Change Flashcards
Describe Kotter’s 8 steps for change. Requirements for successful change.
1) Establish a sense of urgency - be careful can get negative response if done badly
2) Form a powerful guiding coalition - i.e. senior level support
3) Create a vision to direct the change effort
4) Communicate the vision - or involve people in vision creation. Do not impose change
5) Empower others to act on the vision - not top down
6) Plan for and create short-term wins - so the people can see the differences being made an the positive effects of the change
7) Consolidate improvements, producing further change
8) Institutionalise new approaches - i.e. job descriptions, new positions.
Steps in Change programme:
- Spot & understand the need
- Define objectives
- Identify obstacles and opportunities (developing mental models to break the cycles and show benefits)
- Develop solutions (get contribution from everyone)
- Identify implementation issues (problems with the change, or lack of resources)
- Plan and set targets for process and outcomes (ensuring they are challenging yet achievable)
- Monitor and support the implementation (short-term wins)
Implementing the changes and making them stick is where most organisations tend to have a problem
Other key success factors for change:
- Don’t allow over-documentation to obscure the project objectives or stifle initiative.
Whilst it is important to properly document actions, decisions, and new processes; it is vital that the degree of detail employed does not obscure, stifle, or derail the change project. - Establish priorities early and update throughout the project
Projects fail when the priorities are not established early and refined throughout the project. Establish quickly what is both urgent and important. - Ensure the performance management systems reflect new rather than old priorities
What gets measured gets done. If employees’ energies are not properly focused by an effective measurement system they will not necessarily work on the most important things. - Build on past achievements rather than discrediting them.
- Consult and allow for local ‘tailoring’
Is it really relevant to the core goals and processes of the business? - COMMUNICATION IS VITAL
Voice of the employee should be heard. To achieve enduring change active employee involvement is required. If they have no say in the change they will have no stake in the subsequent system. - Try to make it evolutionary rather than a series of upheavals.
- Deliver early tangible results
Without ‘quick wins’ a project will not build momentum and support in the early stages and will probably last no longer than a few months.
Reasons for Human Resistance
Change is an emotional and uncomfortable process. With change there is always a loss and and end to what was. Note that not all people progress at the same rate and they can go backwards if stressed. Employees need to be helped through the cycle and not dragged through it.
SECURITY People with a high need for security are likely to resist change because it threatens their feeling of safety. When General Dynamics announces personnel cutbacks or Ford introduces new robotic equipment, many employees at these firms may fear that their jobs are in jeopardy.
ECONOMIC FACTORS Another source of individual resistance is concern that changes will lower one’s income. Changes in job tasks or established work routines also can arouse economic fears if people are concerned that they won’t be able to perform the new tasks or routines to their previous standards, especially when pay is closely tied to productivity.
FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN Changes substitute ambiguity and uncertainty for the known. If, for example, the introduction of word processors means that departmental secretaries will have to learn to operate these new pieces of equipment, some of the secretaries may fear that they will be unable to do so. They may, therefore, develop a negative attitude toward working with word processors or behave dysfunctionally if required to use them.
SELECTIVE INFORMATION PROCESSING Individuals shape their world through their perceptions. Once they have created this world, it resists change. So individuals are guilty of selectively processing information in order to keep their perceptions intact. They hear what they want to hear. They ignore information that challenges the world that they’ve created. To return to the secretaries who are faced with the introduction of word processors, they may ignore the arguments that their bosses make in explaining why the new equipment has been purchased or the potential benefits that the change will provide them.
Reasons for Organisational Resistance
STRUCTURAL INERTIA Organizations have built-in mechanisms to produce stability. For example, the selection process systematically selects certain people in and certain people out. Training and other socialization techniques reinforce specific role requirements and skills. Formalization provides job descriptions, rules, and procedures for employees to follow. The people who are hired into an organization are chosen for fit; they are then shaped and directed to behave in certain ways. When an organization is confronted with change, this structural inertia acts as a counterbalance to sustain stability.
LIMITED FOCUS OF CHANGE Organizations are made up of a number of interdependent subsystems. You can’t change one without affecting the others. For example, if management changes the technological processes without simultaneously modifying the organization’s structure to match, the change in technology is not likely to be accepted. So limited changes in sub¬systems tend to get nullified by the larger system.
GROUP INERTIA Even if individuals want to change their behavior, group norms may act as a constraint. An individual union member, for instance, may be willing to accept changes in his job suggested by management. But if union norms dictate resisting any unilateral change made by management, he’s likely to resist.
THREAT TO EXPERTISE Changes in organizational patterns may threaten the expertise of specialized groups. The introduction of decentralized personal computers, which allow managers to gain access to information directly from a company’s mainframe, is an example of a change that was strongly resisted by many information systems departments in the early 1980s. Why? Because decentralized end-user computing was a threat to the specialized skills held by those in the centralized information systems departments.
THREAT TO ESTABLISHED POWER RELATIONSHIPS Any redistribution of decision-making authority can threaten long-established power relationships within the organization. The introduction of participative decision making or self-managed work teams is the kind of change that is often seen as threatening by supervisors and middle managers.
THREAT TO ESTABLISHED RESOURCE ALLOCATIONS Those groups in the organization that control sizable resources often see change as a threat. They tend to be content with the way things are. Will the change, for instance, mean a reduction in their budgets or a cut in their staff size? Those that most benefit from the current allocation of resources often feel threatened by changes that may affect future allocations.
Appreciative Inquiry
This is an approach that values and builds on the effective and good. It assumes that people have more confidence and comfort with changes that value and are built on the best of the past. It explores with the people through positive questions, dialogue and collaborative endeavor. It doesn’t ignore the problems but approaches them differently.
Useful tools and approaches to change
Force-field analysis, stakeholder analysis and appreciative inquiry
