Lecture 10: Chapter 15: Organizational Change Flashcards
What are the 3 phases of organizational change in Lewin’s model of force field analysis?
- Freeze: the current state in equilibrium
- Unfreeze: agents change and cause a disequilibrium
- Refreeze: systems that reinforce and maintain the new practices are introduced and go towards a new equilibrium
What is the difference between restraining and driving forces according to Lewin’s force field analysis model?
Restraining:
- Maintain status quo
- Resistance to change
- Cultural or structural aspects in the organization that block change
Driving:
- Push organizations toward change
- Leadership support, employee enthusiasm
What is Lewin’s model of force field analysis?
It helps change agents diagnose the forces that drive and restrain the proposed organizational change
During the unfreezing stage, driving forces are larger than restraining forces. In the other stages these are in equilibrium
(summary p. 38)
In what 3 ways can resistance be viewed as a resource?
- Symptoms of deeper problems in change process
- Form of task conflict –> can improve change decisions
- Form of voice –> procedural justice
What is procedural justice in organizations?
It ensures the fair and equal treatment of all individuals in an organization
What are the 6 main reasons people resist change?
- Negative valence of change
- Fear of the unknown
- Not-invented-here syndrome
- Incongruent team dynamics
- Incongruent organizational systems
- Breaking routines
What is negative valence of change?
Negative cost-benefit analysis, where people believe they will lose out as a result of change.
They think they will be negatively affected
What is fear of the unknown concerning resistance to change?
People assume worst when the future is unknown. People also feel a lack of control and uncertainty
What is the not-invented-here syndrome?
Staff resist change if the new initiatives are invented by another organization/department, to prove their ideas were better.
Successful change threatens self-esteem
How can incongruent team dynamics contribute to resistance to change?
If team norms aren’t in line with the change, then it may be difficult to implement
How do incongruent organizational systems contribute to resistance to change?
When rewards, systems, patterns of authority and other things aren’t in line with the change and reinforce the status quo, it may be difficult to change
How does breaking routines contribute to resistance to change?
People generally like routine and breaking a routine may be particularly difficult. Especially if you have to learn new role patterns as well
How do you create an urgency for change? (3)
- Inform employees about driving forces
- Customer interaction
- Persuasive influence with positive vision (if there are no external threats)
How does customer interaction create an urgency for change? (2)
- Human element energizes employees
- Reveals problems/consequences of inaction
What are 6 ways you can reduce restraining forces?
- Communication
- Learning
- Involvement
- Stress management
- Negotiation
- Coercion
What is the highest priority and first strategy required for organizational change?
Communication
Give an example of communication as strategy for organizational change. When is it applied and what are problems with it?
E.g.: show customer complaints to employees
When: if employees don’t feel urge to change, don’t know how it affects them or have fear of the unknown
Problems: time consuming and costly
Give an example of learning as strategy for organizational change. When is it applied and what are problems with it?
E.g. Employees learn how to work in teams when company adopts team-based structure
When: break old routines and adopt new patterns
Problems: time consuming, costly, some employees are unable to learn new skills
Give an example of employee involvement as strategy for organizational change. When is it applied and what are problems with it?
E.g. company forms task force to recommend new customer service practices
When: more employee commitment necessary, protection self worth of employees, employee ideas would improve decisions
Problems: very time consuming, can lead to conflict and poor decisions
Give an example of stress management as strategy for organizational change. When is it applied and what are problems with it?
E.g. Employees attend sessions to discuss their worries about the change
When: if communication, training and involvement don’t ease employee worries
Problems: time consuming, expensive, might not work for all employees
Give an example of negotiation as strategy for organizational change. When is it applied and what are problems with it?
E.g. employees agree to some change for increased job security
When: employees clearly lose something from the change and wouldn’t otherwise support it, when it has to happen quick
Problems: expensive, produces compliance (not commitment)
Give an example of coercion as strategy for organizational change. When is it applied and what are problems with it?
E.g. boss tells you to get on board the change or leave
When: other strategies are ineffective and it has to change quickly
Problems: can lead to subtle resistance and long term antagonism with change agent, reduces trust
Why do organizations need to refreeze the change in order to make it last? What are 3 important aspects of refreezing?
