Recognising the need for change and starting the change process

Recognising the need for change and starting the change process

THE THEORY & PRACTICE OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT 3rd Edition, John Hayes, Palgrave, 2010

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Recognising the need for change

• Managers may fail to recognise the need for change because they pay insufficient attention to the wider environmentor

• fail to recognise the implications of what is happening around them


EnvironmentalDisturbance

Poor external alignment

Outcomes

Decreased customer focus

Increased Cost

Less innovation

Domore of

thesame

Denial &

rationalisation

Decliningperformance

Death spiral

Learning disabled

Success Syndrome

Complacency

Arrogance

Codification

Internal focus

Prolonged period of success

The trap of success(Adapted from Nadler & Shaw 1995)

THE THEORY & PRACTICE OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT 3rd Edition, John Hayes, Palgrave, 2010 3

Sensing the need for change and formulating a change agenda

Begins when individuals notice and respond to what they perceive to be significant internal and external events


Top team may not always notice significant events

Recognition may be hampered by:• Lack of diversity in functional background and

experience of members of top team

• Their commitment to a strong ideology (mental model) that marginalises dissenting views.


Playmakers

Top managers can encourage other organizational members to perform “playmaker” roles by seeking out relevant opinion from those close to the operating environment

Pitt et al (2002) borrow the term playmaker from football where it refers to the restless, energetic, midfield role that links play, energises the team and makes things happen.


Democratic brokers

Democratic brokers are playmakers who facilitate lateral communication among peers.

They tend to be respected organizational members with perceived expertise who function as interpreters, ideas brokers, and opinion canvassers. They use their nodal position in communication networks to originate and trade concerns with peers.

Because they bring together different groups and interests, brokers can help promote diverse interpretations of situations and point to opportunities and threats that might not be identified by a narrow group of senior managers acting alone.


Sensing the need for change

Widening the opportunity for organizational members to engage in playmaking can greatly improve an organization’s ability to recognise the need for change

Actively seeking out and debating alternative perspectives and interpretations can help ensure that the possibility of new threats or opportunities are properly considered



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Failure to recognise the need for change in good time

• promotes a reactive approach to change

• limits the possibilities for planning and involving others in the change process


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Performance indicators

Discrepancies between actual and desired performance can signal a need for change


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Effectiveness can be considered from a number of different perspectives

1. Purpose

2. Stakeholder perspective

3. Level of assessment

4. Alignment

5. Time perspective

6. External bench mark

7. Constraints and enabling factors

1. Purpose

• Religious orders and charities have to be financially viable but their purpose is not to make a profit.

• Indicators of effectiveness need to be related to the purpose of the unit or the organization.


2. Stakeholder perspective

• Different stakeholders (senior managers, other workers, customers, suppliers, shareholders, local residents, regulatory bodies) may use different indicators to assess the

effectiveness of an organization.


3. Level of assessment

• Different criteria may be used to assess effectiveness at different levels (individual, work group, department, strategic business unit, total organization).

• Criteria might relate to linkages (e.g. at the individual level, good citizen behaviour might be as important as task performance).


4. Alignment

Up, down and across the organization


5. Time perspective

• An organization that is not very profitable today may be incurring higher costs in order to invest in new plant, product development and training to guarantee greater profits over the long term.


6. External bench mark

• Performance in one unit may need to be bench marked against performance elsewhere in order to assess how effective it is.


7. Constraints and enabling factors • For example, a budget airline’s decision to open a route to

one location rather than another might have a positive effect on the performance of the local area unit of a car hire firm that has little to do with factors internal to that unit. This might need to be taken into account when assessing the effectiveness of that unit relative to other units.


Discussion topic

• How is the effectiveness of your unit/department assessed. Share views with colleagues and identify common themes and important differences.

• Are the most appropriate criteria used to assess the effectiveness of your unit? If not, explain why.

• Do they help to signal the need for change?


Change agency

To what extent can managers intervene and make a real difference to the effectiveness of your organization?

One view holds that managers are constrained by external factors.

Second view emphasises the role of human agency and asserts that managers can make an important difference.


Beliefs about change agency

Sometimes the limiting factor on change agency is not conceptual knowledge or familiarity with appropriate intervention tools. It is rooted in the beliefs about the ability to make a difference:

Locus of controlLearned helplessness


Discussion topic

• To what extent can managers at your level make a difference?

• What are the main factors that affect their ability to make a difference?


Translating recognition into a desire for change

• “Those who are most likely to want to change are those who are basically successful but who are experiencing particular problems.

• Next are those who are always successful

• The least likely to understand and accept the need for

change are the unsuccessful”

Pugh 1993


Starting the change process

• Selecting the change agent

• Developing the change relationship

• Identifying the client/target group

• Clarifying the issues


Selecting the change agent: insider or outsider?


Insiders may take on the role when:• They have the required competence and

commitment

• There are insufficient resources to buy-in an outsider

• Issues of confidentiality and trust prohibit use of an outsider

• It proves difficult to identify a suitable outsider

Outsiders may be invited to take on the role of change agent when:

• There is nobody on the inside who has the time and competence to act as the facilitator of change

• It is felt that all of the competent insiders have a vested interest and are less acceptable to all parties than a neutral outsider.


The development of a change relationship is affected by:

• The client’s need for sympathy versus objectivity

• Perceptions of the change agent’s motives and loyalties

• Perceptions of the change agent’s competence


Identifying the client and/or the target group for change

• Who owns the problem and is responsible for doing something about it?

• Who can have a direct impact on the change issue?


Clarifying the issues

• The presenting problem may only be a symptom of an underlying problem

• The presenting problem may be proffered in terms of solutions (we need help with team building)

ExerciseGroup 1. With reference to the paper by Pitt et al:

• Do managers in your organization make appropriate assumptions about how the agenda for change should be formulated?

• Is there sufficient diversity among active playmakers in your organization?• To what extent is effective playmaking undermined by lack of networking skills,

political competence, advocacy and the ability to inspire others?

Group 2. Based on your experience, list any problems you have encountered in the early stages of the change process that have been associated with:

• choice of change agent, • quality of the change relationship, • identification of the group to be targeted for change,• specification of the change issues.

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Business

Recognising the need for change and starting the change process