

The Importance of High-Quality Communication

Researchers have focused on the importance of effective communication with employees during change. Empirical research has demonstrated that high-quality change communication increases acceptance, openness, and commitment to change. Furthermore, the failure to provide sufficient information or providing poor-quality information can result in a number of problems, including cynicism about change and widespread rumors, which often exaggerate the negative aspects of change (Rafferty et al., 2013, p. 122).

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In this section, we will focus on the communication strategy questions facing the change manager: Can you communicate too much, how to get “buy-in,” when to use communication strategies other than “spray and pray,” and who will take responsibility for communicating the change? We will also explore two contingency approaches to communication strategy, one based on the type of change and the other related to different phases of the change process.

In spite of its importance, change communication is an issue that many organizations overlook. A survey of 100 UK employers (Wolff, 2010) found that only 40 percent had formal communicationstrategies. However, companies with formal strategies were four times more likely to agree that this contributed to their success. The main goals of internal communications were keeping staff informed of changes and strategies, staff engagement, and providing information about policies and procedures. The most popular communication methods were department meetings, one-on-one meetings with line managers, team meetings, letters and memos, and email. Social media were unpopular: online video, instant messaging, internal blogging, wikis, Skype, and podcasts were used by very few organizations. There was no one best communication method. Face-to-face was seen as more effective than print or computer-based methods. Intranet sites were only used for information on policies, procedures, and legal requirements. Top management briefings were considered best in terms of employee engagement, opinion surveys the best way to encourage feedback, and meetings with line managers the best way to improve individual performance. What are the best ways to communicate change?

Can You Communicate Too Much?

The claim that “we need more communication around here” is common. Many commentators argue that it is not possible to overcommunicate, but this view is not shared by all change managers and researchers. Geigle and Bailey (2001) describe a reengineering project that affected 400 employees in a federal agency. The change team was committed to open, organization-wide communication regarding the project, to a degree that was unprecedented in the organization’s history. The outcome of this strategy was change recipient anxiety and cynicism about the change, for two reasons.

First, staff suffered information overload, one saying, “It’s almost like they know with all this information, we won’t read it.” Information overload can be problematic in organizations where employees are already in receipt of a high volume of other information. Second, the agency’s communication strategy did not involve real participation. The change team had no strategy for incorporating feedback into the change program: “I feel like they may be informing me of everything that’s going on, but I have absolutely zero say in what goes on.” Geigle and Bailey (2001) conclude that there may be symbolic importance in pursuing an open communication strategy, but that this is not sufficient for success. They argue that a change team is at its best when acting not as reporters, but as sense-makers, facilitating understanding for change recipients and helping them to identify (filter and distill) what is important. This distinction is instructive: from her research, Laurie Lewis (1999) argues that change managers act more often as reporters, disseminating information, than as sense-makers, seeking and processing feedback during planned change processes. For a more detailed exploration of the perspective that sense-making brings to organizational change, see chapter 9.

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Getting the Word Out, or Getting Buy-In?

The federal agency example illustrates the difference between “getting the word out” (providing information about a change) as opposed to “getting staff buy-in” (support and involvement). Both are important (Guaspari, 1996). We cannot always assume that management alone has all the good ideas concerning what is required to make a change successful. We do know, however, that those who are going to be affected by change need to be informed about what is happening, and that when frontline staff are allowed to take the initiative to drive change, the success rate is higher (Keller et al., 2010).

Communication designed to generate “buy-in” involves capturing from staff information that will be useful in delivering the change, identifying what is important to them, and discovering what they see as the costs and benefits. It is therefore important to identify a clear “value proposition” that addresses the interests and motives of individual staff. Examples include (Guaspari, 1996, p. 35):

“As a result of the new skills you’ll learn in order to perform your job in the newly reengineered organization, you will have significantly increased your value internally and your marketability externally.”

“The work will be backbreaking. The pace will be relentless. You stand to make a ton of money.”

“We are making these changes to enable us to rewrite the rules in our industry, to improve by orders of magnitude the value we can create for our customers.”

Getting “buy-in” depends on what people are being asked to purchase. Do they see this as having personal value? Have the changes been adequately justified? The evidence indicates that explaining and justifying the need for change relates positively to perceived fairness with regard to both the change process and the outcomes. From his study of 183 employees in companies that had relocated to Chicago, Joseph Daly (1995) found that management’s justification was particularly important when the move was viewed unfavorably by staff. However, that justification was not as important where the move was welcomed. Daly (1995, p. 426) concludes that some managers may thus be tempted to avoid explaining change decisions to employees if they think that the change outcomes will be welcome anyway. However, that may not apply to staff judgements about the change process.

[E]mployees are likely to expect an explanation for a change decision regardless of whether the outcomes are positive or negative. If those employees are not given an explanation, they are likely to feel that the procedures used to make and implement the decision were unfair, leading in many cases to resentment against the decision process and the decision makers.

Daly’s (1995) findings are consistent with other research, which has found that managers are more likely to be trusted by staff when they:

· provide accurate information and feedback;

· adequately explain the basis for their decisions;

· use open communication, enabling an exchange of ideas.

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Thirteen Points for an Effective Communication Strategy

1. Convince top management that communication is important.

2. Build alliances across the organization to support initiatives.

3. Recognize that no one method will be effective.

4. Use a mix of approaches and use all available channels where relevant.

5. Target communication to the audience; different methods for shop floor and managers.

6. Respect cultural diversity and vary approaches accordingly.

7. Make sure that messages are consistent, over time and between audiences.

8. Ensure clarity of message and keep things simple.

9. Train managers in communication skills.

10. Develop and sustain two-way communication, dialogue, and feedback.

11. Ensure that employees feel that they can say what they think without discomfort.

12. Ensure that communication is built into the planning stages of all activities.

13. Review communication initiatives to check what has worked, what hasn’t, and why

Source: Cannell (2010), pp. 2–3.

Beyond “Spray and Pray”

Phillip Clampitt and colleagues (2000) locate communication strategies on the continuum shown in figure 7.2. At one end of this continuum is “spray and pray,” transmitting lots of information, to little effect. At the other extreme, “withhold and uphold” offers little information, and is also ineffective. All five strategies on this continuum are summarized in table 7.4. The authors argue that “underscore and explore,” which involves dialogue, is more likely to succeed, by allowing staff concerns to be combined with management initiatives. They note that some organizations mix these strategies. For example, in one organization, “spray and pray” (also known as the “communication clutter” approach) was used to “bombard” staff with information on organizational performance. However, when faced with downsizing and operational PG 225

changes, a “withhold and uphold” strategy was used, in order to avoid exposing staff to promises about the future that they were not able to meet. This dual approach led to discontent and mistrust, as staff saw management providing them with significant amounts of information, but avoiding the issues about which they cared the most.

Source: Clampett, The Communication Strategy Continuum, Academy of Management Journal, p. 48, 2000.

TABLE 7.4

Communication Strategies

Strategy

Actions

Spray and pray

Shower employees with a range of information; more is better. Managers pray that staff will see what needs to be done. Benefit: Staff are exposed to company information. Downside: Staff overloaded with information, may not be able to identify what is more important, and may be able to understand what is happening, but not why.

Tell and sell

Limit the information provided to core issues. Management tells staff about the changes and “sells” them on why these are necessary. Benefit: Can be done rapidly.

Downside: Staff are passive recipients, and lack of dialogue opens potential for staff skepticism and cynicism.

Underscore and explore

Focus on fundamentals, but engage employees in dialogue to identify obstacles and misunderstandings that need to be addressed. Benefit: Staff engagement solves problems, strengthens support for change and can generate useful ideas. Downside: Takes time.

Identify and reply

Defensive approach to identifying and responding to rumors and innuendo, and to reduce staff confusion about changes. Benefit: Can resolve problems at an early stage. Downside: Reactive approach that assumes (sometimes incorrectly) that staff understand the organizational problems that the changes need to address.

Withhold and uphold

Withhold information until it is absolutely necessary to communicate. Management publicly defend the change strategy. Information is not disclosed openly. Benefit: Management retain a high degree of control. Downside: Staff bitterness and resentment.

Source: Based on Clampitt et al. (2000).

A Dozen Tips from the Experts

A Dozen Tips from the Experts

Rebecca Saunders (1999) has collected the following suggestions for communicating change:

Specify the nature of the change.

Explain why.

Let staff know the scope of the change, including the good and the bad news.

Continually repeat the purpose of the change and how it will occur.

Use graphics.

Make the communication two-way.

Target supervisors.

Support change with new learning.

Point to progress emanating from the change.

Don’t limit communications to meetings and print.

Institutionalize information flow about the change.

Model the changes yourself.

This argument supports the use of “underscore and explore” change communication strategies, the benefits of which arise from dialogue and engagement. This approach,

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however, takes time to organize. This may not be appropriate—and could cause damaging delays—if rapid organizational change action is necessary. The best strategy may thus depend on the situation.

Who Should Be Responsible for Communicating the Change?

A common view is that chief executives should be personally involved in the communication of change in order to demonstrate their commitment. It could be damaging to delegate this responsibility to others, signalling a lack of top management support. However, other commentators argue that first-line supervisors are more appropriate change communicators, because they are opinion leaders, who are more likely to be known to and trusted by staff. This is the view adopted by T. J. and Sandar Larkin (1996). First-line supervisors are in regular personal contact with staff, in small groups (rather than in large formal assemblies), and are thus better able to communicate about change. They propose the two-stage supervisory briefing strategy summarized in table 7.5.

TABLE 7.5

Two-Stage Supervisory Briefing Strategy

Round One: Seek Opinions and Recommendations

Round Two: Report Back to Supervisors

What to Do

Why

What to Do

Why

One senior manager meets with 8 to 10 supervisors for a maximum of 90 minutes

Makes clear that all ideas and opinions are welcome; relatively short meeting maintains focus

The same manager meets with the same group of supervisors

Makes clear that they are dealing with a management representative

Single sheet of paper with two columns: “not willing to change” (what management want to retain) and “willing to change” (for supervisors’ recommendations)

Clarifies the ground rules—what is not going to change—and gives an opportunity for supervisors to make suggestions to take back to the senior change management team

Single sheet of paper with supervisors’ recommendations and senior management responses; answer questions without argument and defensiveness

Convey what has happened with regard to their recommendations, not attempting to convince supervisors of the merits of what has happened

Ensure that supervisors understand that final decisions rest with the senior change management team

Clarifies that opinions are being sought, and not their permission

Distribute a booklet outlining the change and draw attention to major features

Help supervisors in the face-to-face conversations that they will have with their staff

Source: Based on Larkin and Larkin (1996, pp. 102–3).

Jeanie Duck (1993, p. 110) argues that the key to change communication lies with “managing the conversation between the people leading the change effort and those who are expected to implement the strategies.” This does not necessarily give priority to the role of either the chief executive or supervisors. She maintains that managers often fail to realize that they are sending out messages even when they are not formally communicating. For example, a change task force may meet to discuss how to accomplish a change, feeling that there is no need to communicate more widely at that time. Duck (1993, p. 110) points out that this

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“virtually guarantees that the change effort will fail,” because people will be aware that the task force is meeting, rumors will circulate, and people will avoid buy-in to the final outcome. Instead, she suggests setting up a “transition management team,” which is a group of senior staff who work full time on the change initiative and who report to the chief executive. The role of the transition management team is to stimulate conversation and allow information to be shared across (potentially obsolete) internal organizational boundaries. The concept of managing conversations is also reflected in the use of “tag teams” (see box).

Communicating Change through Tag Teams

USAA is a financial services company that employs 25,800 people, has over 10 million members, and is based in San Antonio, Texas. In moving through an organizational change, USAA used “tag teams” to ensure that change occurred in different units at the same time, minimizing disruption to existing operations. A core team worked on a particular change but was joined by “tag teams” comprised of volunteers from different parts of the organization who attended core team meetings. They were charged with asking questions about how change initiatives would affect customer services and with conveying the concerns and fears of their colleagues in relation to the change. After the core team meetings, they returned to their jobs and acted as informal conduits, taking information back to their colleagues and work groups (based on Olofson, 1999).

LO 7.5Contingency Approaches to Change Communication

We explore contingency approaches to change implementation in chapter 8. Contingency perspectives have also been applied to the design of change communication strategies. Two main contingencies—or dependencies—concern the type of change and the stage of change.

Communication Strategy and Type of Change

Doug Stace and Dexter Dunphy (2001) argue that a communication strategy must reflect the type of organizational change that is being proposed:

Developmental or incremental transitions aim for widespread involvement, emphasizing face-to-face communication and the use of change teams to identify initiatives and broaden commitment.

Task-focused transitions seek to align employee behavior with management initiatives, so these are primarily top-down in nature, using formal communication channels such as email broadcasts and memos.

Charismatic transformations need to stimulate emotional commitment to new ways of working, and thus require more personalized top-down forms of communication, ideally combined with at least symbolic two-way communication.

Turnarounds tend to follow from organizational crises, and draw on formal, top-down modes of communication that attempt to force compliance with the new direction.

Stace and Dunphy outline how these approaches vary in terms of communicating goals, who is to be involved, the kinds of issues that will be addressed, the communication

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channels and directions (top-down, lateral, one-way/two-way) that will be used, and the balance of power that will need to be managed among relevant parties.

Each of these change communication strategies makes different demands on the capabilities of the change manager. Developmental transitions demand sophisticated social and interpersonal skills. Task-focused transformations rely on carefully crafted formal messages. Charismatic transformations need to be underpinned by visionary and inspiring messages. In the interests of speed and effectiveness, post-crisis turnarounds may require a directive, autocratic style, with which many experienced change managers may be uncomfortable, especially if they are accustomed to more participative, engaging modes of change communication and implementation.

Open the Files

Think back to a recent change in your organization, and consider the following questions:

Did your organization have a strategy for initially announcing the change?

What strategy was used to communicate information during the change process? Was one or more of the strategies from figure 7.2 used? Was this strategy adopted consistently, and for all members across the organization?

On a scale from 1 (ineffective) to 5 (very effective), how would you rate the communication strategy overall?

With hindsight, what changes would you have made to improve the effectiveness of the change communication strategy?

To what extent will those recommendations apply to future changes in this organization? To what extent will that depend on the further changes that are proposed?

Bill Quirke (2008, p. 236) also argues that communication strategy should be determined by the degree of change that is going to be implemented. The more significant the change, the more employees need to be involved. He uses “the communication escalator” (figure 7.3) as a guide to designing communications strategy. Degrees of involvement thus range from awareness, understanding, support, and involvement, to commitment.

FIGURE 7.3

The Communication Escalator

Communication in a Crisis What Can We Learn from BP’s Mistakes?

Communication in a crisis is critical, affecting the organization’s reputation and performance. Aikaterini Valvi and Konstantinos Fragkos (2013) assess BP’s communication after the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010. The incident killed 11 of the 126 crew members, and injured 17 others. Oil poured from the wellhead on the seabed and drifted toward the Louisiana coast, threatening wildlife and the local fishing and tourism industries. Spilling 5 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf, this was the biggest environmental disaster in the United States since the Exxon Valdez spilled 750,000 barrels in Prince William Sound in 1989. With financial penalties and reputational damage, BP struggled to restore profitability.

Crises are expected to trigger significant organizational change to prevent a recurrence. Many stakeholders are involved—employees, shareholders, local businesses, the public, regulatory agencies, government. Tony Hayward, BP’s chief executive, took personal responsibility for providing information following the Deepwater incident. He was slow to respond to the crisis, and made five other mistakes in his communication with the media, government, and public:

1. The fake images: Fake photographs were given to the press, with the claim that these related to blank spots on the video; original images were quickly supplied, but this damaged BP’s credibility.

2. “I want my life back”: Under pressure from various sources, Hayward in a television interview in May said, “I want my life back.” As the Deepwater incident had caused 11 deaths, this damaged his credibility and reputation.