People easily slip back into habits and familiar patterns
- Align systems and team dynamics to the change
- Rewards for desired behavior have to be there
- Feedback that focuses on encouraging desired behavior
What 4 aspects does Lewin’s force field analysis model overlook?
- Leadership
- Coalitions
- Social networks
- Pilot projects
What is transformational leadership? What are the 5 consequences?
It involves strategic visions
It leads to:
- Sense of direction
- Link employee values to change
- Clarify role perceptions
- Minimize fear of unknown
- Identifies critical success factors
What is a guided coalition?
Formally structured group of employees that pushes forward the desired change
It’s often needed in addition to the leader
How can social networks in a company be beneficial and harmful for organizational change?
They are not easily controlled
What is viral change?
Information is seeded to a few people and then spread to others though connections
What are pilot projects?
Implementing the change on a small scale to test how well it can be executed
It’s the start of the diffusion of change
What is important for the success of diffusion of change?
MARS model:
- Motivation: pilot employees rewarded motivates others to adopt the pilot project
- Ability: train employees to adopt pilot project
- Role perceptions: communicate how pilot is relevant for own functional area, translate pilot project to new situations in a way that is specific enough
- Situational factors: provide resources to implement pilot project elsewhere
What are the 4 different approaches to change?
- Action research approach
- Appreciative inquiry approach (four D model)
- Large group interventions
- Parallel learning structure approach
What is the action research approach?
Idea that changing attitude and behavior to achieve the goal of change (action) should be combined with testing theories through data collection (research)
What are the 5 stages of the action research approach?
- Form client-consultant relationship
- Diagnose need for change (analyze, gather data)
- Introduce intervention
- Evaluate and stabilize change (refreeze, determine effectiveness)
- Disengage consultant’s services
See summary p. 41
What is the appreciative inquiry approach?
Approach which is in line with positive organizational behavior since it focuses on identifying and developing the positive aspects and possible future of an organization. It doesn’t focus on the problems
What are the 5 principles of the appreciative inquiry approach?
- Positive: focus on the positive not the problems
- Constructionist: conversations shape reality
- Simultaneity: inquiry and change are simultaneous
- Poetic: we can choose how to perceive situations (glass half full)
- Anticipatory: have visions on the future and get motivated by desirable visions
What are the 4 stages in the Four-D model of appreciative inquiry?
- Discovery: identify the positives
- Dreaming: think of best possible scenario
- Designing: discuss what should be done
- Delivering: develop objectives for what will happen
What are 3 characteristics of large group interventions as an approach to change? Give 4 limitations of large group interventions
- Large group sessions
- Last a few days
- High involvement with minimal structure
Limitations:
1. Limited opportunity to contribute
2. Risk that a few people will dominate
3. Focus on common ground can hide differences
4. Generates high expectations about ideal future
What is positive organizational behavior?
Perspective of organizational behavior that focuses on building positive qualities and traits within individuals as opposed to focusing on what’s wrong with them
What are future search conferences?
Large group interventions held over a few days in which participants identify emerging trends and develop strategies for the organization to realize potential under those future conditions
What is the parallel learning structure approach to organizational change?
Creating a parallel structure that is developed alongside the formal hierarchy and composed of people across organizational levels who apply the action research model to produce meaningful organizational change
Highly participative social structures and they’re free from firm’s constraints
What is a big problem with organizational change theories?
They were mainly developed in western cultures, so they may not be applicable to other cultures
What are 3 ethical concerns with theories of organizational change?
- Increased power of the management
- Undermining self-esteem of the employees
- Threats to individual privacy rights
Which theory threatens the individual privacy rights?
The action research model, because it’s built on the idea of collecting information from organizational members
How do some organizational change interventions undermine the individual’s self-esteem?
Unfreezing process requires that people disconfirm their existing beliefs
What is an important cross cultural limitation of Lewin’s force field analysis?
Western cultures often assume change has a beginning and ending in a linear sequence.
Other cultures view change as a cyclical phenomenon
Other cultures view change as interconnected, where one change leads to another, which leads to another
