FP, Graham,d

Walden University

PSYC-6214-2/PSYC-8214-2

Consulting for Organizational Change

Dr. Michelle Ross

by

Darrin P. Graham
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Before a program of change can be implemented, the organization must anticipate the need for

change. OD programs are based upon a systematic analysis of problems and top management

actively committed to the change effort. The purpose is to increase organizational effectiveness,

Brown & Harvey, 2006). Within this organization the Dean has decided to implement inquiry

base learning (IBL), with much resistant from the older more seasoned faculty members. She

has also decided to recruit more qualified faculty, terminal degree holders. She has also decided

to embrace the technological age by adopting distance learning programs.

Because psychological contracts are not written and informal naturally they are open to

interpretation. If two parties to such a contract have contrasting perceptions of their mutual

obligations, the results may be interpersonal friction between them or worse, (Greenberg &

Baron, 2009). It is the belief of the dean that each faculty member will comply with her wishes

because they value their job, their profession, and her as their leader. The faculty believes that

the change will not take effect and will soon be rejected if they do nothing.

The dean must establish a flow of communication of the projected change, a rapport that

allows the faculty members to feel at easy and gradually see how the change is needed and will

help the organization. It is also very important that the dean pays very careful attention to all of

the legal and ethical issues that this change may impact on the organization and the faculty

members. She needs to clearly and openly justify the rationale for the change and be completely

open to questions and transparent to desired outcomes. The dean should ensure that she does

everything in her power to develop a reputation of being trustworthy and always have the

organizations and the employees and it customer best interest at heart.

The Dean also needs to be aware of the stages that should be considered when attempting to

create change. Stage one: Anticipate a need for change, Stage two: Develop the practitioner
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client relationship, Stage three: Diagnostic phase, Stage four: Action plans, strategies, and

techniques and finally, Stage five; to Self- renewal, monitor, and stabilize, (Brown & Harvey,

2006).

The Dean enters stage one making it clears that the organization has reached a dead-end and

is in need to change in order to maintain its competitiveness. After the organization recognizes

the need for change and an OD practitioner enters the system, a relationship begins to develop

between the practitioner and the client system (the Dean and faculty).

The OD practitioner must diagnose and analyze the problem to collecting data needed to

ensure the solution best fits the organizations needs. The OD develops a plan and strategies that

leads to a series of interventions, activities, or programs to aid in resolving the problem. As an

OPD professional one should address aspects of diversity with an open mind and the willingness

to treat all fare and equitable, to communication change and what it should look like, gain a

shared understanding for change. Use their position of power to influence inspirer while using it

political connections to win the trust of its constituents and or shareholders. An OPD

professional should also understands the stages of change and the power of effective

communication. Finally once the change plan is implemented it is carefully monitored. A

consultant is someone who provides expertise for a client for a particular issues, concern,

opportunity, or problem. That expertise may include knowledge, experiences, processes, models

behaviors, technology, or other assets. Weiss (2006). Some of the critical aspects in which a

consultant is faced with are:

1. The ability to formulate a personal theory of organizational change ever development of a

theory because it constantly change

2. The ability to develop tools, skills, and processes congruent with your theory
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3. The awareness of how he/she interacts with the system.

4. Have humility & compassion

A OPD consultant must hold themselves and other accountable they must also be able to

understand the change is continues to move as a constant in everyday life. Their theory of change

must constantly change also as organization change. He must adapt and be resilient when facing

the inevitable. Change is a non stopping. He must develop the tools and skills needed and to be

congruent. The DVD Consulting for Organization Change, Marvin Weisbord states that

understanding that to change anything we have to change its structure and overcome the

inevitable resistant as we interact within the systems of change. Dr. Sandra Janoff say in this

multicultural times there are many points of view for each individual and group we have to take

all of the relativities into account and understand how to create the correct atmosphere. Ethical

issues that will occur if the dean fails to use her experience and the use of archived research

without taking the steps to ensure confidentiality of those whose data are used in the research.

To be successful in the twenty – first century, organizations must have flexibility and the ability
for rapid transformation.