3. The incident with the yacht: With oil still spilling into the Gulf, Hayward took time off to watch his yacht, Bob, compete in the UK Isle of Wight island race.

4. We were not prepared: Speaking to the Financial Times in Texas, Hayward said, “We did not have the tools you would want in your toolkit”—not a reassuring statement.

5. Self-interest: During a hearing with the U.S. Cabinet, Hayward appeared to show an overriding concern with his own position, which he believed was not under threat, saying that he was ignoring press and television accounts of the disaster so as not to “cloud his judgement.”

U.S. president Barack Obama criticized BP for spending $50 million on radio, television, and online advertising during the crisis, suggesting that it would have been better to spend that money on dealing with the oil spill. The company made this worse by issuing a statement claiming that “not a cent” had been diverted from their response to the oil spill to pay for advertising. BP’s communication with its own employees was ineffective. When staff involved in the oil cleanup operation were hospitalized with dizziness, headaches, and respiratory problems, Hayward blamed food poisoning, showing lack of concern for their well-being. Strategies for communicating with shareholders were more effective, reminding them of BP’s past record, blaming other companies for the disaster, and promising to meet long-term dividend obligations. Nevertheless, Hayward was replaced in October 2010.

What advice can other organizations take from this experience? Develop a crisis communication plan. Appoint experienced staff to work from a designated public relations office. Communications with the media must be direct and sincere. Use press conferences, a crisis web page, and social network accounts. Monitor media reports closely, and respond immediately to clarify issues when appropriate. Do not run advertising campaigns to promote your image during a crisis. Concentrate on restoring trust. Finally, make it clear from the start that “things will change.”

(Other aspects of this incident are discussed in chapter 5.)

The escalator indicates the communications methods appropriate to each degree of involvement (suggestions—these are not comprehensive). For commitment, the organization should consider using all of those types of communication methods, and any others that are available. At the awareness level, the focus is simply on providing information. However, for involvement and commitment, communication also needs to concentrate on improving the quality of interactions and relationships.

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Communication Strategy and Stage of Change

Adopting a differing contingency focus, Kathleen and Kevin Reardon (1999) suggest that the most appropriate communication strategy depends on the stage of the change process. First, they identify four leadership styles, each of which uses different communication processes and strategies:

Commanding style: Leaders are performance- and results-oriented, and their communication style is directive.

Logical style: Leaders explore the available strategic options through analysis and reasoning, and their communication style involves explaining their intentions and their plans.

Inspirational style: Leaders develop a vision of the future around which they seek to encourage cohesion, and their communication style involves creating trust and mobilizing people around the change program.

Supportive style: Leaders are concerned with creating an open and consensual environment, and their communication style is based on involvement.

Reardon and Reardon (1999) argue that different modes of communicating should be used at different stages of the change process. Using a five-stage process, their argument is summarized in table 7.6.

TABLE 7.6

Stages of Change and Leadership Style

Stage	Leadership Style
Planning	Focus on identifying what needs to change requires a combination of logical and inspirational leadership styles
Enabling	As people are selected and trained in relation to the change process, a combination of logical, inspirational, and supportive styles are needed
Launching	As change unfolds, combine logical and commanding styles
Catalyzing	Use inspirational and supportive leadership styles to motivate and engage
Maintaining	To encourage staff to continue with a change effort, perhaps in the face of obstacles, inspirational and supportive leadership styles are helpful

This framework recognizes that no one individual is likely to have all the change management skills required at different stages of a change process. More than one style—or more than one image of change management—may be necessary. As discussed in the following chapter, however, change management can often be more of a team effort than a solo performance. Team members may thus have different strengths—or styles—which they can use to compensate for each other.

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This framework has some drawbacks. First, change rarely unfolds in the logical manner shown in table 7.6 (see chapter 10). Second, there may be several changes unfolding at once, but each at a different pace in an organization, raising questions about the management styles of those involved in more than one initiative. Third, it can be difficult to identify when one stage has ended and another has begun, as these can overlap significantly. Fourth, the model offers clear advice, but without supporting evidence. Finally, to apply this framework, change managers are required to have a good self-understanding of their leadership and communication preferences and styles. As with many such frameworks, this is useful as long as it is treated as a guide and not as a rigid set of rules.

LO 7.6Communication Channels and the Role of Social Media

Getting the (Change) News What Works Best for You?

You are an employee of a large organization about to go through a major restructuring.

1. What do you think you need to know about the restructuring?

2. From whom would you like to get this information? Why?

3. Would you prefer to receive this information in person or in a group setting?

4. What for you would be the best channel (e.g., management briefing, email, video) for receiving this information? Why?

5. As a change manager, how will you use your answers to these questions to help design a communication strategy?

At the heart of our model of communication (figure 7.1) sits a key issue that we have not directly discussed: the channel, or the medium through which the message will be transmitted. This is not a mere technical issue. As Marshall McLuhan (1964) argued, “the medium is the message,” suggesting that the properties of a chosen medium can influence the meaning of a message and its interpretation. The change manager selecting an inappropriate medium with which to transmit important information to key groups affected by a change proposal may not be taken seriously, may be seen as insensitive, or may strengthen disaffection. In the final section of this chapter, therefore, we will consider the characteristics of different media, and how these can affect changecommunication. We then explore the impact on change communication of developments in social media and mobile technology.

Media Richness

One of the main characteristics on which communication media vary is “information richness,” a concept developed by Robert Lengel and Richard Daft (1988). Richness concerns the amount and the kind of information that can be transmitted. The three characteristics of a communication medium that affect richness are (1) the ability to handle many items of information at the same time, (2) the availability of rapid feedback, and (3) the ability to establish a personal focus. Based on these characteristics, they classify media on the “hierarchy of richness” shown in figure 7.4.

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FIGURE 7.4

Media Richness Hierarchy

Source: Lengel and Daft, Media Richness Heirarchy, Academy of Management Executive, p. 226, 1988.

Face-to-face communication is the richest because it meets all three criteria: multiple information cues, immediate feedback, and personal focus. Moving down the hierarchy, telephone allows quick feedback, but the information cues that are available from nonverbal behavior in face-to-face communication are absent; body language such as eye contact, posture, gesture, and head movements. Written communications can be directed at individuals, but carry limited information, and feedback is likely to be delayed. At the bottom of the hierarchy, impersonal bulletins and computer reports are limited on all three criteria and are therefore “information poor” or “lean.”

This is not an argument in favor of rich communications. On the contrary, the degree of richness that is appropriate depends on the nature and content of what is being communicated, and in particular on where the issue lies on a continuum from routine to nonroutine. Routine issues are commonplace, simple, rational, straightforward, and contain no surprises. Nonroutine issues, in contrast, concern novel, complex, unexpected events and are often characterized by time pressure, ambiguity, and surprise. The potential for misunderstanding is thus greater with nonroutine issues, and a richer exchange of information is therefore necessary in order to establish a common frame of reference. Lengel and Daft (1988, pp. 229–31) suggest six rules for “matching” media richness to the message:

Rule 1:	Send nonroutine, difficult communications through a rich medium—preferably face-to-face.
Rule 2:	Send routine, simple communications through a lean medium.
Rule 3:	Use rich media to extend your personal presence throughout the organization.
Rule 4:	Use rich media for implementing company strategy.
Rule 5:	Don’t let the media in use “censor” information about critical issues; formal written reports simplify multidimensional issues and mask the nonroutine.
Rule 6:	Evaluate new communication technology as a single channel in the media spectrum.

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For the change manager, these rules indicate that incremental changes that simply build on current practice may be comparatively routine, and they should be communicated as such, using lean media. This is more suited, for example, to the transmission of factual or technical information. On the other hand, information-rich media should be used when changes are novel, more complex, and widespread in their implications. Information richness may be more difficult to achieve in a large organization, and the change manager may need to consider a wider range of options, including the use of the social technologies discussed shortly. In most instances of nonroutine change, it is likely that a portfolio of communication strategies will be desirable, tailored to the particular circumstances.

Adopting a different contingency approach, Bill Quirke (2008) suggests that different change communication media are better suited to some audiences than to others. With regard to changecommunication he suggests that there are four types of target audience, whose needs differ:

Waking up	They will be affected by the change, but have not noticed, yet
Engaging	They know that they will be affected, and are interested and concerned
Educating	They will affected marginally, and only need to be told about what is happening
Reassuring	They will also be marginally affected, but are concerned nevertheless

Media-rich face-to-face communication needs to be directed toward those who will be most impacted by change—those who need waking up, and those who need to be engaged. Leaner forms of communication can be used with those who only need education or reassurance.

A New Range of Communication Tools—the Potential Uses of Social Media

The social networking service Facebook was launched in 2004. This is now one of many Internet-mediated tools that allow people to create, share, and exchange information, ideas, pictures, and videos. Unlike previous “flat” Internet applications, these social media tools allow two-way, real-time communication, interaction, collaboration, and co-creation. To use social media, one needs some form of Internet access, which used to mean a computer. The development of mobile technology has made social media independent of traditional computing; we are now more likely to access the Internet with a laptop, smart television, tablet, ebook reader, or smartphone. Social media and mobile technologies are also “low friction” tools: they are ubiquitous, easy to use, flexible, and do not require specialized equipment. Another feature is their rapid development; this section of this chapter will be out of date before this book is published.

A study by McKinsey Global Institute concluded that social media could increase the productivity of knowledge workers by 20 to 25 percent, as people would spend much less time looking for information (Chui et al., 2012). In January 2015 Facebook launched a corporate version of its social networking platform, called Facebook at Work. A number of corporate “partners” were asked to experiment with its possibilities, to discover if this could increase employee productivity by sharing ideas through posts, groups, and messages. This development was triggered by the observation that Facebook’s own staff were using the network instead of email for internal communication. This new platform sought to address234organizational concerns over data security, intellectual property, and privacy. Unlike “personal” Facebook, information shared on Facebook at Work belonged to the employer, and employees who leave will not have access to their corporate account (Kuchler, 2015).

Social media are therefore “information rich,” close to the top of the hierarchy in figure 7.4, and they are in widespread use, especially by younger employees. In 2015, Facebook, with a market value of $209 billion, had over 1.35 billion monthly active users; Twitter had 250 million. These technologies could thus make significant contributions to organizational communication in general, and to changecommunication in particular. Jonny Gifford (2013) argues that the main applications include:

Efficient communication:	Increase efficiency of communication and knowledge transfer, getting the right information to the right people.
Employee voice:	Seek employee views, giving employees a platform.
Networking and collaboration:	Create meaningful connections with people we would otherwise not know, and facilitating collaboration.
Learning and development:	Use social media to support e-learning and development and to encourage self-directed learning.
Recruitment and job hunting:	Social networking sites are now widely used for recruitment; employers and job seekers use social media to check each other to inform their choices.

Can social media help organizations to become more innovative and responsive to change? Applications in marketing and recruitment are straightforward. The use of social media in relation to employee engagement, productivity, innovation, and communication, however, is more diffuse. The applications listed above have the potential to transform change communication by tailoring information to individuals and groups, with the ability to communicate simultaneously with large numbers regardless of location, creating dialogue concerning change proposals, encouraging networks and collaboration, and providing flexible change-specific training. Social networking sites can also reveal (to potential employers) information concerning candidates’ openness to change, and also reveal (to potential employees) an organization’s receptiveness to change and innovation.

Social Media Drivers

A survey of executives found that the main drivers of social media adoption were (Matthews, 2015):

1. Responding faster to changing needs

2. Optimizing business processes

3. Increasing revenue and profits

4. Attracting the best talent in a competitive market

5. Better-engaged employees

Change managers thus have a set of new and powerful tools to help with two-way communication, staff participation, and change implementation.

How are these media being applied in practice? In 2011, the consulting company McKinsey held a contest to find companies using social media tools and technologies in innovative ways, to improve management methods and engage frontline employees

235(McKinsey & Company, 2011). Demonstrating the uses and benefits of these tools, here are some of the winners:

The Dutch Civil Service

Dutch government employees faced bureaucratic hurdles, such as having to book meeting rooms in their own buildings through an external agency, which was time-consuming and costly. Following a frustrated tweet from one staff member, a group formed, and they used open-source software to develop their own reservation system. This now covers over 50 offices and over 550 workplaces in government buildings across the country.

Essilor International

Essilor is a global manufacturer of ophthalmic lenses and has a training program that uses personal and social media methods to share best practices across 102 sites in 40 countries. It now takes one year to reach the level of skill that once took three years, and social networking allows coaching across different locations. A lens-processing center in Thailand developed a game to teach new employees how to understand the shape of a particular type of lens, and this game is now also used in Brazil.

Best Buy

Best Buy is a consumer electronics retailer with 1,500 locations and 100,000 employees. To ensure that top management understood what frontline staff learned from customers, the company created an online feedback system that allowed everyone to see the customer information gathered in all the stores. This influenced a range of company practices, from improving shop signs to complex decisions about implementing a national promotion. This was a fast, flexible, and inexpensive way of responding to “the voice of the customer.”

Cemex

Cemex is a large Mexico-based cement company, which developed an approach to employee collaboration called Shift. This helped to reduce the time taken to introduce new products and process improvements. Shift uses wikis, blogs, discussion boards, and web-conferencing to help employees around the world collaborate with each other. For example, 400 employees working on ready-mix products helped to identify which worked well, and which were obsolete, slimming the product line and updating the global catalogue. Now, with over 500 active communities, Shift is used to solve local problems, using global resources, as well as storing and sharing the knowledge that is generated.

These organizations may be relatively rare examples. A survey of 2,100 UK employees and 590 human resource management staff suggests that development of novel uses of social media has been slow (Gifford, 2013). Applications have been mainly driven by personal access, rather than by organization strategy; employees are probably more sophisticated in the use of social media tools in their private lives than are employers with regard to organizational applications. Where organizations were using these technologies, they were more likely to be targeting external (customers, other stakeholders) rather than internal audiences. Applications of “employee voice” were superficial, with management seeking employee views, but not necessarily being more responsive or open to influence as a result. The technology is in place, but most employees tend to use their laptops, smartphones, and tablets for personal purposes. There seems to be limited corporate support for BYOD (bring-your-own-device) practices, and some organizations ban the use of social media at work.

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A study in 2013 examined how chief executives in American organizations used four social networks: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google Plus. Around 30 percent were LinkedIn members, but participation in other networks was “dismal.” Faced with those findings, Linda Pophal (2014, p. 23) asks, “Is it any wonder that so many of us are stymied in our ability to sell the C-suite on the value of social media? It appears that few CEOs and other senior executives are familiar with, or convinced of, the benefits of communicating via social media.” Access to social networking and mobile technology is not a barrier; a perceived lack of organizational relevance is.

The development of enterprise-specific social networks may help to realize the potential of these technologies. Employees can be involved in two-way discussions using a secure “gated” corporate networking platform for incubating ideas and feeding these to senior management. This can also be used to facilitate ad hoc communication and collaboration. Social networking can be a more engaging medium than traditional communication tools, to send corporate messages, quickly capture employee reactions, check that messages have been understood, and for information-sharing in general. A corporate social network could strengthen the sense of shared purpose by celebrating achievements, reinforcing mission and values, and strengthening identification with the organization.

Antisocial Media

Lloyds Bank has a company intranet, which provides opportunities for staff to give feedback to senior management. In January 2015, during a major reorganization that involved cutting costs and the closure of 150 branches with job losses, the human resources director Rupert McNeill decided to assess staff morale. He posted an intranet article that praised employees, describing them as “a fantastic team” and an “agile workforce.” Staff were asked to leave comments, and hundreds responded. Most of the feedback expressed resentment and complaints (Donellan, 2015):

“If you want promotion do every extracurricular task that you can. Don’t worry about the quality of the work as it is irrelevant.”

“Either execs are lying, or somewhere down the line people are misrepresenting what is being communicated from above.”

