Organizational change – where is it from?
The organizational change management field is comparatively new. It has really only been in existence for the last 50 years or so. This excerpt from an academic article I wrote discusses the origins of the field.
There is an enormous amount of academic literature and an enormous amount of practitioner literature on the topic of change, where the most popular books sell in millions (over six million copies of In Search of Excellence; 
two million copies of Reengineering the Corporation), which indicates the widespread acceptance 
of the need for change. This orthodoxy has roots in the social developments of the last forty years.
The post-war era was one of relative stability until the 1960s, when there was social upheaval (protests against the Vietnam war, the student revolts of May 1968, the women’s movement), technological upheaval (the development of computers and transistors, the space race), and economic upheaval (the oil embargo of 1973, the “Japanese juggernaut” built on high quality products and high productivity). The scale of the resulting changes may or may not be fundamentally different to anything that had happened before, but they were important, and they created an impression that major change was happening and needed to be addressed.
The growing importance and economic power of Germany and Japan, together with the (relative) decline in the US and British economies seemed to indicate that there was a need to overhaul radically the traditional American and British ways of doing business. The emergence of Thatcherism and Reaganism, which called for a new enterprise culture and a much-reduced role for the state, was also a significant factor in creating a climate where change was seen as a sine qua non of future prosperity. The attrition rate of companies is huge; only 16 of the largest 100 US companies at the beginning of the 1900s still survived at the end of the 20th century, a fact which certainly implies that change is crucial to survival.
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-07
- corporate social responsibility – not a concept private company Ineos understands. http://tinyurl.com/yemzfnx #
- change at AstraZeneca – 1,200 layoffs. Was there no alternative? http://tinyurl.com/yc562×3 #
Only 41% of organizational changes are successful
41% of changes are successful? At least that is what IBM says. How do they know? They carried out a major survey of 1500 change leaders and produced a report, which you can get here.
Among the highlights:
Most CEOs consider themselves and their organizations to be executing change poorly
Achieving project success does not hinge primarily on technology – instead, success depends largely on people.
Nothing new there, really. But IBM then say
Four common factors helped these practitioners address their greatest project challenges and when used in combination, they provide a synergistic benefit that was even greater than the sum of their individual impacts.
So what are the four factors? According to IBM they are
- Real Insights, Real Actions. Strive for a full, realistic awareness and understanding of the upcoming challenges and complexities, then follow with actions to address them.
- Solid Methods, Solid Benefits. Use a systematic approach to change is focused on outcomes and closely aligned with formal project management methodology.
- Better Skills, Better Change. Leverage resources appropriately to demonstrate top management
sponsorship, assign dedicated change managers and empower employees to enact change. - Right Investment, Right Impact. Allocate the right amount for change management by understanding which types of investments can offer the best returns, in terms of greater project success.
Again, not much new. But remember – successful change management does not ignore the basics.
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-28
- #saveBBC6music – absolutely agree. the vast majority of music radio stations in UK and germany are appaling #
- bad management at portsmouth – the fans and non-footballing staff and young players suffer, not the big names – at http://bit.ly/9KR9pi #
- more on #GoldmanSachs and greece – it doesn't look all that ethical #
- unsurprising news: is there anything banks won't do? NYTimes: Banks Bet Greece Defaults on Debt They Helped Hide http://s.nyt.com/u/oGu #
- it should be a PR disaster – RBS loses billions but pays over £1bn in bonuses http://tinyurl.com/ydefbxn #
- interesting article on visualising data on twitter. Visuaiising data is an excellent way of getting an overview http://tinyurl.com/ydtfrez #
- jobs in fiction: can't say i'm impressed by this list in the guardian http://tinyurl.com/yd58eue #
- will google ever realise that privacy is a concern in europe? executives convicted in Italy of violating privacy laws http://bit.ly/cB9oZH #
- commerzbank loses billions but no change at the top. strange to say the least #FT. http://tinyurl.com/y9sdeqq #
- just installed new financial times deutschland app, very good #
Organizational Change and More Theory
One way to understand change is to consider it in terms of the motors, or general theories, that bring about change. Van de Ven and Poole’s (1995) paper presents four ideal types of theory drawn from a wide range of disciplines which address the question of why organizations change:
- Life-cycle: immanent within any organization are the logics or processes that lead it to change from the present state to more advanced ones in a series of evolutionary stages.
- Teleological: the organization develops purposefully towards an envisioned goal or end-state; there is not a pre-ordained sequence of events as in life-cycle theories because the desired goal can be defined and socially constructed.
- Dialectical: conflicts between opposing forces (representing thesis and antithesis) may create a synthesis which represents a new state.
- Evolutionary: at the level of organizational populations, change occurs through variation, selection, retention or random chance.
The motors of change identified by Van de Ven and Poole have a relationship to the pace and scale of change. Life-cycle and evolutionary motors tend to lead to continuous and incremental change, while dialectical and teleological motors lead to episodic and radical change.
What does this mean for people who deal with change in organizations? Successful change management demands an understanding of the concept ‘change’, so a bit of theory is always appropriate. I’ll discuss this more in future notes.
Van de Ven, A. H. & Poole, M. S. 1995. Explaining Development and Change in Organizations. Academy of Management Review, 20(3): 510-540.
Mergers are organizational change
One of the most fundamental reasons for starting change initiatives in an organization is a merger.
Amazing but true: 50% of mergers fail – just ask Daimler about their adventures with Chrysler if you want to get confirmation.
In a merger, one set of staff has to change the way they work to match that of the other organization. It’s not enough to simply send out a few Powerpoint slides – people want an answer to the questions ‘What does this mean for me?’
And this needs to take place not only in the ‘losing’ firm, because the kind of change that a merger involves also affects staff in the ‘winning’ firm.
So this means that the management of the relevant change processes has
to take account of the fact that when a merger takes place, there are
always (perceived and actual) winners and losers. It means that the
change has to be managed and the level of the individual and the group,
as well as at the the level of the whole organization.
Organizational change outcomes
It is useful for people involved in organizational change to pay attention to the nature of the change outcomes that they wil be dealing with. It’s a bit less straightforward than it might appear to be at first sight. My research and experience have shown that there are three aspects to the concept change outcome.
First, there is the issue of intentionality. Any planned change has objectives – these are shown in Powerpoint presentations. So managers undertake planned change initiatives with certain outcomes in mind – these are intended outcomes. However, the unpredictable nature of change processes means that there will be unexpected outcomes which were not predicted. These develop as the change initiative progresses.
Next, when a change outcome is classified as intended, there is the issue of how well it meets its goals, i.e. whether its intended results have been achieved fully, or not achieved at all – or something in between. In fact, there can be different views within the same organization about the extent to which an intended change outcome has been achieved. Read more
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-14
- change at the top of SAP, a new manager needed to repair morale. http://tinyurl.com/yklzsrm #
