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Chapter Six

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

Key Terms

Advisory committees Innovation

Balance of power Internal change

Beat meetings Job redesign

Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) Learning organization

Change strategies MBWA

Experimental Police District (EPD) Organizational change

External change Quality leadership

Group norms Research and development (R&D)

Inertia WHAM

Chapter Outline

I. Organizational Change

a. Resistance to Change

b. Overcoming Resistance to Change

II. The Madison Experience

a. Laying the Foundation

b. Key Elements to Change

c. Results From Madison

III. The Chicago Experience

a. Laying the Foundation

b. Key Elements to Change

c. Results from Chicago

d. Lessons Learned From Madison and Chicago

IV. Police Job Redesign

V. Changing Performance Evaluation Criteria

VI. Innovation

a. Compstat as a Change Process

b. Learning Organizations and R&D

c. Police-Researcher Partnerships

VII. Summary

VIII. Critical Thinking Questions

IX. References

Lecture Outline

I. Organizational Change

a. Occurs when an organization adopts new ideas or behaviors

b. Resistance to change

i. Inertia

1. doing things as they have always been done

ii. Misunderstandings

1. officers do not clearly understand the purpose, techniques, or consequences of a planned change

2. not clearly articulating what new roles will be created and the effect of those new roles on all involved

iii. Group norms

1. expected behavior from group members

iv. Balance of power

1. changes that threaten autonomy, authority, power, or status of a group will be resisted

c. Overcoming resistance to change

i. Lessons learned from experiences with community policing

1. the need for pre-implementation training of personnel

2. the importance of taking a long view of the change process

3. the need for support for elected officials and other city agencies

4. the importance of listening to and involving the community

II. The Madison Experience

a. Laying the foundation

i. Officers’ Advisory Council (OAC)

1. provide advice to the chief

2. reflected the problem-solving and research orientation of the department’s quality-improvement efforts

b. Key elements to change

i. Committee on the future

ii. Quality leadership

iii. Experimental Police District (EPD)

iv. Citizen involvement

c. Results from Madison

i. Lessons learned in Madison for overcoming obstacles to change

1. Implement participatory management in a police department

2. Decentralization

3. Change one part of the organization before proceeding with department-wide implementation

4. Recruit highly educated officers likely to be supportive of change

ii. Successful implementation of community policing can be directly tied to the amount of change made toward

1. decentralized management

2. participatory management

3. higher educational standards

4. redefinition of the police role

5. involvement of a representative body of citizens

III. The Chicago Experience

a. Laying the foundation

i. CAPS

1. Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy

b. Key elements to change

i. The entire department and the city were to be involved

ii. Officers were to have permanent beat assignments

iii. The department was to have a strong commitment to training

iv. The community was to play a significant role in the program

v. Policing was to be linked to the delivery of city services

vi. There was to be an emphasis on crime analysis

c. Results from Chicago

i. Improved public opinion of the police

ii. Favorable ratings of the police

iii. High attendance rate at beat meetings

d. Lessons learned from Madison and Chicago

i. Madison spent more time developing a true participatory leadership style

ii. Chicago used regular officers and supervisors whereas Madison used those that were interested

iii. In Madison, employee participation in the change process was a strong point

iv. In Chicago, the development of partnerships with the community through beat teams was the strong suit

v. Mix the internal practices from Madison with the external practices from Chicago

e. A final lesson: Surviving leadership change

i. Backsliding

ii. Chicago seems to have returned to traditional policing roots while leaving the shell of the program intact

IV. Police Job Redesign

a. Research results with respect to a high level of community-policing implementation and job redesign are threefold

i. Officers who value internal needs for personal growth and have a service orientation are more likely to benefit from a community-policing-enriched job design

ii. More traditionally oriented officers who value extrinsic rewards likely will not benefit from job redesign

iii. In some departments with organization-wide community policing, all officers appeared to benefit from a job redesign

1. Job characteristics of autonomy and feedback were significant in predicting job satisfaction

b. Changing officer performance measures

i. Little progress made toward changing criteria

ii. Three criteria from LEMAS survey were used as measures of community policing development