“Why should we trust you after what you did on pensions?”

Most complaints concerned the decision to close the generous final salary pension scheme. This happened at the same time as the chief executive was awarded a £586,000 pension contribution as part of his £7.8 million annual package, and was seen as “a disgraceful display of double standards.” Staff were also critical of excessive bureaucracy and a lack of top management support. The corporate intranet makes it easy for management to capture staff feedback. That feedback, however, may be unfavorable, particularly when management actions are seen as being inconsistent or unfair.

From a study of seven organizations with internal networks, Gifford (2014) offers this advice:

· Enterprise networks need a clear rationale or purpose if they are to be used and become embedded. They need to support day-to-day activities.

· The process of identifying uses is better developed bottom-up, coming from staff themselves. But effective uses need to be identified and replicated if they are to spread and be sustained.237

· It helps if there is a key individual, or a team of “community champions,” guiding and encouraging the use of social media until this reaches critical mass.

· Enterprise social networks are time-efficient ways for senior leaders to engage with large numbers of staff and to increase their visibility. However, the effects will be negative if senior management challenge or criticize comments with which they disagree.

· Social networks should be self-managed and not censored; policies should be “light touch” (with an expectation that posts will be “respectful”); negative comments should be dealt with frankly and openly; employees should be informed if comments have caused offense.

Social media offer the change manager a novel range of powerful, flexible, “information-rich” communication channels, which appear to have valuable uses. Organizations that have experimented with these technologies have achieved significant benefits. Most of the tools are public and require little skill to use. In order to develop beneficial applications, it also seems that creativity, innovation, and experimentation will be necessary in order to tailor these new methods to local conditions and organizational goals.

When they were developing their theory of media richness, Robert Lengel and Richard Daft (1988) may not have foreseen the development of social media and mobile technologies in the twenty-first century. However, their conclusions with regard to computing technology in general speak to the change manager today. They observed that “electronic media” were just one potential channel in the media spectrum. All the other channels have their uses and advantages. They also concluded that “there is no electronic substitute for face-to-face discussions when issues are nonroutine” (Lengel and Daft, 1988, p. 231). Social media can therefore be misused. They should not, for example, be used to provide an excuse to avoid difficult interpersonal conversations—about forthcoming organizational changes, perhaps, or other controversial or sensitive issues.

EXERCISE 7.1

Listen to Who’s Talking

LO 7.2

LO 7.3

Deborah Tannen (1995) argues that the way we communicate reinforces power and gender differences. This can affect our interpretations of what we think is happening in a particular situation.

1. Observe a work meeting, preferably with up to 10 people.

2. Listen to the language being used. What different types of languages in use can you observe, such as commanding, respectful, demonstrating concern, displaying condescension?

3. Do individuals tend to use one type of language in their interactions?

4. Who does most of the talking? Who asks most of the questions?

5. To what extent does the talk convey information about power and gender differences? For example, who takes credit, who exudes confidence, who asks more questions?

6. What conclusions can you draw from your analysis about the way language constructs and reinforces differences within the organization?

7. As a change manager, how will your awareness of these differences influence your future interactions with staff?

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EXERCISE 7.2

How Defensive Are You?

LO 7.2

Many alphas think that looking interested when someone speaks to them demonstrates a high degree of openness when, in fact, that’s just the bare minimum one must do not to be labeled defensive. Alphas can use this tool to chart their progress toward a more constructive state of mind and to see how their behavior appears to others.

Are you open, or defensive? What are your normal behaviors? Where are your preferences? What do you need to change? How would this improve your relationships and personal effectiveness?

Source: Ludeman, K. and Erlandson, E., “Highly Open/Highly Defensive”, Harvard Business Review, No. 5, 2004. Copyright © 2004 Harvard Business School Publishing. All rights reserved. Harvard Business Publishing is an affiliate of Harvard Business School.

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EXERCISE 7.3

Social Media at the Museum

LO 7.3

“In the past, institutional mission and strategic vision were reviewed every four years; now, they are reviewed every time someone posts to Facebook, comments on a blog, or opens a new Twitter account.”

—Dana Allen-Greil and colleagues

Social media could themselves trigger dramatic organizational changes, as well as creating new channels of communication with regard to other changes. For example, social media are changing the ways in which museums interact with the public, and also how museum staff communicate and work with each other. Dana Allen-Greil and colleagues (2011) argue that, used effectively, social media can further the mission of the organization and foster more agile and collaborative organization cultures. There are many wider cultural, political, and social pressures encouraging openness and collaboration. Social media offer a new set of tools with which organizations can respond to those pressures.

Allen-Greil and colleagues studied three museums: the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (NMAH); Monticello, a historic house and research institution; and the J. Paul Getty Trust (the Getty). These museums have adopted different approaches to the use of social media.

At NMAH, social media contribute to public programming, focusing on education and visitor services, complementing the existing email newsletter, website, and other online communications. At Monticello, the focus lies with relationships building, and in particular on increasing the organization’s “social media outreach.” This means using social media to increase the number of “online visitors.” In contrast, the Getty is using social media to “get off the hill.” The Getty has a reputation for being inaccessible, as it is located on a hill above the 405 freeway, and visitors have to take a quarter-mile tram ride to get up there. Social media thus allow the Getty to “take the collections and programs into the community” and to promote their educational and research work.

Sometimes the Best Thing Managers Can Do Is Get Out of the Way

Staff who have collaborated on social media projects in these museums have created new channels of communication and new ways of thinking and working with each other. The leadership of these initiatives was mainly “bottom-up,” and did not rely on senior management experts. Allen-Greil and colleagues note that “effective collaboration means staff members need to cross lines traditionally drawn between different working groups, and probably across lines drawn between hierarchical levels within the institution.” Social media may thus lead to flatter hierarchies and “horizontal working.” The study also found that an increased level of online engagement with the public led to an increase in face-to-face conversations among staff. Why? Social media project staff had to meet with colleagues across the organization: human resources, legal department, registrars, publishers, educators. The authors argue: “Social media are pushing us together in a very personal way. New conversations between staff members who have never had any reason to talk before are establishing new relationships and new lines of engagement.”

A Perpetually Beta State of Mind

Senior managers need to encourage staff to experiment with social media to develop more efficient and effective processes. However, at the Getty, the use of different social media platforms by different groups of staff meant that initiatives were often uncoordinated, and some even competed with each other: “In a large, hierarchical institution, this240kind of testing, rapid prototyping, and risk-taking is pushing the boundaries of the usual, highly-controlled content development processes.” Although exciting for staff, spontaneous experimentation may not be sustainable. However, Allen-Greil and colleagues ask us to consider: “What would it really be like if we could work in a perpetually beta state of mind? If we could try, fail, and try again? We are closer than you think because it’s already happening at every museum that uses social media.”

Now that you have read this case, consider the following questions:

1. In what ways could social media applications contribute to the mission of your organization?

2. How could social media change or strengthen the culture of your organization, with regard to widening collaboration and becoming more agile and responsive?

3. To what extent will your current organization silos and hierarchies inhibit the communication and collaboration opportunities opened up by social media? Or, will social media help you to break down those silos and hierarchies, and encourage more “horizontal working”?

4. How should your organization balance the need for management control with the desire to open up conversations more widely across the organization in order to encourage experimentation with social media?

5. In your assessment, would your organization benefit or suffer from working in a “perpetually beta” state of mind, constantly experimenting, learning—and improving—from the mistakes?

Additional Reading

Chui, M., Manyika, J., Bughin, J., Dobbs, R., Roxburgh, C., Sarrazin, H., Sands, G., and Westergren, M. 2012. The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies. New York and London: McKinsey & Company/McKinsey Global Institute. Analyzes the economic impact and business potential of social technologies, considering current applications and future possibilities. Argues that the use of social technologies to improve collaboration within and across organizations has reached only a fraction of its potential. Improvements in value creation and productivity will depend on finding innovative ways to exploit these technologies, while protecting individual and corporate rights.

Keller, S., Meaney, M., and Pung, C. 2010. What successful transformations share. Chicago and London: McKinsey & Company. Identifies the tactics that lead to successful change. Emphasizes the power of widespread employee engagement, collaboration, co-creation, sense of ownership, and in particular the importance of ongoing communication and involvement.

Rafferty, A. E., Jimmieson, N. L., and Armenakis, A. A. 2013. Change readiness: A multilevel review. Journal of Management 39(1):110–35. Stresses the role of communication to influence cognitive and emotional responses to increase change readiness. Argues that, to influence emotions, the use of pictures (see following recommendation), color, music, and atmosphere are helpful. Concludes that high-quality change communication can increase readiness, and that poor communication can damage the change process.

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Sibbet, D. 2013. Visual leaders: New tools for visioning, management, and organizational change. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc. Introduces an innovative range of visual tools for improving corporate communications and visual IQ. Demonstrates how visualization can engage, inspire, and contribute to thinking. Argues that these tools are particularly useful in driving organizational change. Describes with case studies (the GM Saturn project; the quality improvement program at HealthEast) a “storymapping” approach for anticipating, managing, and communicating the stages of the changeprocess.

Roundup

Here is a short summary of the key points that we would like you to take from this chapter, in relation to each of the learning outcomes:

LO 7.1 Identify key elements in the change communication process.

We emphasized the argument that communication is not a “soft” topic, but one that has a direct impact on organizational effectiveness and financial performance. We introduced a well-known model of the change communication process—a process for exchanging meaning as well as transmitting information. A transmitter codes a message, which is transmitted through a chosen channel to a receiver, who then decodes that message and, depending on the channel, provides feedback. A number of factors can interfere with this apparently simple process: perceptual filters, noise, and the wider organizational context in which communication takes place. The organization’s past history of change is important, as this can influence responses to current change proposals.

Reflections for the Practicing Change Manager

1. In what ways does your personal use of language reinforce power and gender differences in your organization? What effect do you think this has in terms of how your change messages are received? What modifications to your approach would help you to communicate change more effectively?

2. Do you see yourself as a reporter of change information? Or are you a sense-maker, helping staff to understand change actions, and seeking input from them?

3. To what extent do you focus on getting the word out, rather than seeking staff buy-in? Do you tend to use the same communication methods, or do you adopt different approaches depending upon the type of change? Do you “spray and pray” information or “underscore and explore”?

4. Are you more comfortable using “rich” communication media (face-to-face), or “leaner” media (email)? Do you adopt different forms of communication depending on the type or stage of change? With which communication media have you had the most success, and why?

5. Does your organization have a strategy for using social media? If so, how would you assess the effectiveness of this approach, and what recommendations would you make in order to strengthen the benefits of using social media tools? If not, how would you advise your organization in developing a social media strategy, balancing the benefits and risks?

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LO 7.2Understand how language, gender, power, and emotion can affect the change communication process.

The use of language, gender and power differences, and emotional responses can all have an effect on the success of the communication process. Men and women can communicate in different ways. Women emphasize doubts and uncertainties, and men display confidence and minimize concerns. Women ask more questions, which men can mistakenly interpret as a comparative lack of knowledge. Power differences are also a barrier to effective communication, as the powerful may not wish to disclose information that could weaken their power, and the less powerful may not disclose information that could be damaging to them. Change managers must be alert to the significance of emotional responses to change proposals, and we identified a number of strategies for strengthening emotional commitment to change.

LO 7.3Understand the power of language in influencing responses to change proposals.

We explored the proposition that the management of change involves the management of conversations. For the change manager, even informal conversations are powerful tools for exchanging meaning and influencing perceptions of change proposals, as well as ways of assessing responses. Choice of language in such conversations is therefore critical. That language may need to reflect the stage of the change process; we discussed different conversations for initiating, understanding, performing, and finally closing change initiatives. There is clearly a need for coherence and for shared understanding in order to avoid confusion. It is also appropriate, we argued, to align choice of language and imagery with the type of change that is proposed, once again in the interests of avoiding “mixed signals.”

LO 7.4Explain and assess appropriate strategies for communicating change.

We addressed a number of key practical questions.

Is it possible to communicate too much? Probably not, as long as information overload is avoided, and the communication process is two-way, capturing and exploring concerns and ideas as well as transmitting information.

Is it more important to get the word out, or to get buy-in? Both are important; but without buy-in, the chances of change failure are increased.

Which strategies are more effective than others? A communication strategy of “underscore and explore,” which involves a genuine dialogue with those involved, is the most effective approach. Two strategies in particular, “spray and pray” and “withhold and uphold,” are likely to be less effective because the communication is one-way, and the staff who are going to be affected have no opportunity to comment or discuss.

Who should be responsible for communicating the change? The “obvious” answer, the chief executive, may not always be the correct answer. This indeed may not be the right question, which is concerned with how to manage the conversation between those who lead the change and those who will have to implement it. The role of opinion leaders in the organization may be key, whether these are senior staff or first-line supervisors, or dedicated transition teams.

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LO 7.5Understand how successful communication processes vary with the type and stage of organizational change.

Communication should be tailored to the type of change. Widespread face-to-face communication is effective with developmental changes. However, task-focused transitions and post-crisis turnarounds may need to be driven with formal top-down communication. Charismatic transformations also require top-down communication, but with a more personalized approach, allowing dialogue. The “communication escalator” also suggests that the degree of employee involvement, and the range of communication media used, should reflect the degree of change: significant change calls for a wider range of communication and a high degree of staff involvement.

Communication and leadership style should also be tailored to the stage of the change process: at the planning stage, a combination of logical and inspirational styles; at the enabling stage, a combination of logical, inspirational, and supportive styles; at the launch stage, a combination of logical and commanding styles; at the catalyzing stage, inspirational and supportive styles; at the maintenance stage, inspirational and supportive styles. One change manager may not have all of the skills and the behavioral flexibility required, reinforcing the importance of building a capable change team.

LO 7.6Assess the utility of a range of different change communication channels, including applications of social media.

Communication media vary in terms of “information richness,” which involves handling many items of information simultaneously, rapid feedback, and personal focus. Face-to-face communications are information rich; reports and flyers are lean. Information-rich media are more appropriate when dealing with complex nonroutine issues. Lean media are more appropriate for simple routine matters. Social media based on mobile technologies are information rich, allowing two-way communication and encouraging information sharing, networking, and collaboration. Social media thus have the potential to transform organizational change communication. However, most organizations have been slow to exploit these technologies for internal communication; most applications address external audiences. Employees may be more sophisticated in their use of these new technologies in their private lives than employers with regard to organizational applications. The development of enterprise-specific networks may help to realize the potential of these technologies.

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Chapter 10

Change Management, Processual, and Contingency Approaches

Learning objectives

By the end of this chapter you should be able to:

LO 10.1Understand and identify the factors that can cause change to fail.

LO 10.2   Assess the strengths and limitations of checklists for managing change effectively.

LO 10.3   Evaluate the advantages of stage models of change management.

LO 10.4   Assess the theoretical and practical value of processual perspectives on change.

LO 10.5   Understand and apply contingency approaches to change management.

Alternative Approaches to Managing Change

The checklists, models, perspectives, and frameworks discussed in this chapter offer “technical” advice on managing change. These approaches make no mention of, or concessions to, the personal styles and preferences of different individual change managers. Let us fill this gap before we proceed.

The Director and Navigator Images of Change Management

Two of our six images of change management are particularly relevant to the approaches explored in this chapter. The director image underpins the change management approaches associated with the work of large consulting companies, and also of academics who work as change consultants in this field. Those who adopt such approaches take a strategic view, adopting a pragmatic, managerialist approach to achieving lasting organizational change. The checklists and stage models that we explore fall into this category: they suggest that change can be managed andcontrolled in a predictable manner as long as the correct steps are taken, in more or less the correct sequence. However, given the number of different sets of recipes and frameworks that are available, it is not always clear which to adopt, or the criteria on which the choice should be made.

