CP5

The Change Process

University of the Cumberlands

Weeks 10 & 11

Leadership and the Change Process The Change Puzzle

Psychology of Change

Why Should Leaders

Care about Adult

Learning?

Two Guiding Principles for Organizational Change:

• 1. Establish a shared need for change.

– facilitates internal acceptance and pressure for change.

– means greater likelihood for sustaining the change initiative.

• 2. Provide access to information resources that substantiate the need for change, how it is to be accomplished, and the consequences of such action.

Acceptance of Change is

Learned

Benjamin Bloom (1913-1999)

• helped us to understand that we learn facts and knowledge (cognitive domain),

• appreciations and dispositions (affective domain) and

• skills (psychomotor domain).

• The acceptance of change is hence a learned phenomenon, so there are implications for using ways to facilitate learning to create sustainable change.

Learning is Individual Change

The notion that learning is individual change may seem like a duh statement, but how do you encourage or facilitate it?

No one knows for sure, but we have theories. There are no laws that govern human learning.

Among the theories that have relevance for us with respect to individuals are developmental, cognitive, cognitive behaviorism, constructivism or associative learning, and behaviorism, as well as humanism.

Developmental Theory

• Developmental theorists such as Jean Piaget (1896-1980) and Jerome Bruner (1915) have informed much of what we understand about learning over the early years of the lifespan;

• Adult-focused theorists such as Eric Erikson (1902- 1994), Daniel Levinson (1920 and Gail Sheehy (1937), have added to our understanding of changes in the way we develop and learn throughout the lifespan.

• Despite those seminal works, we now know that some seemingly normal adults may be thinking at the level of an eight-year old.

Levels of Cognitive Development

• Piaget gave us the following levels of cognitive development:

• Pre-operational stage (similar to Freud’s ego- centric stage—between ages 3-7)

• Concrete Operations (see, touch, and feel— ages 7-12)

• Formal Operations (make abstractions—see things like connections in the mind—above age 12)

Post-Formal Thought

• A number of scholars have discussed the idea that adults around the age of 30 move into what they call post-formal thought.

• In effect it is wisdom or the ability to integrate ideas, see gray areas.

Jerome Bruner’s Theories

• Psychologist Jerome Bruner argues that age is not the determining factor in progressing through Piaget’s stages.

• The use of iconic, symbolic, and enactive or application can speed up cognitive development in normal people.

• Some culturally deprived adults can be stuck at the concrete and even pre-operational stage of development.

Adult Development

• There is a common thread throughout most adult development theories because Erikson and Levinson were colleagues at Harvard and his work builds on the insights of Erikson.

• Sheehy was Levinson’s student.

• The thread is the attempt to assign different stages of cognitive development in adulthood.

• Levinson is famous for “mid-life crises” and Sheehy is famous for the sex lives of women over fifty.

Erikson’s Theory

• Because Sheehy and Levinson build on Erikson’s work, we will focus on his theory.

• Recall that Maslow argues that humans are deficiency motivated;

• Therefore each of the stages that Erikson identifies has implications for internal motivations.

• Again, these motivations should be used to engage the worker.

• As a transformational leader, one can use these values to build interpersonal relationships, or as a transactional leader, you can use them to identify stimuli for rewards and punishments.

18-35 Year Olds

• Intimacy and Solidarity vs. Isolation • Internal motives are love and affiliation. • If we're not successful, isolation and distance

from others may occur. • And when we don't find it easy to create

satisfying relationships, our world can begin to shrink as, in defense, we can feel superior to others.

• Social isolates can sometimes become obstinate to authority figures. They may require a transactional leadership style.

36-55 Year Olds

• Generactivity vs. Self absorption or Stagnation • Basic Motivations: Production and Care • Now work is most crucial. • Erikson observed that middle-age is when we tend to

be occupied with creative and meaningful work and with issues surrounding our family.

• Also, middle adulthood is when we can expect to "be in charge," the role we've long wanted.

• Malcolm Knowles, who we will study in more detail, argues that this “self-directedness” is the most crucial aspect of being an adult.

36-55 Year Olds II

• Sheehy and Levinson argue that gender makes a difference in the later portion of this stage.

• Whereas in their twenties, women are more nurturing and focused on relationships than men, these roles tend to shift in the late forties.

• Women may well be more career motivated in their fifties than men.

• Men in their late forties and fifties seem to do well with transformational leaders.

• Women are more externally motivated in this age range, so they may do better in a transactional situation. What do you think?

35-55 Year Olds III

• Additional thoughts: • Motivation also comes through the care of others

and production of something that contributes to the betterment of society, which Erikson calls generactivity, so when we're in this stage we often fear inactivity and meaninglessness.

• It is natural for people in this age range to feel valued and their opinions to matter, so ask your subordinates questions.

• They may teach you something you did not expect.

56 to Death: Integrity

• Integrity vs. Despair

• Motivations: Exercise wisdom and reflection, so don’t be surprised to hear comments from these folk like: “we didn’t do it that way before.”

• If we have matured in a healthy fashion, however, we will look back on our lives with happiness and contentment, feeling that life has meaning and we've added to it.

• This is a feeling that Erikson calls integrity. Folks such as these have a rich reservoir of wisdom and crystallized knowledge—resources for a democratic leader.