1. whether a department had a formal written community policing plan

2. if officers were encouraged to engage in problem-solving

3. if officers had received at least eight hours of community policing training

V. Changing Officer Performance Measures

a. It is necessary and important for police departments to change traditional evaluation criteria when they begin to adopt community policing strategies

i. Unfortunately, little progress has been made in this area

b. A national survey of 410 agencies assessed the extent to which organizations were employing community policing using 3 key criteria:

i. Whether a department had a formal written community policing plan

ii. Whether officers were encouraged to engage in problem solving

iii. Whether officers had received at least 8 hours of community policing training

1. overall, findings suggested that very little movement has been made toward evaluating and rewarding community policing practices

VI. Innovation

a. Refers to the development and use of new ideas and methods

i. Most important to successful innovation is effective and energetic leadership from the office of the chief

ii. The chief must be able to motivate

iii. The integrity of innovation must be defended

iv. Public support

b. Compstat as a change process

i. Approximately one-third of large agencies had implemented a Compstat-like program

ii. Some believe Compstat will eventually be the dominant approach to policing in the United States

c. Learning Organizations

i. Processes what it has learned and adapts accordingly

ii. Research and development unit

d. Police-researcher partnerships

i. Organize police work around problem solving

e. Utilize middle managers

i. Facilitate critical thinking

Chapter Summary

Organizational change occurs when an organization adopts new ideas or

behaviors. However, probably the most common characteristic of change is people’s resistance to it. Police departments, in particular, may be used to doing things the way that they have always been done. This inertia is an example of resistance to change. Misunderstandings, group norms, and balance of power are other examples of resistance to change.

Research has shown some ways to overcome the resistance to change. This is especially directed toward community policing efforts. Some of the lessons learned included the need for pre-implementation training of personnel, the importance of taking a long view of the change process, the need for support from elected officials and other city agencies, and the importance of listening to and involving the community.

Madison (Wisconsin) Police Department was perhaps the first to make the transition to community policing. The chief decided that something needed to be done with the department. The chief then decided to involve the employees more organizational decisions. The Officers’ Advisory Council was formed with the task of providing advice to the chief.

Some of the lessons learned from the Madison experience included that it was possible to implement participatory management in a police department and this is likely to produce more satisfied workers. Decentralization contributed to the creation of the new management style. This was done one part at a time. Rather than doing a department-wide implementation, it was decided to change one part of the organization before moving on. Over the next two decades, Madison continued to hire highly educated officers who would be more supportive to the change. Decentralized organization, participatory management, higher educational standards, redefinition of the police role, and involvement in a representative body of citizens may be directly linked to the successful implementation of community policing.

Chicago also made a change to community policing. Under the Chicago experience the entire department and the city were to be involved. The officers were to have permanent beat assignments. The department was to have a strong commitment to training and the community was to play a significant role in the program. Policing was to be linked to the delivery of city services. Lastly, there was to be emphasis on crime analysis.

The Chicago effort turned around the public’s opinion of the police. The public had a more positive opinion of the police after the experience. Attendance rates at the beat meetings were the highest in the high-crime areas. The people discussed the problems that concerned them. This included social disorder, drugs, gangs, and property crimes among others.

The change to community policing may cause a redesign in the job of policing. The community policing officers would spend more time on service and problem-solving tasks than do beat officers. If the transition was well-planned, it appeared that the community policing officers were had higher levels of job satisfaction and better attitudes. However, if the transition was poorly planned, the officers did get achieve the higher levels of satisfaction.

Officers who value internal needs for personal growth and have a service orientation are more likely to benefit from a community-policing-enriched job design. The traditionally oriented officers who value extrinsic rewards likely will not benefit from a job redesign.

Innovation refers to the development and use of new ideas and methods. For successful innovation, there must be effective and energetic leadership from the office of the chief. The chief must be able to motivate departmental personnel. Also, the integrity of innovation must be defended and there must be public support. If the public is permitted some input, they tend to be supportive.

As developed in New York, the Compstat process allows top-level police managers to share information about crime. It allows for increased levels of managerial control, discretion, and accountability. It also has the potential to significantly impact organizational change. Research concerning department with and departments without Compstat-like programs produced interesting findings. It would appear that there may be a movement away from community policing by those agencies adopting Compstat-like programs.

In making the police department into a learning organization, police work should be organized around problem solving. Middle managers could be used to facilitate critical thinking. Research and development would be included as part of the police department. This could include police-researcher partnerships. This will allow the department to become involved in the research project and learn something about itself.