Contingency frameworks can also be seen as consistent with the director image. Rather than claiming to have discovered “the one best approach,” however, these frameworks argue that “it depends” on a number of context factors, such as the scale and urgency of the proposed changes. But one of these contingency frameworks, the change kaleidoscope (Hope Hailey and Balogun, 2002), does not offer prescriptive advice on how to implement change in particular contexts. That framework instead highlights for the change manager the contextual issues to consider when reaching an informed judgement with regard to change implementation design options. This approach is consistent to some extent with the navigator image of change management: change can be controlled in part, but external factors (contextual enablers and constraints, competing interests) can generate emergent and unintended outcomes over which the change manager has little or no influence.

The idea of establishing the correct “fit” between implementation and organizational context is not consistent with a processual view of change. As discussed in chapter 2, process theories see changeunfolding over time in a messy and iterative way and thus rely more heavily on the image of change manager as navigator. Here, the change outcomes are shaped by a combination of factors, including the past, present, and future context in which the organization functions; the substance of the change; the implementation process; political behavior, inside and outside the organization; and the interactions between these factors. The role of the change manager is not to direct, but to identify options, accumulate resources, monitor progress, and to navigate a path through the complexity.

It is therefore important for change managers to be fully aware of, and perhaps on many occasions to put to one side, their preferred image of change management. It is also important that managers are comfortable with their actions, with regard to both personal capability and how actions are perceived to fit with the context. However, implementation design decisions should ideally be more heavily influenced by the context factors that we explore in this chapter than by personal considerations.

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LO 10.1Why Change Fails

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”

—Albert Einstein

“Trying is the first step towards failure.”

—Homer Simpson

In this chapter, we explore approaches to implementing organizational change effectively, drawing on a range of change management, processual, and contingency perspectives. First, however, we will explore why change fails. If we understand the common mistakes, perhaps we can avoid them.

Ask a group of managers to reflect on their experience and to identify what to do in order to make organizational change fail. Their response usually comes in two stages. First, they laugh. Second, they generate without difficulty a list of practical actions to guarantee that an initiative will not be successful. Table 10.1 shows the typical results of such a discussion, produced by a small group of Australian managers in 2013. This invites two conclusions. First, ensuring that change fails—should one wish to do that—is not difficult. There are many tools at one’s disposal, involving a combination of actions andinactions. Second, if we have such a good understanding of what can go wrong, then getting it right should not be difficult. Just turn the negatives around: clear vision, commitment and leadership support, honest communication, simplicity, break down the silos, highlight successes and positives, and so on. Sadly, while this approach is helpful, “getting it right” is not quite this easy.

TABLE 10.1

How to Make Change Fail

Choose the most expensive way to do it	Commitment without leadership support
Demotivate the group	Do not recognize the power of the team
Distort the vision	Divert attention and resources
Don’t buy into the process	Don’t follow the process
Highlight past failures	Highlight the negatives
Lack of honesty	No communication
Political games	Set up silos
Team up with others	Too many policies and procedures

From his research into over 100 companies (most, but not all, American), John Kotter (2007) argues that transformational changes often fail because of the mistakes that are identified in table 10.2. The fourth of those mistakes involves “undercommunicating the vision by a factor of ten” (Kotter, 2007, p. 100). In his book on the subject, Kotter (2012a) sets out the following argument:

Assume that an employee receives 2,300,000 words or numbers in corporate communications over a three-month period. A typical vision statement for an organizational change might consist of one 30-minute speech, one hour-long meeting, one 600-word article, one 2000 word memo. That adds up to around 13,400 words or numbers over three months. Do the math:

13,400 ÷ 2,300,000 = 0.0058

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Based on this calculation, information about your change initiative constitutes about half of one percent of an employee’s total quarterly exposure to corporate communications. This does not take into account the quality of the communication, the inspirational nature of the message, the enthusiasm with which it is delivered, or the motivation of staff to pay attention. Kotter thus asks, what impact is your “half percent sound bite” likely to have on the response to change?

TABLE 10.2

Why Transformation Efforts Fail

Mistakes	Nature and Remedy
No urgency	If employees don’t see the need, then they will not be motivated to change; management must create a sense of urgency
No coalition	One or two people acting on their own can’t drive big change; management must create a coalition with the expertise and the power to make it happen
No vision	Without a picture of the future that is easy to explain and understand, a change program becomes confusing; change needs a clear vision
Poor communication	Giving people an important message once is not enough; the vision must be communicated repeatedly by management, in words andactions
Obstacles not removed	Structures, design of jobs, reward and appraisal systems, and key individuals can get in the way; the obstacles must be confronted andremoved
No wins	Change takes time, and momentum can be lost without interim achievements to celebrate; management should create and reward short-term wins
Premature victory	The job is not done when improvements appear; it is a mistake to “declare victory” too soon, before the changes are embedded
No anchoring	Change that is not seen to be beneficial will decay, and the next generation of managers may not continue the work; the change must be seen to have worked, and successors must champion the changes of their predecessors

Source: Based on Kotter (2007 and 2012a).

We will meet this work again, in our section on “Stage Models of Change Management,” as Kotter turns these mistakes into a model of successful transformation. That involves careful planning, working through these issues more or less in sequence, and not missing or rushing any of them—which takes time. However, given the rapid pace of contemporary change, many organizations perhaps try to take too many shortcuts, in an attempt to put change in place quickly, and get it wrong as a result.

While it may be an oversimplification to claim that successful change just means avoiding these mistakes, they should be avoided nevertheless. It is also important to recognize that there are many of these mistakes, and that in any particular setting, several of those factors may be combining to ensure that the change program fails. Success or failure can rarely be explained with reference to only a single factor. What are the costs involved in avoiding these mistakes? Almost all of the remedies are cost-neutral, involving changes in leadership and management style, and in organizational policies andprocedures. In short, while ensuring that change will fail involves little or no cost, most of the actions required to “get it right” are also free.

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They All Say the Same Thing

Considering the findings of research into IT project failure, Richard Bacon and Christopher Hope (2014, p. 2) conclude that:

They all say roughly the same thing: if what you want keeps changing; or you can’t commit the required money; or you keep changing the person in charge; or the person at the top doesn’t care about the project or you have an unrealistic timetable; or you fail to test the system properly; or if you don’t provide enough training; or you don’t have a Plan B; or you don’t realize that the bigger the project the greater the chance of its being overtaken by events or new technology; or you don’t realize that the suppliers are quite capable of telling you that they can deliver when they can’t; then don’t be surprised if you end up with a mess that damages your organization, costs much more than it is supposed to, and doesn’t work.

LO 10.2Change by Checklist

“There is a certain relief in change even though it be from bad to worse; as I have found travelling in a stage-coach, it is often a comfort to shift one’s position and be bruised in new places.”

—Washington Irving

The landscape of practical advice for the change manager is dominated by simple checklists. These have also been described as “n-step recipes,” where “n” is the number of items on the list. This approach is open to the criticism that it oversimplifies a complex process. However simplified, it is probably accurate to claim that, in most cases, if the change manager does not follow most of the advice in these checklists, then the change program could run into trouble.

Checklist approaches to change management assume that the process is logical and linear, and can therefore be controlled by planning and then following the correct set of steps. This “rational linear”’ model of change has been widely criticized (e.g., Graetz and Smith, 2010), but it remains popular with professional bodies and management consultancies. This is probably because these checklists or recipes codify what is usually a messy and iterative process, and thus offer the busy change manager straightforward advice on what to do in order to improve the chances of success. In this section, we will consider some of these checklists, and assess the strengths and limitations of this approach.

For example, from their review of the research evidence, and recognizing the messy nature of change, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton (2006) advise change managers to focus on four issues to ensure that, once the decision to go ahead has been taken, change happens fast and is effective:

1. Create Dissatisfaction

If people are happy with the way things are, they will be more reluctant to change. A key change management task, therefore, is to make people unhappy with the status quo.

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2. Give Direction

People need to know what they are expected to do, and why. The change manager must therefore be relentless in communicating the message (as Kotter, 2012a, also advises), over and over again.

3. Have Faith

The change manager must make it clear that the benefits will be worth the time, money, and effort, balanced with discussion of the uncertainties and problems, taking new information into account.

4. Embrace the Mess

Change is an untidy business. Despite careful planning, there will always be mistakes and setbacks. This is normal. Management must learn from and fix the problems, and not focus on who is to blame.

Reducing the task to four dimensions provides reassurance that, in spite of the uncertainties and untidiness, change can be controlled and managed effectively in a more or less logical and predictable manner. Also, having to handle such a small number of issues appears to lessen the scale of the challenge that the change manager has to face. Success appears to be pretty much guaranteed.

The UK Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD, 2014) offers another example of a simple checklist, with what they call “the seven Cs of change,” which are:

1. Choosing a team: Identify key roles and responsibilities, perhaps with different people making different contributions as the change process unfolds.

2. Crafting the vision and path: Establish a flexible “road map” or process framework to guide the development of change, from vision, through planning, to implementation.

3. Connecting organization-wide change: Establish processes to recognize linkages to other initiatives, and to areas (e.g., roles, policies, facilities) that will be affected.

4. Consulting stakeholders: Anticipate the reactions, positive and negative, of the different stakeholders in the change, and plan how they will be managed.

5. Communicating: Establish regular, consistent, and targeted communications to internal and external stakeholders, making creative use of a range of existing and new channels.

6. Coping with change: Change is stressful, subjecting those involved to an emotional roller coaster, which differs in timing and significance from one person to another.

7. Capturing learning: Given the pace and scale of changes, develop the organizational capability to reorganize effectively on a regular basis.

These “seven Cs” offer more detailed advice than Pfeffer and Sutton (2006), but some of these guidelines overlap: give direction/communicating; have faith/coping with change; embrace the mess/capturing learning. This overlap is a common feature of change management checklists.

Management consulting companies often develop their own recipes, often with a memorable acronym. The DICE model developed by the Boston Consulting Group, for example, identifies four factors that determine whether a change program will “fly or die”: duration, integrity, commitment, and effort. These four factors are outlined in table 10.3 (Harold Sirkin et al., 2005).

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TABLE 10.3

DICE—Will Your Change Program Fly or Die?

DICE Factor	Meaning
Duration	The duration of time until the program is completed if it has a short life span; if not short, the amount of time between reviews or milestones
Integrity	The project team’s performance integrity; its ability to complete the initiative on time, which depends on members’ skills relative to the project’s requirements
Commitment	The commitment displayed by top management and employees who are affected
Effort	The effort required that is over and above the usual demands on employees

Change managers are advised to calculate scores for each of the DICE factors. For example, duration scores highly if the overall project timescale is short with frequent reviews, but scores badly if reviews are more than eight months apart. Integrity scores well if a skilled and motivated project team has a capable and respected leader, and scores badly if those features are absent. Are those who will be affected by the change enthusiastic and supportive (high commitment score), or are they concerned and obstructive (low score)? Does the project require a small amount of additional work (high effort score) or a lot of extra effort on top of an already heavy load (low score)? The combined scores reveal whether a project is in the win zone, the worry zone, or the woe zone. Knowing where the weaknesses are, management can develop an action plan to move the change into the win zone.

The ADKAR change model was developed by the consulting company Prosci (Jeff Hiatt, 2004 and 2006). Here, the acronym is based on five elements: awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, andreinforcement. Many commentators have observed that organizations change by changing one person at a time (e.g., McFarland and Goldsworthy, 2013). Following that premise, the focus of the ADKAR model lies with the individuals who will be involved in and affected by change. In other words, the change manager is advised to concentrate on individual awareness, individual desire, individual knowledge, individual ability, and the extent to which reinforcement is meaningful and relevant to the individual. The ADKAR elements are described in table 10.4.

As with DICE, the change manager can use ADKAR as a diagnostic and planning tool, to identify areas of potential resistance, to develop communication and staff development strategies, and to strengthen change implementation by addressing gaps and problems. Paying close attention to individual perceptions, strengths, and weaknesses is a strength of the ADKAR approach, particularly with regard to generating enthusiasm, overcoming resistance, and developing new skills. In addition, this is one of the few models that explicitly addresses the issue of sustaining change (which we will explore in chapter 11). However, ADKAR pays less attention to the nature and implications of the wider organizational context and the process of change—factors that are emphasized in other models.

Our final example of a change checklist was developed by the consulting company McKinsey, and it offers a sharp contrast to the individual focus of the ADKAR approach. From a global survey of 2,500 executives, Scott Keller and colleagues (2010) identify the tactics that make transformational change successful. They define transformational change as “any large-scale change, such as going from good to great performance, cutting costs, or turning around a crisis” (p. 1). The executives who were surveyed identified four sets of tactics that had contributed to the success of their changes: goals, structures, involvement, and leadership (table 10.5). Individual perceptions, motivations, and capabilities are only mplicit in this model, which lays the emphasis instead on leadership and management behaviors, and on organizational characteristics and processes.

TABLE 10.4

ADKAR—Five Elements Influencing Change Success

ADKAR Elements	Factors Influencing Change Success
Awareness of the need for change	Individual views of the current state and problems Credibility of those sending the awareness messages Circulation of rumors or misinformation Contestability of the reasons for change
Desire to support and participate in change	The nature and impacts of the change Perception of the context or environment for change Each individual’s personal situation Intrinsic motivators
Knowledge of how to change	The individual’s knowledge base Personal capability to absorb new knowledge Education and training resources available Access to the required information
Ability to apply new skills and behaviors	Psychological blocks and physical capabilities Intellectual capability Time available to develop the required skills Availability of resources to support skills development
Reinforcement to sustain the change	Meaningful and specific to the person affected Link with demonstrable progress No negative consequences Accountability system to continually reinforce the change

Source: Based on Hiatt, 2006, p.45.

TABLE 10.5

The McKinsey Checklist for Successful Transformational Change

Tactics	Explanation
Goals	Go for growth and progressive, developmental change, with “stretch” targets Avoid defensive transformations that are reactive and focus on cost cutting Focus on strengths and achievements, not just problems Set unambiguous measures of success and monitor progress
Structures	Logical program design Break processes down into clearly defined initiatives Allow those involved to co-create the program Clear roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities
Involvement	High levels of engagement and collaboration Frontline ownership of events Initiative to drive change also comes from the front line High levels of communication and involvement at all stages
Leadership	Personal commitment and visible involvement of the chief executive Leaders “role model” the desired changes and “mindset” Develop capacity and capability for continuous improvement Culture becomes more receptive to further innovation

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Goals: Progressive Change with “Stretch” Targets

One of the main themes from this study concerned the need to focus on strengths and achievements, and not just on problems. It was also important to have unambiguous measures of success, using “stretch targets,” with milestones and information systems to ensure that progress was constantly monitored and problems could be addressed quickly. Interestingly, they also found that progressive transformations (going for growth, improved performance, expansion) succeeded 50 percent more often than defensive transformations (reactive, cutting costs).

Structures: Logical Program

Success was linked to breaking the change process down into specific, clearly defined initiatives, with a logical program, which those who were involved were allowed to shape or to “co-create.” Almost a quarter of the successful change initiatives had used planning groups of 50 or more, compared with only 6 percent of unsuccessful change programs. Clear roles and responsibilities, so that staff felt accountable for producing results, were also important success factors.

Involvement: Ownership and Engagement

Success was also associated with high levels of employee engagement and collaboration. Changes were more likely to be successful when frontline staff felt a sense of ownership of what was happening and took the initiative to drive the changes. This meant high levels of communication and involvement at all stages of the transformation process.

Exercising Strong Leadership

Leadership capabilities are important, along with the personal commitment and visible involvement of the chief executive. Leaders should “role model” the desired changes, focusing on organization culture and developing capacity for continuous improvement. Staff gain new capabilities through the transformation process, and organization cultures become more receptive to further innovation.