56-Death: Despair

• On the other hand, some adults may reach this stage of life and feel despair because of the way they reflect over their experiences and perceived failures.

• They generally fear death and struggle to find a purpose in life: "Was life worth it?"

• Alternatively, they may feel that they have all the answers and spend their final years dogmatically insisting that their views were correct.

• They were just misunderstood and underappreciated for their brilliance.

• These are tough people to lead, so listen to them and try to show interest in their ideas.

• Use them when they fit your needs as well as to identify their needs; rest assured these folk will likely require a transactional leader.

Change Initiatives

Cognitive • Cognitive refers to how the brain learns

and operates.

• Cognitive structures are pieces of knowledge and cognitive processes are how the brain operates.

• This field includes topics such as short term memory and long-term memory.

• Sandwiched in between is working memory.

• The process of moving information from short to long-term memory can take the form of equilibrium (smooth transition) or disequilibrium (rough, confusion, physiological responses). The information passed through equilibrium becomes cognitive structure.

Cognitive Behaviorism

• Sometimes humans condition themselves to fear or like certain activities (stimulus and response as in behaviorism).

• Consider the person who experiences disequilibrium after trying to learn a new task at work.

• It produces no accommodation of the targeted knowledge.

• However, adverse reactions to the attempt to learn may well serve as a punishment (a stimulus that comes after a behavior that causes a decrease in the frequency of the behavior).

Constructivism

• Some theorists argue that we construct our knowledge as in building a structure, one layer at a time.

• It is critical to find bits of knowledge that the adult learner knows and build on it.

• This is called scaffolding.

• It is also called Proximal Development.

Humanism

Humanism is the study of how our humanity (needs, wants, emotions) impacts

learning and individual change.

An important role model for Malcolm Knowles was Abraham Maslow (1908- 1970), who argued that people are “deficiency

motivated.”

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Implications for Maslow’s Hierarchy

• McGregor’s Theory X and Y, a person who is operating at a lower level of need will not be able to look beyond one’s own needs.

• This is certainly true if his or her job requires working toward the good of the organization.

Groups

Norms

• All groups have norms, which are accepted ways of doing things.

• They are developed through a shared sense of what is important and what is not.

• The workplace is full of informal groups such as primary groups.

• Each group has members who exchange ideas and play roles within the group.

• Power also resides among them.

• Groups also have negative and positive sanctions that control members’ behaviors.

• It takes but a little thought to see that behaviorism is at work in these social settings.

• Transactions also take place as well as social learning theory (trying out observed behaviors).

Working with Groups

• It is important to know that groups communicate inside and outside official channels, so if you don’t want something known by all, don’t tell anyone.

• Sometimes you may want information leaked as a trial balloon, so let the gossipers in on the scoop.

• Know that groups can undermine or help build your agenda, so how do you get the best out of a group?

Working with Groups II

• Group must have a “we feeling” in regard to the proposed change.

• Know that the influence of the group on its members is directly related to the attractiveness of the group to the members.

• Remember non members watch you interact with groups, so if the non-members see “favoritism” you can have problems elsewhere.

• Playing favorites with a group hence empowers it while undermining you elsewhere.

Working with Groups III

• It is a delicate balance to get the group’s support without showing favoritism. Watch out for co- optation.

• Deal making oftentimes whittles away at your power.

• The best way to keep from stepping on the landmines of favoritism and co-optation is to teach the individual and the group to buy into the initiative.

• If you doubt the value of the change, you will not sell it, and the staff will not support it.

Bad Groups

• Let’s face it: not all groups have “good cohesion.”

• Indeed there may be bad cohesion among some groups, which is seen clearly in gangs that view killings as a right of initiation.

• While that example is extreme, some groups in the workplace form on the basis of opposing the authority figures over them.

Bad Groups II

• Remember that the influence of the group on the individual is directly related to the attractiveness of the group to the member.

• If you are confronted with a bad group, find out what binds the members together and then work to destroy the appeal of the binding factor.

• Work to replace that factor with one that connects to your change initiative.

• In groups with good cohesion this is done by attaching the change initiative to the attraction or binding factor.

• By doing this, you are using associative learning theory to your advantage.

Bad Groups III

• Know that a member’s influence or power with the group is tied to his or her prestige within the group.

• Prestige is a form of social indifference.

• What if your hypothetical group with bad cohesion has a leader and you can identify the source of the leader’s prestige?

• Use structural-functionalism, if necessary, to change the dynamics that grants license to the leader’s prestige.

• Deleting the position is a clear appeal to the structural- functionalist paradigm.

• Transferring leaders of bad groups too is an application of structural functionalism.

Bad Groups IV

• Know that a group will resist change if the initiative deviates from the group’s norms.

• With respect to groups with good cohesion, it is relatively straight forward in connecting the initiative to the group’s norms.

• However, in dealing with a group that has bad cohesion, it is not so easy or tastefully dealt with, so be careful to make sure the power structure is behind you if you pursue the structural functional approach.

Bad Groups V

• Concluding thought on groups with bad cohesion: – Suppose you identified where power resides in the

group.

– You also found the source of the leader’s power (the prestige factor) and have attempted to deal with changing the nature of the group.

– You may have to repeat the process if the group does not change.

– If that does not work, then personnel changes or reassignments are clearly in order.