Change Management

IACT 418/918 Autumn 2005

Gene Awyzio

SITACS University of Wollongong

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Preface

• Some claim that almost any change is a good thing simply because it is a change !

• Can’t have changes without consequences.

• So, WHO benefits from the consequences of the change ?

• Will these benefits be for the organisation as a whole or for individuals’ private agendas ?

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Overview

• Your network does not exist in a vacuum.

• The influences (internal & external) on your business and its network will require that you make changes, or respond to changes imposed upon it.

• Change Management is what happens when an organisation attempts to control changes and their consequences.

• It is not a simple thing to define…

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Three Basic Definitions

• At least three broad areas need to be considered when trying to define what ‘change management’ is:

– The task of managing change

– An area of professional practice

– A body of knowledge

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The Task of Managing Change

• This definition has two meanings:

– Making deliberate planned changes• Implementing new systems and/or methods

• These are “internal” changes

– Responding to unplanned changes• Adapting, coping, responding

• These are “external’ changes– Legislation (standards, regulations, tax etc)

– Social/political change

– Actions of competitors

– Technological innovations

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Change Management as a Professional Practice• Claimed to be a profession, usually made up

of consulting “Change Managers” or “Change Agents”.

– Some claim to help clients manage they changes happening TO them

– Some claim to help clients MAKE changes

• Professional Change Agents tend to treat the PROCESS of change separately from the specifics of the situation

» [is that a good thing?]

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Change Management as aBody of Knowledge (paradigm)• Can be considered to be a set of

– Models

– Methods & Techniques

– Tools

– Skills

• Drawn from psychology, sociology, business admin, economics, industrial/system engineering etc.

• THERE IS NO SINGLE BEST METHOD !!

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Problem Solving

• Planned Change model:

– Concerned with moving from aproblem state to a solved state

– Concerned with ENDS and MEANS

• “problem” or “opportunity” ?

– lets just say that a ‘problem’ is simply a situation requiring action, where the required action is not yet known

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Problem Finding

• 2nd part of the Planned Change model

– Searching for situations requiring action

– Perhaps to avoid or cope with something ‘bad’ or to change direction to take best advantage of the environment

• Identifying and settling on a course of action that will bring about some desired and predetermined change in the situation

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The Change Problem

• Move from ‘old state’ to ‘new state’ by meeting three goals:

– TRANSFORM GOALS

• Identify differences between the two states

– REDUCE GOALS

• Determining ways of eliminating the differences

– APPLY GOALS

• Taking the steps and setting up the processes that will eliminate these differences

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The Change Problem II

• Define the outcomes of the change effort

• Identify the changes necessary to produce these outcomes

• Find and implement ways and means of making the required changes

• The Change problem can be treated as smaller problems of HOW, WHAT & WHY

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“How” Problems

• Initial formulation of the change problem

• Means-centred

• Diagnosis is ignored or at best, implied

• The goals are more or less implied

• Examples:• How do we get staff to be more productive?

• How do we introduce self-management teams?

• How do we move to e-commerce?

• How do we minimise user errors?

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“What” Problems

• Since ‘how’ problems don’t conduct diagnosis, they don’t concentrate on the ‘ends’

• WHAT ARE WE TRYING TO ACHIEVE

– ie: what are the ‘ends’

• Typical WHAT questions:

• What changes are necessary?

• What standards apply?

• What indicators tell us we have succeeded?

• What performance measures are we trying to affect?

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‘Why” Problems

• Means & Ends are relative

• Need to trace sets of ends-means relationships to find the real ends of change

• WHY questions determine the ultimate purpose of functions and reveal new ways of performing them.

– Why questions can also get into the ‘politics’ and motivations of those driving change

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Managers’ Mindset

• A person’s position within the organisation often defines the scope, scale & kind of changes they’re involved with.

• Sometimes changes with fundamentally restructure the whole organisation

• Some organisations are designed to protect core operations from change turbulence and have ‘core’, ‘buffer’ and ‘perimeter’ units.

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Managers’ Mindset• Core units (systems, operations) stick to standard

procedures and tend to ask “HOW” questions

• Buffer units (upper mgmt, support) responsible for performance, tend to ask ‘WHAT” questions

• Perimeter units (sales, customer service etc) co-ordinate and ask “HOW” & “WHAT”

• “WHY” is asked by people with a ‘top-down’ view, not concerned with day-to-day operations, ie: Senior Management

– [should “WHY” questions be the sole province of senior management? Does involvement in day-to-day operations prevent you from asking WHY?]

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“Unfreezing, Changing & Refreezing”

• Another Change Management ‘model’

• This model gives rise to a ‘staged’ approach, look before you leap

• However, too reliant upon ‘stasis’ at the beginning and end of the change

• Cannot cope well with highly flexible environments (such as I.T.?)

• Too much internal stability can stifle growth

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Skills Required for Change Management• Political Skills

• Change Agents must not get stuck in internal organisational politics, but MUST understand them!

• Analytical Skills

• Clear analysis will overcome many objectionsneed financial analysis & workflow operations / systems analysis

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Skills Required for Change Management• People Skills

• Communications & Interpersonal skills. Ability to listen & speak with all sections, and reconcile conflicts.

• Systems Skills

• Arrangement of resources and routines. ‘Systems analysis’ & ‘General Systems Theory’

• Business Skills

• How businesses work: Money, Market, HR, R&D, IR, EEO etc.

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Four Basic Strategies for Change

Rational-Empirical

People are rational and follow self interest

change based on communication of information and offering incentives

Normative-Re-educative

People are social beings and follow social norms

change based on redefining and reinterpreting existing norms, & developing commitment to new norms

Power-Coercive

People are mostly compliant, do as they’re told

change based on the exercise of authority and the imposition of sanctions

Environmental

-Adaptive

People oppose loss/disruption but adapt readily

change based on building a new organisation and gradually transferring people to the new one

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Factors in Selecting Strategies

• There is no single perfect strategy …

– You need to consider ALL of the following

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Factors in Selecting Strategies

• Degree of Resistance

– Strong: Power-Coercive & Environmental-Adaptive

– Weak: Rational-Empirical & Normative-Re-educative

• Target Population

– Large populations need all four strategies in a mix‘something for everyone’

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Factors in Selecting Strategies

• The Stakes

– High stakes need all four strategies in a mix‘nothing left to chance’

• The Time Frame

– Short: Power-Coercive

– Longer: Rational-Empirical & Environmental-Adaptive & Normative-Re-educative

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Factors in Selecting Strategies

• Expertise

– Mix the strategies according to the expertise of the Change Agents

• Dependency

– If organisation is dependant on its people, managements ability to lead is limited

– If people are dependant on the organisation,their ability to resist or oppose is limited

– Mutual dependency requires negotiation

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How to Manage Change• Jump in, get into the scenario

• Clear sense of mission (simpler the better)

• Build a team

• Flat organisational structure, keep the information flow informal & flexible

• Pick people with relevant skills and high energy levels

• Throw out the rule book, new circumstances mean old procedures are out of date

• Action-feedback model, short plan-action intervals

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How to Manage Change• Flexible priorities, must be able to shift your focus to

an urgent issue

• Treat everything as a temporary measure

• Ask for volunteers

• Set up a good team leader and let them do their job

• Give team members everything they want - EXCEPT authority

• Concentrate dispersed knowledge – keep an issues logbook, let anyone speak to anyone

• Bring order to chaos, don’t pretend it’s already well organised !