Goals, structures, engagement, leadership—these are common themes in change management advice. They appear in similar ways in the other checklists that we have explored in this section, and we will meet them again when considering stage and contingency models of change. However, Keller and colleagues also found that these four sets of tactics were more powerful when they were combined. Of the organizations that used all of these tactics, 80 percent met their aims, compared with only 10 percent of those organizations that had used none of these approaches. Even with defensive transformations, the chance of success using all of these tactics was 64 percent. A survey carried out by McKinsey in 2014 found that companies adopting this comprehensive transformation approach reported a 79 percent success rate, which was three times the average (Jacquemont et al., 2015).

Checking the Checklist

How should the change manager choose between the checklists and recipes that are on offer? The length of these checklists varies; some are much longer than those we have discussed here. While the contents of these checklists are often similar, they can also highlight323different aspects of the change management process. Pfeffer and Sutton (2006) emphasize change management behaviors. The CIPD (2014) identifies implementation factors. DICE (Sirkin et al., 2005) advises the change manager to calculate scores for the change timing, team, commitment, and demands on staff. ADKAR (Hiatt, 2006) focuses on individual perceptions, motivations, and capabilities. The McKinsey model (Keller et al., 2010) indicates that success lies with leadership, management, and organizational properties.

Will Heinz Swallow the 3G Capital Recipe?

What do you think would be the elements in a checklist if one was used to introduce change in Heinz?

What in your assessment are the strengths and limitations of the 3G change checklist?

In 2013, Heinz, the iconic food company with an annual revenue of $11.6 billion, was bought for $29 billion by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and the Brazilian private equity firm 3G Capital.

The new owners wasted no time making changes. Eleven of the twelve most senior executives were replaced, 600 staff were laid off, the corporate planes were sold, individual offices were dispensed with, executives when travelling were to stay at a Holiday Inn hotel and not at the Ritz-Carlton, and much longer working hours were expected. Micromanagement limited each member of staff to 200 copies a month; printer usage was tracked. Executives were allowed only 100 business cards per year.

Many of the Heinz employees referred to “an insular management style in which only a small inner circle knows what is really going on.” One commented, “It’s a bit like God—you feel there’s a grand plan, but you aren’t sure what it is” (Reingold and Roberts, 2013, p. 189). On the other hand, 3G had a young team of mostly Brazilian executives, who moved as directed from company to company across countries and industries, loyal first and foremost to 3G, not Heinz, and driven to work hard in order to receive bonuses or stock options.

The driving force behind these changes was “the 3G way”—a philosophy that 3G had used to bring about change in previous acquisitions, such as Burger King. Efficiency was key, everything was measured, “nonstrategic costs” were slashed. In this perspective, “leanest and meanest” wins, and human capital was not seen as a key component of corporate success. Employees were assumed to be motivated by the economic returns that came from owning company shares rather than by any sense of purpose or mission.

Those likely to be affected by a 3G deal often saw a “how to” guide written by consultant Bob Fifer as a “must read,” because it had been popular with the partners at 3G (as it had been with Jack Welsh, the iconic chief executive at GE). The guide was titled “Double Your Profits: 78 Ways to Cut Costs, Increase Sales, and Dramatically Improve Your Bottom Line in 6 Months or Less.” Chapter titles included “Cut Costs First, Ask Questions Later” and “Don’t Be Afraid to Use a Shotgun.”

However, in the minds of many food industry experts, while some of 3G’s previous acquisitions would have been prime candidates for a regime of cost cutting, Heinz was not the most obvious candidate to “hack andslash.” The company had already been through several years of efficiency improvements (“slimming and trimming”), and it was already a relatively lean and efficient operation.

Summing up the situation, business journalists Jennifer Reingold and Daniel Roberts (2013, p. 186) speculated that “the experiment now under way will determine whether Heinz will become a newly invigorated embodiment of efficiency—or whether 3G will take the cult of cost cutting so far that it chokes off Heinz’s ability to innovate and make the products that have made it a market leader for almost a century and a half.” In March 2015, Heinz and the food industry giant Kraft announced a merger that would create an entity with annual revenue of $28 billion, the third largest food company in the United States and the fifth largest in the world. Annual cost savings of $1.5 billion were expected.

Sources: Reingold, J., and Roberts, D. 2013. Squeezing Heinz. Fortune, October 28:184–92.

http://fortune.com/2013/10/10/squeezing-heinz/

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One answer to “how to choose?” may simply be—does it matter? As long as advice in this form is used as a structured starting point, then the details and issues that are relevant to a specific change in a particular organization should emerge in the discussion and the planning. Another answer concerns “fit”; some models and approaches will be more appropriate than others to a particular context. This will depend on the size of the organization, the nature, scale, and urgency of the change, the problems to be solved, numbers affected, the organization’s history of change, and so on. The third answer, of course, is why choose? Why not work through several of these approaches and assess their value in application? Two or more approaches applied to the same change program may suggest similar—or widely different—implications for practice. The similarities can be reassuring. The differences may trigger further insights and investigation, and contribute to better implementation planning.

These recipes are “high-level” guides, not detailed “best practice” road maps. They can be useful in practice as long as they are used in that way (although academics complain that they are atheoretical). Unlike the recipes in your kitchen cookbook, these guidelines list the ingredients without explaining how to cook the dish. You have to “fill in the blanks” and work that out for yourself. This can be a source of frustration for change managers seeking concrete advice on “what works and what doesn’t.” Checklists just identify factors that need to be addressed; the challenge is to construct a changeimplementation process that fits the organizational context (Rod et al., 2009). That is the hard part. Change from this perspective is to some extent a technical exercise, understanding the issues to consider, but also requires a blend of local knowledge, informed judgement, and creative flair.

LO 10.3Stage Models of Change Management

Kanter’s Law: “Welcome to the miserable middles of change. Everything looks like a failure in the middle. Everyone loves inspiring beginnings and happy endings; it is just the middles that involve hard work.”

(Rosabeth Moss Kanter, 2009)

Change can be viewed, not just as a checklist of “to dos,” but as a series of stages unfolding over time, from initiation, through implementation, to conclusion. This stage approach does not necessarily disqualify the checklists and recipes. However, stage models suggest that the actions that the change manager is advised to take will vary over the implementation cycle. The steps that are necessary to initiate change are thus to be different from those that are required during the implementation stage, and different actions again are necessary to conclude and sustain the change. Stage models can thus complement the checklist approach by introducing this temporal dimension.

Probably the most famous model of this kind was developed by Kurt Lewin (1951), who argued that change has three main stages, each requiring different actions from the change agent:

Unfreezing	Changing attitudes by making people feel uncomfortable about the way things are because they could be improved, and so establishing the motive to change
Moving	Implementing the change to move to the desired new state325
Refreezing	Embedding or institutionalizing the new behaviors, to prevent people from drifting back to previous ways of doing things

It is not difficult to see how each of these three stages makes different demands on the change manager: first, convincing those involved of the need to change; second, putting the change in place; third, redesigning roles, systems, and procedures to prevent a return to past practice. With regard to “unfreezing,” Pfeffer and Sutton (2006) were referring to Lewin’s model when they argued that, if people are happy with the way things are, they will be more reluctant to change. The change manager’s first task in this perspective, therefore, is to make people unhappy. But this is a “positive dissatisfaction,” which encourages people to believe that “we can do better.”

Lewin’s second stage can invoke “Kanter’s Law” (from Rosabeth Moss Kanter, quoted earlier), which says that change often looks like a failure in the middle. This “law” was captured by David Schneider and Charles Goldwasser (1998), who plotted “the classic change curve” ( figure 10.1 ). In the middle of the curve sits the “valley of despair.” Those who are affected start to realize that this could mean loss and pain for them. Schneider and Goldwasser (1998, p. 42) argue that this is probably inevitable, but that it is useful to be aware of this and to weaken the impact if possible:

A leader of change must anticipate employees’ reactions, another key factor in the process. As shown [figure], these reactions occur along a “change curve.” The solid line represents what is, unfortunately, typical. Unrealistically high expectations at the outset of a program lead to a relatively deep “valley of despair” when change doesn’t come as quickly or easily as anticipated. Over time, employees do see a “light at the end of the tunnel” and the change eventually produces some positive results. The dashed line illustrates what is possible with effective change management: a less traumatic visit to the valley and greater results as the program reaches completion. Can you avoid the “valley of despair” altogether? Probably not. All change programs involve some loss. The best approach is to acknowledge that employees will mourn the loss of business as usual, much as people experience stages of grieving when trauma invades their personal lives.

FIGURE 10.1

The Classic Change Curve

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Most contemporary stage models of change have followed Lewin’s approach, offering more detail and using some different terms. For example, the U.S. Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) advocates a five-stage implementation framework for large-scale change ( figure 10.2 ), starting with “make the status quo uncomfortable,” followed by “execute change,” and closing with “sustain improved levels of performance” (Reinertsen et al., 2008, p. 4). Does the terminology sound familiar?

FIGURE 10.2

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement Large-Scale Change Framework

The IHI framework details the stages more comprehensively than did Lewin, with detailed advice (checklists) for “building will,” “generating ideas,” and “executing and sustaining the change.” This framework also highlights the importance of “establishing the foundation,” which involves personal preparation, building relationships and organizational change capability, getting top team commitment, and developing future leaders. The healthcare sector in all developed economies faces a range of pressures—social, demographic, medical, economic, technological, political—and is therefore not sheltered from the need for large-scale transformational change.

Probably the most widely cited and widely applied stage model of change is the one developed by John Kotter (2007 and 2012a), mentioned earlier in this chapter. Kotter’s model is summarized in  table 10.6 . This is sometimes presented as another checklist, but 327

this is a misrepresentation. Note how his eight-stage approach to transformational change opens with “create a sense of urgency” (unfreeze), passes through “empower others to act” (move), and ends with “institutionalize new approaches” (refreeze). Lewin’s echo can be heard in this model, too.

TABLE 10.6

Kotter’s Eight-Stage Model of Transformational Change

Stage	What Is Involved
1. Establish a sense of urgency	Examine market and competitive realities Identify and discuss crises and opportunities
2. Form a powerful guiding coalition	Assemble a group with power to lead the change Encourage this group to work together as a team
3. Create a vision	Create a vision to direct the change effort Develop strategies to achieve that vision
4. Communicate the vision	Communicate thoroughly the vision and strategies Have the guiding coalition model the new behaviors
5. Empower others to act on the vision	Remove obstacles to change Change systems or structures that undermine the vision Encourage risk taking and unconventional thinking
6. Plan for and create short-term wins	Plan for visible performance improvements Reward employees involved in improvements
7. Consolidate gains, produce more change	Change systems, structures, and policies that don’t fit the vision Hire and develop staff who can implement the vision Maintain momentum with new themes, projects, and change agents
8. Institutionalize new approaches	Link the new behaviors clearly with corporate success Ensure leadership development and succession

Kotter advises the change manager to work through those eight stages more or less in sequence. To rush or to miss out on any of the stages increases the chance of failure. However, Kotter also recognizes that this is an “ideal” perspective, as change is often untidy and iterative. As with the checklists, this model codifies the stages of change in a clear and easily understood manner. However, the change manager still has to combine local knowledge with creative thinking in order to translate this advice into practical actions that are appropriate to the organizational context and to the nature of the changes that are being proposed. There are many ways, for example, in which to “create a sense of urgency” or to “communicate the vision” or to “institutionalize new approaches.” As with checklists, these stage models are also “high-level” guides, rather than detailed “best practice” frameworks.

Steven Appelbaum and colleagues (2012) have reviewed the evidence relating to the effectiveness of Kotter’s transformational change model. They found support for most of the individual steps in the model. However, despite Kotter’s argument about integrating the eight stages, no studies had evaluated the framework as a whole. On the other hand,328there was no evidence to challenge the practical value of the approach, which remains popular. The authors argue that “Kotter’s change management model appears to derive its popularity more from its direct and usable format than from any scientific consensus on the results” (Appelbaum et al., 2012, p. 764). They conclude, therefore, that Kotter’s model is useful in change implementation planning but should be complemented by other tools in order to adapt the change process to local conditions.

Kotter (2012b, p. 52) subsequently revised his framework, arguing that the components identified in table 10.6 should be seen as “change accelerators,” to speed up change. The new argument has three aspects. First, Kotter argues that the accelerators must operate concurrently, rather than in sequence. Second, change must not rely on a small powerful core group, but on many change agents from across the organization. Third, traditional hierarchy must be complemented by flexible and agile networks. Kotter is not alone in advocating the use of multiple levers to pursue goals, adopting a “distributed” approach to change leadership, and strengthening organizational flexibility.

Stage models thus complement a checklist approach by highlighting the manner in which change unfolds over time, developing through different phases. As we have noted, change is likely to make different demands on the change manager—and on those who are affected by change—at each of those different stages. Although the manner in which change unfolds is rarely tidy, knowing in advance the probable sequence of events, and how that sequence may be disrupted, allows the change manager to anticipate and to prepare for potential difficulties.

Stage models are open to three critical observations. First, despite the emphasis on events unfolding over time, these models rarely refer to what has gone before the current intervention. What has happened in the past, however, with regard to previous change attempts, will influence responses to current change proposals. Consider, for example, the change management actions that may be required in order to “create a sense of urgency” in an organization that has seen many unsuccessful changes that senior management drove with a “sense of urgency,” and where top team credibility is now low. Contrast this with the organization where the opportunity or threat is clear to all staff, who, on the basis of recent experience of change, place a high degree of trust in the top team. It may thus often be helpful to extend the timeline backwards, and to identify (and if necessary to compensate for) previous events and outcomes that may influence today’s action plans.

Second, it may also be helpful to extend the timeline forwards, beyond “consolidate” and “institutionalize.” Even changes that are successful will eventually decay without appropriate maintenance. Paradoxically, successful changes can also inhibit the implementation of further innovation, which may be seen as novel, risky, and a threat to currently effective operations. The issues that arise in managing the sustainability of change are explored in chapter 11.

Finally, as with change checklists, stage models offer further “high-level” guidance, leaving change management to determine how in practice to apply that advice in a given context. There is no clear, unambiguous statement of “this is what to do.” The contingency approaches to change management explored in the section below, however, seek to advise the change manager how to adjust implementation strategy effectively to different contexts and conditions.

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Benefits Management at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust UK

Stage models tend to focus on implementation and do not always address in any detail the issues of achieving the outcomes, meeting the goals, and realizing the benefits of change. Faced with multiple pressures, Nottingham University Hospitals Trust in England (14,500 staff, £825 million revenue) launched an ambitious transformation program, based on a five-step change process. They designed this process themselves, for use by staff to implement their own project ideas within the overall program (Guyler et al., 2014). Benefits management was a key component, evolving through the different stages of the project:

Project Stage	Involves	Benefits
1. Setup and plan	Engage key stakeholders and establish scope; identify potential benefits; set up team and hub	Define project objectives; identify potential outcomes and associated benefits	Sighted
2. Discovery	Detailed analysis to establish areas requiring change; value or process mapping of current and future state; identify issues andproblems to be solved	Benefits dependency map; benefits measures	Ranged
3. Design and trial	Test future state in a real environment; assess whether trials deliver anticipated benefits	Construct benefit profiles; produce benefits realization plan	Targeted
4. Implementation and rollout	Controlled implementation and/or rollout of future state andrealization of benefits identified	Refine benefits and measures	Implemented
5. Embed and sustain	Ensure changes are sustainable; handover to operational environment	Monitor and deliver benefits	Realized

Management did not want to stifle staff enthusiasm and commitment by insisting that the benefits of a change should be specified in detail at the start. When implementing something new, the potential benefits are often unclear, which is why the model only asks that they be “sighted” then “ranged” and so on as the work develops, and the outcomes crystallize. They chose the term “trial” instead of “pilot” because the latter usually means a carefully designed project that will be made to work before being “rolled out” across other units or divisions. A “trial,” on the other hand, can be a rapidly developed, small-scale initiative, which can be abandoned, with little or no cost, and no reputational damage, if it does not work out as anticipated. This transformation program and five-stage process saved the hospital £40 million over four years and improved staff engagement and quality of care.