The diagnostic model that will be used is the

1. Idea and Context :

The Dean has identified that the Army Management Staff College in order to meet the

needs of the its future customers needs to change its instructional delivery, embrace more

innovative technology, and recruit a more educated faculty.

2. Define the change initiative:

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Change is needed to help move the college along side or in front of its competitors. By

implement inquiry based learning as a means to deliver instructions. Adopt online

learning to reach a larger customer base, and to recruit educated experienced faculty

members.

3. Evaluate the climate for change

The organization has a large percentage of the faculty members who had not had any

formal education since completing their undergraduate degrees and have no motivation to

seek additional education. Faculty members are using the old traditional lecturing as its

primary means to deliver instructions only reaching 20% of its student population. The

college has failed to embrace the technological age causing it lose customers and not

maintain a competitive edge.

4. Develop a change plan:

The plan is to adopt inquiry based learning as it means to deliver quality instructions.

Invest its resources in equipment need to reach the global market with the use of

blackboard. Recruit new faculty members with Ph.Ds . This should all happen within the

next three years

5. Find and cultivate a sponsor

Try to sale stakeholders on the ideal along with future students and faculty members. The

OD practitioner would have to have him/herself a series of questions and be true to “thy”

self. He/she must ask: what is my preferred learning style? What is my communication

style? How do I influence others? Do I have a clear understanding of what is that I want

to communicate and can I articulate? What tools or approaches will be most effective?
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What tools or approaches will not work? What styles best work for me and does these

styles benefits all? When gaining buy in for change in my organization,

After answering all of the above questions it is important to communicate directly to the

subordinates. In a group setting I will communicate the change, answer all questions, and

ask questions to ensure complete understanding, address any problems concerns or

possible issues. Paint the new organizational picture as clear and vivid as possible.

Explain the role of OD practitioner and the leadership and how this change will affect the

stakeholders. How it will improve our customer service/relations and how it may hurt it if

this change does not take place. Try to dispel any rumors by facilitating group discussion.

Encourage feedback. Ask for members to repeat what was discussed in their own words.

Ask for buy in, and explain to each and every member what their role maybe and how

they are still a very valuable part of the team and the organization success. Try to give the

short and long range goals along with the essential dates for change.

6. Prepare target audience to recipients change

According to Brown and Harvey the first step in the change process is an awareness that

a problem exist. Identifying a problem within a large organization can be a very difficult

challenge simply because the problem may not exist to everyone, so to some there may

not be a problem at all. This would automatically create resistant to the implementation to

change. Once the problem has been indentified the next step should be to clearly bring

awareness of the problem by communicating the problem and suggested steps to solve

the problem to all members involved. This should make the implementation process

effortless. The monitoring of the change should be the responsibility of everyone in the

organization. By giving the responsibility to everyone this should give a sense of

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ownership to all members. The members should have the freedom to make suggestions to

ensure continuous improvements. A timeline should be created clearly identifying the

steps to reach each goal and assessment with room for adjustments. Creating a change

model with regular communicated updates will keep all members on track and give them

a deeper commitment to the entire change process. Ensure the members understand that

the process may not be easy but it is needed and do-able. It has been observed that it does

not matter whether the change is perceived as being a positive or a negative. Resistance is

generated because the status quo will be affected. People are comfortable with known’s.

The introduction of a change, even for the better, is an unknown. It adds stress to people.

Specific strategies for dealing with resistance as well as the advantages and disadvantages

of each approach can be found in Kotter and Schlesinger (1979). They advocate the use

of focus groups, surveys and suggestions to bring the issues of resistance to the surface.

Resistance to change efforts is directly related to how the situation is framed (Gabarro

and Kotter, 1993).

7. Create the culture fit for making change last

Preparation: Faculty members began to attend the IBL training and workshops. Convince

them to start researching on their own and finding and sharing articles on the topic.

The more understanding of IBL the faculty received the complaining slowed up or

stopped in some cases. Soon some of the faculty members will be talking and debating on

the best ways to facilitate IBL.

Maintenance: Faculty members started teaching some of the newer instructors how to

properly facilitate IBL.