LO 10.4Process Perspectives on Change

Change is a process, and not an event. This is a straightforward observation and is reflected in the stage models of change management discussed in the previous section. Process perspectives, however, highlight other significant aspects of organizational change and draw the attention of the change manager to issues not covered by either checklists or stage models. While potentially making change appear to be more complex, process thinking encourages the change manager to adopt a more comprehensive approach to designing, planning, implementing, and reviewing change activities.

One of the original architects of the processual perspective, Andrew Pettigrew (1985, 1987), cautioned against looking for single causes and for simple explanations for change. Instead, he pointed to the many related factors—individual, group, organizational, social, political—that can affect the nature and outcomes of change. Pettigrew observed that change was indeed a complex and “untidy cocktail” that included rational decisions mixed with competing individual perceptions, often stimulated by visionary leadership and spiced with “power plays” to recruit support and to build coalitions behind particular ideas.

In this view, the unit of analysis is not “the change”: a new organization structure. The unit of analysis is “the process of change in context”: how a new structure will be implemented and developed in this particular organizational setting. This subtle shift in perspective has two related implications. First, this means paying attention to the flow of events and not thinking of change as either static or as neatly time-bounded with defined beginning and end points. Second, this also means paying attention to the wider context in which change is taking place and not thinking in terms of a particular location in time and geography (this new machine in this factory bay). In short, process perspectives argue that, to understand organizational change, one has to understand how the substance, context, and process interact over time to produce the outcomes.

This processual perspective has been developed further by Patrick Dawson (2003; Dawson and Andriopoulos, 2014). Dawson also makes it clear that, to understand change, we need to consider:

1. The past, present, and future context in which the organization functions, including external and internal factors.

2. The substance of the change itself, which could be new technology, process redesign, a new payment system, or changes to organization structure and culture.

3. The transition process, tasks, activities, decisions, timing, sequencing.

4. Political activity, both within and external to the organization.

5. The interactions between these factors.

This argument is summarized in  figure 10.3  (Dawson and Andriopoulos, 2014, p. 213), which emphasizes the role of the politics of change. This is a feature that the checklists and stage models that we have examined so far either do not mention, or deal with briefly (form a powerful coalition, for example). As organizations are political systems, and as change is inevitably a politicized process, Pettigrew and Dawson both argue that the change manager must be willing to intervene in the politics of the organization. In this respect, the key task is to legitimize change proposals in the face of competing ideas. The331management of change can thus be described as “the management of meaning,” which involves symbolic attempts to establish the credibility of particular definitions of problems and solutions, and to gain consent and compliance from other organization members. Part of this task, therefore, is to do with “the way you tell it,” or more accurately with “the way you sell it” to others.

FIGURE 10.3

Determinants of Organizational Change

Dawson identifies five aspects of the internal context: human resources, administrative structures, technology, product or service, and the organization’s history and culture. The organization’s history is critical. As noted earlier, it is easy to forget how past events can332shape current responses. He also identifies four key features of the substance of change: the scale, its “defining characteristics,” its perceived centrality, and the time frame of change initiatives. The substance of change affects the scale of disruption to existing structures and jobs. The transition process may be incremental and slow, or rapid. In addition, managers can draw upon evidence from the context and substance of change to marshal support and to legitimate their own proposals through political action. It is the interaction between context, substance, and political forces that shape the process of change.

From Hot Breakfasts to Strategic Change  How Did That Happen?

Process theory argues that the outcomes of change are produced by the interactions of several factors over time in a given context. What does this look like in practice? Donde Plowman and colleagues (2007) give a fascinating narrative of what they call “radical change accidentally.” They studied the turnaround of Mission Church, a failing organization in a large Southwestern U.S. city.

The organizational context was unstable. The church was faced with a potentially terminal problem. Seen as a traditional “silk stockings” church, the organization was asset rich but cash poor. Attendance andmembership were declining. There were ongoing conflicts involving a KKK plaque, the playing of jazz in the church, and whether gays and lesbians should be accepted as members. The purpose and identity of the church created further tensions, particularly with regard to including the homeless and others who were excluded. With several previous changes in leadership, there had been two pastors in three years, resulting in the controversial appointment of two co-pastors.

How did change begin? A group of youngsters who did not like the traditional church school program had the idea of providing hot breakfasts for homeless people on Sunday mornings. Some of those youngsters were not even church members; they were soon serving 500 people every Sunday. The hot breakfasts idea was never intended to produce radical change. However, Plowman and colleagues argue that small actions such as this were “amplified” by the unstable context.

What were the outcomes? Church membership recovered, involving a wider range of the local population including the homeless and minorities. Homeless individuals joined the church, sang in the choir, and served as ushers. The style of worship, formality of dress, and music changed, as did the profile of the congregation; this was no longer a “silk stockings” church. The church got city funding to provide a day center, which offered shelter to several thousand homeless and was soon serving over 20,000 meals a year. In addition to breakfasts and clinics, the church provided legal assistance, job training, laundry services, and shower facilities. The church motto changed to include “justice into action.”

Why did this happen? The “contextual configuration” that encouraged ongoing change included:

· the dissatisfied youngsters who came up with the hot breakfasts idea

· a doctor working as a volunteer offered to treat medical problems instead, and soon recruited others, leading to full-scale medical, dental, and eye clinics as part of the Sunday activity

· the removal of the KKK plaque—a major symbolic act

· leaders acting as “sense-givers,” providing meaning rather than directing changes, and choosing the language labels; “purging,” “recovering,” “reaching out to the marginalized”

· affluent members left as the church focused increasingly on the homeless, and new (less affluent) members were attracted by the message of inclusivity

The features of the organizational context encouraged a series of small changes to emerge, and amplified these into an unplanned, radical, and successful change process. There was no top-down transformation designed by senior leaders. This is a good example of a processual account of change unfolding over time, illustrating how factors at different levels of analysis interact to produce the outcomes. Plowman et al. offer the following advice for the change manager. First, be sensitive to context. Second, be prepared to be surprised; the emergence of small changes is not an orderly process. Third, view those small changes opportunistically, in terms of how they might be developed.

From their processual perspective, Dawson and Andriopoulos (2014) identify eight “general lessons” concerning change management practice.

1. There are no universal prescriptions or simple recipes for how best to manage change.

2. Change is a political process, and change leaders need be politically sensitive and astute.

3. Time, planning, and flexibility are essential in changing attitudes and behaviors and in gaining commitment for change.

4. They advocate “critical reflection,” challenging taken-for-granted assumptions—for example with regard to resistance, which may be desirable if it subverts a weak initiative.

5. It is important to learn from both positive and negative experiences.

6. Education, training, and development should be aligned with new operating procedures.

7. Communication is fundamentally important in steering processes in desired directions.

8. “Contradictions provide health food for critical reflection”: change requires constant adaptation to contextual circumstances.

Most of this advice echoes the guidance from checklists and stage models. However, where the checklists say, “do this,” process accounts advise, “be aware of this,” noting that there are no universal “best practice” recipes for change. Process perspectives differ in the emphasis placed on the role of politics in shaping change outcomes. One implication of this emphasis is that the change manager must be politically skilled, and be both willing and able to use those skills. The capabilities of the change manager are explored in  chapter 12 , where this theme will be developed further.

Processual perspectives on change thus appear to have three strengths.

1. They recognize the complexity of change, drawing attention to the interaction between many factors at different levels, shaping the nature, direction, and consequences of change.

2. They recognize change as a process with a past, a present, and a future, rather than as a static or time-bounded event or discrete series of events.

3. They highlight the political nature of organizations and change, emphasizing the importance of political skill to the change manager.

A processual/contextual perspective has three limitations:

1. Change in this perspective is in danger of being presented as overly complex and overwhelmingly confusing, and thus as unmanageable.

2. Those who are involved in the change process are sometimes portrayed as minor characters in a broad sequence of events, relegated to the role of sense-givers and interpreters controlled by social andcontextual forces, rather than as proactive “movers and shakers.”334

3. It does not lend itself readily to the identification of specific guidelines, focusing on awareness rather than prescription. Advice is thus limited to those issues to which change management should be sensitive: complexity, process, context, political influences, opportunity.

LO 10.5Contingency Approaches to Change Management

Dawson and Andriopoulos (2014) are not alone in noting that there are no universal prescriptions for how best to manage change. This has led to the development of contingency approaches, which argue that the best way to manage change depends on contextual and other factors. In this section, we will explore four contingency approaches: where to start?, the change leadership styles continuum, the Stace-Dunphy contingency matrix, and the Hope Hailey-Balogun change kaleidoscope.

Where to Start?

The problem has been diagnosed, and appropriate organizational changes have been agreed. What to do next? Where to begin? Veronica Hope Hailey and Julia Balogun (2002, p. 158) discuss this briefly in their contingency model (explained in the following pages), arguing, “Change can start from top-down, bottom-up, or some combination of the two, or as another alternative, be developed from pockets of good practice. Should change be implemented throughout the organization simultaneously, or can it be delivered gradually through pilot sites?” The change manager is thus faced with a range of options.

Adopting a novel approach to the question of where to start, Marco Gardini et al. (2011) argue that change should begin with those staff whose contributions will have the most significant impact on the aspects of performance that need to change. Identifying those “pivotal roles” is vital, but this is not always obvious. They reached this “pivotal roles” conclusion from experience with a large European retail bank. This bank, with 6,000 branches, faced increasing competition from more “customer-friendly” local banks. To deal with this threat, management developed a new organizational model, which reduced central supervision and control and gave branch managers more autonomy to tailor their marketing, promotions, and offering to their local areas. The new model was communicated quickly to all staff, andthe way in which the new roles would work was explained. Top management did this through road shows, memos, intranet articles, and by publishing the new organization charts. Everyone received the same information, and the changes were all to happen at the same time.

Reviewing progress a few months later, however, most staff had not changed their working practices. In particular, the branch managers were still using the previous structure and procedures because they were afraid of making mistakes or annoying more senior staff. The regional supervisors were meant to act as coaches to the branch managers, but many did not have coaching skills, and many branch managers did not have the skills to run their own branches and make their own decisions. Realizing that they had tried to change too much at the same time, top management decided to focus on those who could deliver the change the fastest. The regional managers, perhaps, or the branch supervisors? Neither of those groups qualified; they had no impact on daily branch activities, could therefore not affect results, and had little credibility with frontline staff. The branch335managers themselves had the greatest influence on the outcomes of the planned changes because:

· their work had direct and significant impact on the revenue stream;

· they were connected with many other groups across the organization;

· they could decide how people got things done.

In other words, the branch managers combined managerial impact with local control, but they lacked the skills and attitudes to drive change quickly. The change implementation plan was redesigned, now focusing initially on the 6,000 branch managers. The training designed specially for them began with their role in the new organizational model, and it covered commercial skills, credit and asset management capabilities, quality and customer satisfaction principles, and other skills such as managing people, communications, and conflict resolution. Only when the branch managers were ready—six months later—did the bank start to work with other staff and supervisors, with different programs designed for different roles. This time the results were much better. Eighteen months later:

· the number of products sold per branch rose by 15 percent;

· the time spent making credit decisions fell by 25 percent;

· branch relationship managers were spending 30 percent more time with customers due to the streamlined process;

· customer responses to marketing campaigns doubled, with a national survey showing a 20 percent improvement in customer satisfaction;

· knowledge sharing and mutual support increased, and the bank became more receptive to ideas from frontline staff.

Gardini et al. (2011) conclude that change is more likely to be successful if implementation has two key components. First, start with the “pivotal people,” whose work is closest to the activities that need to be improved. Second, design a comprehensive program with clear and meaningful goals, linking those in pivotal roles with the changes that the rest of the organization has to make. This question of “where to start?” is not addressed explicitly by the checklist, stage model, or processual approaches. This of course is not the only contingency affecting the appropriate mode of change implementation.

The Change Leadership Styles Continuum

One of the oldest contingency approaches addresses the question of change management style, which can range over a continuum from autocratic to democratic (Tannenbaum and Schmidt, 1958, p. 96). The cultures—or, at least, the management textbooks—of developed Western economies have endorsed more participative approaches to change management, for which evidence has long established the benefits (e.g., Coch and French, 1948). Those who are involved in the design and implementation of change are more likely to contribute to its success than those on whom change has been imposed. However, the change manager should be aware of the range of choice available with regard to style, and of the disadvantages and advantages of these ( table 10.7 ). For example, “telling” people without participation is quick and decisive (but may cause resentment, and does not capture staff ideas). On the other hand, “inviting participation” increases commitment and access to useful information

(but is time-consuming and involves a loss of management control). In a crisis where a rapid response is required, “inviting participation” can be damaging. In an organization that values the knowledge and commitment of its staff, the resentment caused by “telling” them about planned changes can also be damaging. Choice of change management style thus needs to reflect the context.

TABLE 10.7

Change Management Styles—Disadvantages and Advantages

Style	Disadvantages	Advantages
Tell	May cause resentment Does not use staff experience and ideas	Quick, decisive, unambiguous Management in full control
Tell and sell	May be seen as cosmetic, especially if consequences for staff are negative and serious	Selling can be fairly quick Management remains in control
Consult	Time-consuming Resentment if staff views are then ignored	More information, better decisions Staff commitment higher if views have influenced decisions
Invite participation	Time-consuming Logistics can be problematic Conflicts with concept of management accountability Management lose some control over outcomes	Uses all available information Should lead to better decisions Higher commitment from staff who share ownership of the decision-making process

The Stace-Dunphy Contingency Matrix

However, participative approaches to change management have also been challenged by the work of two Australian researchers, Doug Stace and Dexter Dunphy (Stace and Dunphy, 2001). Their approach begins by establishing a scale of change, from “fine-tuning” to “corporate transformation” ( table 10.8 ; see also our “Assessing Depth of Change” model,  chapter 1 ,  figure 1.1 ). They then identify four styles of change ( table 10.9 ; see also  table 10.7 ).

TABLE 10.8

Scale of Change

Fine-tuning	Refining methods, policies, and procedures, typically at the level of the division or department
Incremental adjustment	Distinct modifications to strategies, structures, and management processes, but not radical enough to be described as strategic
Modular transformation	Restructuring departments and divisions, potentially radical, but at the level of parts of the organization and not the whole
Corporate transformation	Strategic change throughout the organization, to structures, systems, procedures, mission, values, and power distribution

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TABLE 10.9

Styles of Change

Collaborative	Widespread employee participation in key decisions
Consultative	Limited involvement in setting goals relevant to areas of responsibility
Directive	The use of authority in reaching decisions about change and the future
Coercive	Senior management impose change on the organization

Plotting scale of change against style of change produces the matrix in  figure 10.4 . This identifies four strategies: participative evolution, charismatic transformation, forced evolution, and dictatorial transformation.  Figure 10.4  also advocates the use of different change management styles depending on the attributes of the context. Stace and Dunphy (2001) thus argue that participative strategies are time-consuming as they expose conflicting views that are difficult to reconcile. Where organizational survival depends on rapid and strategic change, dictatorial transformation is appropriate:

Perhaps the toughest organizational change program in Australia in recent years has been the restructure of the New South Wales Police Force. The person leading that restructure and playing a classic Commander role is Police Commissioner Peter Ryan. Ryan was appointed from the United Kingdom to stamp out corruption in the force and modernize it. In his own words, he initially adopted a management style that was “firm, hard andautocratic, and it had to be that because that is what the organization understood.” (Stace and Dunphy, 2001, p. 185)

Once again, we have a contingency perspective that argues that, while collaborative-consultative modes will work well under some conditions, there are circumstances where directive-coercive modes of change management are likely to be more appropriate and effective. In particular, where major changes are necessary for survival, where time is short, and where those affected cannot agree on the changes, then dictatorial transformation may be the necessary choice of style. Inviting participation under those conditions would take time and would be unlikely to produce any agreement.

FIGURE 10.4

The Stace-Dunphy Contingency Approach to Change Implementation

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The Hope Hailey-Balogun Change Kaleidoscope

Veronica Hope Hailey and Julia Balogun (2002; Balogun, 2006) also advocate a context-sensitive approach to the design and implementation of change. Their framework identifies the characteristics of the organizational context that should be taken into consideration when making change implementation design choices. They describe this framework as “the changekaleidoscope,” shown in  figure 10.5  (based on Hope Hailey and Balogun, 2002, p. 156).

FIGURE 10.5

The Change Kaleidoscope

The argument that change implementation should reflect the organizational context is not a novel one, but Hope Hailey and Balogun argue that other contingency models focus on too narrow a range of factors such as type of change, time frame, the power of the change manager, and the degree of organizational support for change. The eight context factors in the change kaleidoscope are:

Time	Depending on urgency, what is the necessary speed of the change?
Scope	How narrow or broad is the scope of the change agenda?
Preservation	Is there a need to maintain a degree of continuity on some dimensions, in some areas?
Diversity	Are the attitudes and values of those affected similar, or are there diverse subcultures?339
Capability	Do the individuals involved have the necessary skills and knowledge?
Capacity	Does the organization have the resources to implement more change?
Readiness	What is the degree of acceptance of or resistance to change?
Power	What is the power of the change manager relative to other stakeholders?

These eight context factors can be either constraints (e.g., shortage of time, low capability) or enablers (e.g., broad agreement on need for change, powerful change manager). The point is that the design of the change implementation process should be influenced by the nature of those context factors. Hope Hailey and Balogun (2002, p. 161) identify the six design options summarized in table 10.10.

TABLE 10.10

Change Kaleidoscope Implementation Options

Design Options	Meaning
Type	The scope and speed of the proposed change
Start point	Top-down, bottom-up, a combination, or pilot sites and pockets of good practice
Style	From coercive to collaborative, varied by staff group and phase of change
Target	Focus on changing outputs, behaviors, attitudes, and values
Interventions	Levers and mechanisms: technical, political, cultural, education, communication
Roles	Responsibility for implementing: leadership, change teams, external facilitation

As well as offering a diagnostic approach to understanding context, and identifying the range of options, Hope Hailey and Balogun (2002, p. 154) also argue that the kaleidoscope “encourages an awareness of one’s own preferences about change and how this limits the options considered.” In other words, the change manager who adopts a director image may use the kaleidoscope in a manner quite different from the manager adopting the navigator image.

The aim of this framework, therefore, is to trigger a questioning approach to the context and an informed approach to choosing design options. There is no mechanistic way to “read” a particular configuration of design choices from the results of an analysis of the context. As with all of the approaches in this chapter, the change manager’s local knowledge and informed judgement are key to choosing the contextually appropriate change design from the wide range of options available, as Hope Hailey and Balogun (2002, p. 163) explain:

Understanding the contextual constraints and enablers is key to understanding the type of change an organization is able to undertake as opposed to the type of change it needs to undertake, and therefore what sort of changepath is required. Similarly, understanding the contextual constraints and enablers is central to making choices about startpoint and style. More participative change approaches require greater skills in facilitation, a greater readiness340for change from those participating, more time, and therefore, often, more funds. Choices about the change target and interventions may obviously be affected by the scope of change, but also by, for example, capacity. Management development interventions can be expensive and may not be accessible to organizations with limited funds. In reality choosing the right options is about asking the right questions and exercising changejudgement.

The argument that “the best approach” depends on context is an appealing one. Contingency approaches, however, are not beyond criticism. First, the idea of “fitting” change implementation to a particular type of change in a given context may be easier to explain in theory than to put into practice. As the change kaleidoscope implies, the change manager needs considerable depth and breadth of understanding of the change context in order to make informed judgements. Second, contingency approaches are more ambiguous and difficult to explain than the simpler “off the shelf” competition from checklists and stage models. Third, contingency approaches require a degree of behavioral flexibility, especially with regard to style, with which some senior managers may be uncomfortable if they lack the necessary capabilities. Fourth, if managers adopt different approaches at different times and in different conditions, will this weaken their credibility with staff? Finally, is everything contingent? Are there no “universals” when it comes to organizational change?

EXERCISE 10.1

Develop Your Own Change Model

LO 10.1–10.5

In this chapter, we have explored five change checklists, four stage models of implementation, the processual approach to change, and four contingency frameworks. These approaches are similar in some respects and different in others. Can they be combined? Try the following experiment:

1. Bring the advice from these different models into a single list, omitting the overlaps.

2. Reflecting on your own experience and knowledge of organizational change, consider what issues and steps are missing from these guidelines; add these to your master list. Now create your own composite change management model; if possible, do this as a group activity.

3. Can you prioritize this advice? What items are more important, and which are less important? Taking a contingency approach, in which organizational contexts do particular items become more or less significant?

4. Can you identify a preferred sequence of change implementation steps? And can you explain and justify this recommendation?

5. Looking at your composite change management model, identify three management skills associated with each of the elements. Use this as the basis of a personal assessment; what are your strongest and your weakest change management skills?

6. Looking at the elements in your composite change management model, and reflecting on your own experience of organizational change, which elements are usually handled well, andwhich are often handled badly? Why do you think this is this the case?

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EXERCISE 10.2

The British Airways Swipe Card Debacle

LO 10.3–10.5

As you read this case, consider the following questions:

1. With reference to John Kotter’s eight-stage model of change, what mistakes did BA make in this instance, and what aspects of the change management process did they handle well?

2. How can the union’s response to the introduction of swipe cards for check-in staff be explained from a processual perspective? If those who were managing this change had adopted a processual perspective, what particular issues would have appeared to be more important, and how would they have addressed those issues?

3. Choose one of the contingency frameworks that was introduced in this chapter and carry out a similar assessment. Which aspects of the organizational context of this change were addressed in an appropriate and effective manner? Which context factors were overlooked?

4. In your judgement, is there any one change management approach, or combination of approaches, that provides the best understanding of the swipe card debacle? Why?

5. You are a change management consultant hired to advise BA top management on how to avoid a situation like this happening in the future. What advice will you offer, and on which changeimplementation perspectives will your advice be based?

The Strike

On Friday, July 18, 2003, British Airways (BA) staff in Terminals 1 and 4 at London’s busy Heathrow Airport held a 24-hour wildcat strike. The strike was not officially sanctioned by the trade unions but was a spontaneous action by over 250 check-in staff who walked out at 4 pm. The strike occurred at the start of a peak holiday season weekend, which led to chaotic scenes at Heathrow. Around 60 departing flights were grounded, and over 10,000 passengers were left stranded. The situation was heralded as the worst industrial situation BA had faced since 1997 when a strike was called by its cabin crew. BA’s response was to cancel its services from both terminals, apologize for the disruption, and ask those who were due to fly not to go to the airport as they would be unable to service them. BA also set up a tent outside Heathrow to provide refreshments, and police were called in to manage the crowd. BA was criticized by many American visitors, who were trying to fly back to the United States, for not providing them with sufficient information about what was going on. Staff returned to work on Saturday evening, but the effects of the strike flowed on through the weekend. On Monday, July 21, BA reported that Heathrow was still extremely busy. Their news release said: “There is still a large backlog of more than 1,000 passengers from services cancelled over the weekend. We are doing everything we can to get these passengers away in the next couple of days.”

As a result of the strike, BA lost around £40 million and its reputation was severely dented. The strike also came at a time when BA was still recovering from other environmental jolts such as 9/11, the Iraq war, the SARS outbreak, and attacks on its markets from budget airlines. Afterwards, BA revealed that it lost over 100,000 customers as a result of the dispute.

The Swipe Cards

BA staff were protesting about the introduction of a system for electronic clocking-in that would record when they started and finished work for the day. Staff were concerned that the system would enable managers to manipulate their working patterns and shift hours.342

The clocking-in system was one small part of a broader restructuring called the Future Size and Shape recovery program. Over the previous two years, this had led to approximately 13,000 (almost one in four) jobs being cut within the airline. As The Economist (2003) noted, the side effects of these cuts were emerging, with delayed departures resulting from a shortage of ground staff at Gatwick and “a high rate of sickness causing the airline to hire in aircraft and crew to fill gaps. Rising absenteeism is a sure sign of stress in an organization that is contracting.”

For BA management, introduction of the swipe card system was a way of modernizing BA and “improving the efficient use of staff and resources.” As one BA official said, “We needed to simplify things and bring in the best system to manage people” (Tran, 2003). Staff, however, saw this as a way to radically change their working hours, cut their pay, and demand that they work split shifts. One check-in worker said, “This used to be a job which we loved but we are now at the end of our tether. What comes next? They will probably force us to swap shifts without agreement and all this for less money than working at Tesco” [a supermarket] (Jones, 2003).

One commentator argued that “the heart of the issue is that the workforce wants respect”; it was not until the strike that CEO Rod Eddington was aware that “there was a respect deficit to be plugged.” Specifically, staff were concerned that “BA will try to turn them into automata, leaving Heathrow at quiet times of the day only to be brought back at the busiest moments, while not paying any extra for the disturbance. Women, in particular, want to preserve their carefully constructed capacity to balance the demands of work and home” (Hutton, 2003). Although BA denied that the system would be used to make staff change their hours without notice, staff did not accept this promise—wondering why the system was being introduced if that was not the intended use. A union official said, “We know that BA breaks its agreements” (Webster, 2003). Another worker said that the strike was meant to be a “short, sharp shock” for BA: “They would then be able to bring us in any time they wanted, which is just not on, especially for those of us with families” (McGreevy and Johnston, 2003).

The Change Process

Unions argued that the walkout was triggered when BA senior management abandoned talks over the introduction of swipe cards and announced that they would be imposed with five days’ notice. This unilateral decision by BA, and the lack of consultation with affected staff, were cited as the key reasons for the strike. Even BA’s pilots, who did not oppose a check-in system, were said to be sympathetic with the check-in staff, as they also felt that the implementation of the swipe cards had been mishandled by the airline. One commentator described the change process as a “commercial disaster,” which served as “an important warning about the dangers of management by diktat, certainly, but, more profoundly, about an incipient revolt against the close control and monitoring of our lives and movements that modern information technology enables” (Hutton, 2003).

The Economist newspaper argued that it was a mistake to introduce new working practices at the beginning of the summer quarter—when the airline generates most of its revenue. Similarly, The Times (2003) also said that this was a major management blunder: “To pick July, the start of the peak holiday season, to launch an unpopular new clock-in system, is asking for trouble. To push through a scheme without realizing the extent of the resistance by those involved suggests a management aloof from the mood of its employees. And to allow managers to give contradictory statements on the use of the new cards seems guaranteed to foment mistrust.”

343

As Hutton (2003) argued, with 20,000 other BA workers using the swipe card system, “Imposing them after months of inconclusive talks must have seemed—especially given the pressure to contain costs, with the airline set to report its worst ever quarterly loss of £60 million this week—a risk worth taking. It was a massive miscalculation of the workforce’s mood.” This miscalculation was related to staff cynicism and bitterness about the redundancy program that had been conducted, staff fears of a lack of consultation, poor pay rates, and dissatisfaction with management, who would have considerable knowledge on which to act in the future. The Guardian (2003) echoed this viewpoint, noting that “the trigger was undoubtedly the back-handed way BA management at Heathrow tried to force the introduction of swipe cards at exactly the wrong time, when the peak of the summer boom was approaching. They should have known how important it was to approach any potential changes in the working patterns of women juggling with childcare schedules in a very sensitive way.”

Rod Eddington, chief executive of BA, acknowledged that it was wrong of senior management to introduce the new clock-in system in the way they did. On BBC Radio, presented with the claim that BA was guilty of “bad management” and “crass stupidity” for not predicting the level of anger to the swipe card, he replied, “With the gift of hindsight, it’s difficult to disagree with you” (Clark, 2003).

The Resolution

As a result of the walkout, BA’s news release on Tuesday, July 22, said that it would hold talks with representatives from three unions: Amicus MSF, Transport and General Workers Union, andGMB. The introduction of the swipe cards would be delayed until Wednesday, July 23. Following further talks, BA finally announced on July 30 that they had reached agreement with the unions to delay making the swipe card system operational until September 1. They also agreed to a 3 percent pay rise for administrative staff for 2003, not on the basis of introducing the swipe card system, but based on being “confident that the remaining Future Size and Shape cost efficiencies will be delivered.”

As one person observed: “You have to ask, how important was this scheme to the future operation of BA in the first place? How much money was it going to save and wouldn’t it be better to wait a few months for discussion to reassure the staff they are not going to get turned over?” (Behar, 2003).

EXERCISE 10.3

The Italian Job

LO 10.5

As you read this case account, consider the following questions:

1. Refer to the change kaleidoscope, and identify the contextual constraints and enablers affecting the changes that Erick Thohir and his management team want to implement.

2. Based on your analysis of the context, what advice can you give to Erick Thohir and his team about the change implementation design options that they should consider?

3. Also based on your context analysis, what major mistakes would you advise them to avoid when implementing their proposed changes?

The Background

The Indonesian business tycoon Erick Thohir acquired a 70 percent share in the famous Italian football club Inter Milan in 2013. The previous owner of Inter Milan, Massimo Moratti, retained the remaining share. Thohir thus became the first Indonesian businessman to buy a leading European team, and only the second foreign owner of a top Italian344club. A sports fan, Thohir had previously set up the Indonesian basketball association, but then he became interested in U.S. sports, which are much more business-oriented. He invested in the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team in 2011, and in the Washington major league soccer team, D.C. United, in 2012.

The Problem

In 2013, Inter Milan had an estimated enterprise value of around €375 million but was heavily in debt. Inter Milan had won five Italian championships between 2006 and 2010, and also won the Champions’ League in 2010. Since then, however, the team’s performance had been poor, finishing only fifth in Italy’s premier league (known as Serie A) between 2011 and 2013. The team’s fans were disappointed. The club culture was heavily “Italo-centric,” using Italian players and management. Italy’s “hardcore” football fans—the “ultras”—had a reputation for xenophobia, racism, and violence.

In 2013, with €169 million in revenues, the club dropped to fifteenth in the Football Money League produced by the accounting group Deloitte. The Serie A league had a reputation for being corrupt and inward-looking, and it was only now opening up to overseas investment. Few clubs made significant profits, and ageing stadiums were not suitable for families and corporate hospitality. Inter Milan was one of six teams under investigation by the governing body, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), for breaching “financial fair play” rules.

The Solution

As the new owner, Thohir wanted to develop a different approach to running the club:

Football is changing. I want to use the US model, where sport is like the media business, with income from advertising and content, mixed with the consumer goods industry, selling jerseys andlicensed products.

Thohir’s goal was to turn Inter Milan into one of the world’s 10 biggest revenue-generating clubs. However, he had to change the club’s organization culture, as well as fixing the finances. He decided to recruit British and American executives with experience in media as well as sport. Michael Bolingbroke, previously chief operating officer at Manchester United (one of the most profitable football clubs in the world), was appointed as chief executive. Thohir recruited a marketing director from Apple iTunes, a head of global partnership from the U.S. sports andentertainment group AEG, and a chief financial officer from D.C. United.

Inter Milan had 280 million fans around the world, 60 percent of whom were in Asia, with 18 million in Indonesia alone. Thohir and his new management team, therefore, wanted to focus on Asia, where Inter Milan was not as popular with middle-class football fans as Manchester United, Liverpool, and Real Madrid. Thohir saw growing opportunities in Asia to develop the Inter Milan brand, increase merchandise sales, sign country-based sponsorship deals, and generate more revenue from close-season tours. When he recruited Nemanja Vidic’ from Manchester United in 2014, Inter Milan fans asked what this ageing defender could do for their club. The answer was that Vidic’ was “a good brand for the Asian market.” The management team asked, “Will this player help us compete on the field, and what about on the marketing side?” Considering the pressure from fans and the Italian sporting media, Thohir commented, “When you’re standing on top of the hill, the wind blows hard.”