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Termination or recycling: At this stage all of faculty members’ behaviors changed,

almost as if they never resisted IBL in the first place. Now our organization using IBL as

they had invented it. Make the change last during the evolution of any change effort, the

change must became rooted to the existing culture. In essence, organization members

need to accept and understand the fact that change is in reality ‘how things are done

around here’. In Kotter’s step 8, failure to anchor the change initiative with the corporate

culture is a grievous error.

8. Develop and chosen a change leader team

The leader plays a critical role in creating the corporate vision. The leader both inspires

the employees to embrace the vision, and crafts an organizational structure that

consistently rewards people who focus their efforts on pursuing the vision.

Recruit the faculty members you have identified as leaders and who have done the

research and have a clearer understanding of the change. Build teams of members show

commitment to the organization and the change. Allow them the latitude to communicate

their discoveries to others, and eventually recruit them.

9. Create a small win for motivation

Identify all victories and milestones, conduct team and group meetings. Post progress on

walls and bulletin boards for all members to see. Create small wins for motivation

Creating short-term wins as a way to motivate employees is critical during a long change

effort (Kotter, 1995). One must plan for and create visible performance improvements.

Employees involved in those improvements should be recognized. Without specific

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important and visible short-term wins, people may give up and default to change resister

status.

10. Constantly and Strategically communicate the change

Schedule weekly or bi-weekly meetings depending on the change how large the groups

and the speed of the progress to communicate status and changes. Always be prepared to

conduct emergency meeting if needed. Communicate, involve people, and be honest’.

From the very beginning of the change effort, effective communication is critical. The

process by which the change is introduced can set the tone among recipients with respect

to acceptance or rejection. The goals of the communication effort should be: To increase

the organization’s understanding and commitment to change to the fullest extent possible;

to reduce confusion and resistance, and to prepare employees for both the positive and

negative effects of the change.

11. Measure progress of change effort

Develop timeline identifying milestones and other small victories. Create a matrix to

assess the program’s success and to track progress clearly indentify milestones and

benchmarks. Schaffer and Thompson (1992) caution companies to avoid the ‘rain dance’

of change improvement programs measurement that entails a concentration on activities,

as opposed to tangible, measurable results. Bypass lengthy preparations, and instead aim

for quick measurable gains within a few months. The key is to measure often only those

variables believed to be logically related to important milestones in the change effort. In

psychometrics, the idea is to avoid criterion deficiency, ie assessing the wrong or a

deficient measure of the true concept one wants to assess.

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12. Integrate lesson learned

Keep a written log of the steps taken being sure to indentify: (1) what did we set out to

do? (2) What actually happened? (3) Why did it happen? , and (4) what are we going to

do next time?

In conclusion, once the dean has clearly identified and analyzed the problem she has

to determine how to fix it with the best interest of the organization in mind. She must

research and determine the plan to repair the problem. With the assistants of the OD

practitioner she must develop the best way to recruit teams that will support her vision.

She must anticipate resistance to change my identifying possible interventions. She must

communicate the plan and its stages to the faculty in a matter to gain their trust and be

open for two way communication, using a matrix and timelines that clearly identifies the

milestones and benchmarks. The faculty must feel that they are a part of the plan and

understand their role in its accomplishment. The Dean must anticipate that some member

will agree to the change right away and others will be reluctant to move too fast. She

must conduct weekly communication sessions to ensure change is taking place and to

gain the trust of the one who have not. She must recruit the members who understand and

support the change to help convey the information to others. She must celebrate all

victories small and major. She must develop and follower a change model that will assist

her with the process. You must indentify faculty member and their accomplishments once

the change has taken place she must follow up to ensure it is permanent. She should also

keep studious note for lesson learned.

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Reference

Consulting for Organization Change DVD, Walden University, 2008

Brown, D. & Harvey, D., 2006, An Experiential Approach to Organization Development, 7th

Ed. Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey

Gallos, J. V. (2006). Organization development (1st ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Knapp, D. (2003). The ethical practice of I-O psychology. Retrieved online from
http://www.siop.org/tip/backissues/Apr03/22knapp.aspx

Miller, K., Lewchanin, S. Sep 2001, “Consulting to Management” Burlingame. Vol 12 iss 3
pg42, retrieved ProQuest 17 Dec