Sources: Bland, B. 2014. The Italian job: Erick Thohir, Inter Milan. The Financial Times, October 5.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6e2769c0-4970-11e4-9d7e-00144feab7de.html#axzz3FRxv4AFC .

This case was written in mid-2014, as this edition of our book was being developed. Check the further success of Thohir’s change strategy on Inter Milan’s website:  http://www.inter.it/en/hp .

Additional Reading

Dawson, P., and Andriopoulos, C. 2014. Managing change, creativity and innovation. London: Sage Publications. Comprehensive and clearly explained account of a processual perspective on change andinnovation, theoretical and practical.

Hamel, G., and Zanini, M. 2014. Build a change platform, not a change program. London: McKinsey & Company. Argue that the leader’s role is not to design a change program, but to build a changeplatform, by allowing anyone in the organization to set priorities, diagnose barriers, suggest solutions, recruit support, and initiate change. The executive role is less change agent and more “change enabler in chief,” creating the environment in which deep change addressing pressing issues can happen anywhere, at any time.

Ji, Y.-Y., Gutherie, J. P., and Messersmith, J. G. 2014. The tortoise and the hare: The impact of employee instability on firm performance. Human Resource Management Journal 24(4):355–73. Studied 4,900 U.S. organizations in 18 industries. Some organizations (“hares”) respond rapidly to changing conditions. Others (“tortoises”) focus on consistency and make smaller adjustments. Found that employment instability was disruptive, and lowered performance. But also found that while very high instability was damaging, so was very low instability; highly stable organizations can be too rigid andinflexible. Advise a “slow and steady” approach, changing in response to external conditions, retaining talented employees. Organizations that react too quickly damage their competitiveness.

Kotter, J. P. 2012b. Accelerate! Harvard Business Review 90(11):44–52. Explains how to drive strategic, transformational change without disrupting daily operations. This is a development of Kotter’s original eight-stage model of transformational change.

Pustkowski, R., Scott, J., and Tesvic, J. 2014. Why implementation matters. Sydney: McKinsey & Company. Identifies seven core change implementation capabilities from an executive survey: organization-wide ownership, focus on priorities, clear accountability, program management, early planning for sustainability, continuous improvement, and sufficient resources. Describes implementation as an individual discipline that can be developed.

Roundup

Here is a short summary of the key points that we would like you to take from this chapter, in relation to each of the learning outcomes:

LO 10.1 Understand and identify the factors that can cause change to fail.

Making change fail is relatively easy; there are many things that one can do, and not do, to achieve that result. John Kotter identifies eight main failure factors: lack of urgency, no supportive coalition, no vision, poor communication, obstacles to change not removed, no “wins” or achievements to celebrate, declaring victory too soon, and not anchoring or embedding the changes. Lack of communication is a particularly significant cause of change failure.

LO 10.2 Assess the strengths and limitations of checklists for managing change effectively.

We introduced five checklists or “recipes” for managing change:

 

• The big four	(Pfeffer and Sutton, 2006)
• The seven Cs of change	(CIPD, 2014)
• DICE	(Sirkin et al., 2005)
• ADKAR	(Hiatt, 2006)
• Successful transformational change	(Keller et al., 2010)

 

346

Reflections for the Practicing Change Manager

· Do you work with a “one size fits all” approach to change management? To what extent do you adapt your approach to the scale and timing of the change, staff readiness, your own relative power, and other context features identified in this chapter?

· How capable are you in adopting more than one change image? Are you more comfortable with a top-down or a bottom-up approach—or somewhere in between? Do you need to develop any particular skills to achieve greater flexibility (assuming you believe that flexibility will give you an advantage)?

· Is there a dominant change approach in your organization? If so, how appropriate is it? What would you need to do in order to modify or replace that dominant approach?

· How do you handle the many different change initiatives that are unfolding in your organization or business unit at a given time—when these are all at different stages? Is this a problem? If not, why not? If it is, what is your preferred solution? If possible, share and discuss your responses to this question and the others in this “reflection” with colleagues.

One strength of these approaches is that they provide clarity and simplicity in an area that can be complex and untidy. Another strength is that different checklists tend to offer much the same advice, which is reassuring. One limitation is that these checklists tend to lack any theoretical underpinning, relying often on an argument that sounds like, “This worked for us, so it should work for you.” From a practitioner perspective, another limitation is that these are generic “high-level guides,” and not detailed “best practice” road maps. The change manager is left with the often challenging task of translating this general guidance into a detailed change implementation plan that will fit the organizational circumstances. These checklists do not substitute for local knowledge, informed judgement, and creativity.

We discussed the question concerning when to use each of these checklists. As they tend to offer broadly similar advice, it may not matter. However, some of these checklists appear to apply to relatively straightforward, well-bounded changes, while the McKinsey model applies to large-scale transformational changes. The more appropriate question, we argued, is how to use these checklists. They should be seen as high-level guides and not detailed road maps, and will be helpful as long as they are not used in a tightly prescriptive manner, but to trigger discussion, diagnosis, and planning. These comments concerning when and how to use change management guidelines apply to all of the models and frameworks in this chapter.

LO 10.3 Evaluate the advantages of stage models of change management.

We introduced four stage models of change management:

 

• Unfreeze, move, refreeze	(Lewin, 1951)
• The IHI large-scale change framework	(Reinertsen et al., 2008)
• Kotter’s eight-stage model	(Kotter, 2012a)
• Nottingham Hospitals’ five-step process	(Guyler et al., 2014)

 

347

Stage models complement a checklist approach by emphasizing how change unfolds and develops over time, making changing demands on the change manager, and on those who are affected, at each stage. Although change rarely develops in a neat and tidy manner, approaching the process in this way encourages the change manager to anticipate and to prepare for possible future problems. It may also be helpful to consider a more extended timeline, considering how past events could influence current proposals, and how changes will be sustained, and eventually decay, into the future.

LO 10.4 Assess the theoretical and practical value of processual perspectives on change.

A process perspective argues that the outcomes of change are shaped by the combination and interaction of a number of factors over time in a given context. Those factors include the context and substance of the change, the implementation process, and also the internal and external organizational politics. One strength of the process perspective is that it recognizes and emphasizes the role of organizational politics, which is often overlooked or regarded as marginal by other approaches. The practical advice flowing from this perspective is broadly similar to that provided by checklists and stage models: plan, train, communicate, learn from mistakes, adapt to circumstances. However, where some practical change management advice recommends “do this,” the process perspective advocates “be aware of this,” leaving the change manager with the task of reaching informed judgements with regard to appropriate action.

Process perspectives highlight the complexity and politicized nature of change, and view change as a process with a past, present, and future, rather than as a static or time-bounded event. However, there are dangers in this perspective, in presenting change as overly complex and unmanageable, in placing the focus on context at the expense of individual and team contributions, and in the focus on awareness rather than clear direction.

LO 10.5 Understand and apply contingency approaches to change management.

We presented four contingency approaches:

 

Additional Reading

Dawson, P., and Andriopoulos, C. 2014. Managing change, creativity and innovation. London: Sage Publications. Comprehensive and clearly explained account of a processual perspective on change and innovation, theoretical and practical.

Hamel, G., and Zanini, M. 2014. Build a change platform, not a change program. London: McKinsey & Company. Argue that the leader’s role is not to design a change program, but to build a change platform, by allowing anyone in the organization to set priorities, diagnose barriers, suggest solutions, recruit support, and initiate change. The executive role is less change agent and more “change enabler in chief,” creating the environment in which deep change addressing pressing issues can happen anywhere, at any time.

Ji, Y.-Y., Gutherie, J. P., and Messersmith, J. G. 2014. The tortoise and the hare: The impact of employee instability on firm performance. Human Resource Management Journal 24(4):355–73. Studied 4,900 U.S. organizations in 18 industries. Some organizations (“hares”) respond rapidly to changing conditions. Others (“tortoises”) focus on consistency and make smaller adjustments. Found that employment instability was disruptive, and lowered performance. But also found that while very high instability was damaging, so was very low instability; highly stable organizations can be too rigid and inflexible. Advise a “slow and steady” approach, changing in response to external conditions, retaining talented employees. Organizations that react too quickly damage their competitiveness.

Kotter, J. P. 2012b. Accelerate! Harvard Business Review 90(11):44–52. Explains how to drive strategic, transformational change without disrupting daily operations. This is a development of Kotter’s original eight-stage model of transformational change.

Pustkowski, R., Scott, J., and Tesvic, J. 2014. Why implementation matters. Sydney: McKinsey & Company. Identifies seven core change implementation capabilities from an executive survey: organization-wide ownership, focus on priorities, clear accountability, program management, early planning for sustainability, continuous improvement, and sufficient resources. Describes implementation as an individual discipline that can be developed.

Roundup

Here is a short summary of the key points that we would like you to take from this chapter, in relation to each of the learning outcomes:

LO 10.1Understand and identify the factors that can cause change to fail.

Making change fail is relatively easy; there are many things that one can do, and not do, to achieve that result. John Kotter identifies eight main failure factors: lack of urgency, no supportive coalition, no vision, poor communication, obstacles to change not removed, no “wins” or achievements to celebrate, declaring victory too soon, and not anchoring or embedding the changes. Lack of communication is a particularly significant cause of change failure.

LO 10.2Assess the strengths and limitations of checklists for managing change effectively.

We introduced five checklists or “recipes” for managing change:

• The big four

(Pfeffer and Sutton, 2006)

• The seven Cs of change

(CIPD, 2014)

• DICE

(Sirkin et al., 2005)

• ADKAR

(Hiatt, 2006)

• Successful transformational change

(Keller et al., 2010)

346

Reflections for the Practicing Change Manager

Do you work with a “one size fits all” approach to change management? To what extent do you adapt your approach to the scale and timing of the change, staff readiness, your own relative power, and other context features identified in this chapter?

How capable are you in adopting more than one change image? Are you more comfortable with a top-down or a bottom-up approach—or somewhere in between? Do you need to develop any particular skills to achieve greater flexibility (assuming you believe that flexibility will give you an advantage)?

Is there a dominant change approach in your organization? If so, how appropriate is it? What would you need to do in order to modify or replace that dominant approach?

How do you handle the many different change initiatives that are unfolding in your organization or business unit at a given time—when these are all at different stages? Is this a problem? If not, why not? If it is, what is your preferred solution? If possible, share and discuss your responses to this question and the others in this “reflection” with colleagues.

One strength of these approaches is that they provide clarity and simplicity in an area that can be complex and untidy. Another strength is that different checklists tend to offer much the same advice, which is reassuring. One limitation is that these checklists tend to lack any theoretical underpinning, relying often on an argument that sounds like, “This worked for us, so it should work for you.” From a practitioner perspective, another limitation is that these are generic “high-level guides,” and not detailed “best practice” road maps. The change manager is left with the often challenging task of translating this general guidance into a detailed change implementation plan that will fit the organizational circumstances. These checklists do not substitute for local knowledge, informed judgement, and creativity.

We discussed the question concerning when to use each of these checklists. As they tend to offer broadly similar advice, it may not matter. However, some of these checklists appear to apply to relatively straightforward, well-bounded changes, while the McKinsey model applies to large-scale transformational changes. The more appropriate question, we argued, is how to use these checklists. They should be seen as high-level guides and not detailed road maps, and will be helpful as long as they are not used in a tightly prescriptive manner, but to trigger discussion, diagnosis, and planning. These comments concerning when and how to use change management guidelines apply to all of the models and frameworks in this chapter.

LO 10.3Evaluate the advantages of stage models of change management.

We introduced four stage models of change management:

• Unfreeze, move, refreeze

(Lewin, 1951)

• The IHI large-scale change framework

(Reinertsen et al., 2008)

• Kotter’s eight-stage model

(Kotter, 2012a)

• Nottingham Hospitals’ five-step process

(Guyler et al., 2014)

347

Stage models complement a checklist approach by emphasizing how change unfolds and develops over time, making changing demands on the change manager, and on those who are affected, at each stage. Although change rarely develops in a neat and tidy manner, approaching the process in this way encourages the change manager to anticipate and to prepare for possible future problems. It may also be helpful to consider a more extended timeline, considering how past events could influence current proposals, and how changes will be sustained, and eventually decay, into the future.

LO 10.4Assess the theoretical and practical value of processual perspectives on change.

A process perspective argues that the outcomes of change are shaped by the combination and interaction of a number of factors over time in a given context. Those factors include the context and substance of the change, the implementation process, and also the internal and external organizational politics. One strength of the process perspective is that it recognizes and emphasizes the role of organizational politics, which is often overlooked or regarded as marginal by other approaches. The practical advice flowing from this perspective is broadly similar to that provided by checklists and stage models: plan, train, communicate, learn from mistakes, adapt to circumstances. However, where some practical change management advice recommends “do this,” the process perspective advocates “be aware of this,” leaving the change manager with the task of reaching informed judgements with regard to appropriate action.

Process perspectives highlight the complexity and politicized nature of change, and view change as a process with a past, present, and future, rather than as a static or time-bounded event. However, there are dangers in this perspective, in presenting change as overly complex and unmanageable, in placing the focus on context at the expense of individual and team contributions, and in the focus on awareness rather than clear direction.

LO 10.5Understand and apply contingency approaches to change management.

We presented four contingency approaches:

• Where to start?

(Gardini et al., 2011)

• The change leadership styles continuum

(Tannenbaum and Schmidt, 1958)

• The Stace-Dunphy contingency matrix

(Stace and Dunphy, 2001)

• The change kaleidoscope

(Hope Hailey and Balogun, 2002)

Contingency approaches argue that change implementation should take into account the attributes of the organizational context concerned. However, these approaches differ with regard to the contingencies—the key factors—that the change manager needs to consider. For example, “where to start?” argues that change should begin with the “pivotal roles,” where changes will have the biggest impact on the behavior and performance that is of concern. Those “pivotal roles” will vary from one change initiative to another. The styles continuum suggests choosing a change leadership style based on considerations of available time, use of available expertise, and staff commitment. A dictatorial approach to management in general, and to change management in particular, probably runs counter to most management beliefs. However, the Stace-Dunphy contingency framework suggests that, where change is vital, time is short, and consensus is unlikely, a dictatorial approach is more likely to be effective. The most elaborate of these models, the change kaleidoscope, identifies eight sets of organizational contextContingency approaches argue that change implementation should take into account the attributes of the organizational context concerned. However, these approaches differ with regard to the contingencies—the key factors—that the change manager needs to consider. For example, “where to start?” argues that change should begin with the “pivotal roles,” where changes will have the biggest impact on the behavior and performance that is of concern. Those “pivotal roles” will vary from one change initiative to another. The styles continuum suggests choosing a change leadership style based on considerations of available time, use of available expertise, and staff commitment. A dictatorial approach to management in general, and to change management in particular, probably runs counter to most management beliefs. However, the Stace-Dunphy contingency framework suggests that, where change is vital, time is short, and consensus is unlikely, a dictatorial approach is more likely to be effective. The most elaborate of these models, the change kaleidoscope, identifies eight sets of organizational context

factors and six sets of change implementation design options. The design options, this approach argues, need to reflect the context diagnosis.

It may seem obvious to argue that “the best approach” depends on the context. However, this idea of “fitting” change to the setting is easier to explain in theory than to put into practice. A detailed diagnosis of the context takes time and requires considerable local knowledge and insight. A contingency approach also demands flexibility in style from change leaders and managers, who may in some instances be required to move out of their “comfort zones,” and inconsistent behavior may weaken management credibility. Our two final questions are: is everything contingent in this area, and are there no universals in organizational change?

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