676 Chapter 19 Change

Robert Colvile (2016) The Great Acceleration: How the World is Getting Faster, Faster.
London: Bloomsbury. Argues that almost everything that we do – walking, travelling,
communicating, processing information, buying things, you name it – is getting faster. He
also claims that this is beneficial, becasuse we are wealthier, and better informed, than
we were. However, organizations that are not able to keep up with the pace of change
will suffer (Borders, Blockbuster, Kodak), and many of us now feel overwhelmed by too
much information.

Ian Palmer, Richard Dunford and David A. Buchanan (2016) Managing Change: A Multiple
Perspectives Approach. Chicago: McGraw-Hill (third edition). Comprehensive text explor-
ing need for change, what changes, managing resistance, implementation methods, sus-
tainability, and the capabilities of change agents, managers or leaders.

OB cinema
Charlie’s Angels (2000, director Joseph McGinty Nichol – ‘McG’ – 2000): DVD track 14: 0:35:57 to
0:38:10 (3 minutes). Clip begins outside the Red Star corporation headquarters; clip ends when Alex
says, ‘Better yet, can anyone show me?’.
Alex (played by Lucy Liu) masquerading as an ‘efficiency expert’ leads the Angels into the Red Star
corporation headquarters building, in an attempt to penetrate their security systems. As you watch
this three-minute clip, paying careful attention to details, consider the following questions:

1. Is this an organization that stimulates or smothers creativity and innovation?

2. How do you know? What are the clues, visual and spoken, that support your assessment of the
organization culture?

Chapter exercises
1: Mis-managing change
Objectives 1. To identify tactics that can be used to delay, modify or sabotage organizational
changes.
2. To establish how easy it is to disrupt organizational changes.
3. To identify ‘best practice’ guidelines for effectively managing change, by reversing the
mis-management advice.

Briefing This exercise involves ‘reverse brainstorming’: finding bad solutions to a problem rather
than, as usual, looking at ‘best practice’ (Hagen et al., 2016). The problem is this. Senior
management have announced plans for a radical organizational restructuring. The aims
are to reduce hierarchy, streamline decision making, cut costs, and give customers a
better service. You have seen the plans, and you don’t like them. Some people will lose
their jobs. Many people – including you – will have bigger workloads and will have to
learn new skills. Customers will no longer have a named company contact. Response to
customer queries will be slower than before.
Divide into groups of three or four to decide if there is anything that can be done
about this. You may have personal experience – on which you can draw – of previous
organizational changes that did not go well. What happened in those cases? Your team
brief is as follows:
• Identify the tactics that you or others in the organization could use in order to delay,
modify or sabotage management’s reorganization plans.
 Chapter exercises 677

• These tactics could involve not doing certain things, as well as taking active steps.
• Be creative: draw up as wide a range of spoiling tactics as possible – but they must
be practical and realistic.
• Assess what the use of these tactics will cost, in financial terms.
• Assess the probability of these spoiling tactics having the desired result.
Present your findings to the whole class. If time allows, reverse the question, turning
your thinking into positives: what should be the ‘best practice’ guidelines for effectively
managing change?

2: Force-field analysis
Objective 1. To demonstrate the technique of force-field analysis in planning change.

Briefing Force-field analysis is a method for assessing the issues supporting and blocking movement
towards a given set of desirable outcomes, called the ‘target situation’. The forces can be
scored, say from 1 (weak) to 10 (strong), to calculate (approximately) the balance of forces.
If the driving forces are overwhelming, then the change can go ahead without significant
problems. If the resisting forces are overwhelming, then the change may have to be
abandoned, or delayed until conditions have improved.
If the driving and resisting forces are more or less in balance, then the force-field analysis
can be used to plan appropriate action. The extent to which the force field is balanced is
a matter of judgement. Used in a group setting, this method provides a valuable way to
structure what can often be an untidy discussion covering a wide range of factors and
differing perceptions.
For this analysis, your target situation is ‘to double the time that I spend studying
organizational behaviour’. In groups of three, complete the analysis using the following
table as a guide. First identify as many driving and restraining forces as you can. Then,
reach a group consensus on a score for each of those forces, from 1 (weak) to 10 (strong).
Finally for this stage of the analysis, calculate the totals for each side of the force field.
Target situation: to double the time that I spend studying organizational behaviour
Scores Driving forces 7 7 7 7 7 6 6 6 6 6 Restraining forces Scores

= Total driving forces score Total restraining forces score =

When you have completed this analysis, and added the scores, estimate the probability
(high, medium or low) of reaching your target situation if the force field stays the same.
Now draw a practical action plan for managing the field of forces that you have
identified in order to increase the probability of reaching the target situation. In devising
your action plan, remember that:
1. Increasing the driving forces can often result in an increase in the resisting forces. This
means that the current equilibrium does not change, but is maintained with increased
tension.
2. Reducing the resisting forces is preferable as this allows movement towards the
desired outcomes or target situation without increasing tension.
3. Group norms are an important force in shaping and resisting change.
678 Chapter 19 Change
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 CHAPTER Decision making

20 Key terms
Key terms and learning decision making bias
outcomes 8 classical decision theory certainty
Why study decision making? 8 rational model of decision risk
making uncertainty
Models of decision making 82
rationality routine decisions
Decision conditions: risk and
programmability 2 rational decisions adaptive decisions
Individual and group decision descriptive model of decision innovative decisions
making 4 making
group polarization
Problems with group decision
behavioural theory of decision
risky shift
making 7 making
caution shift
bounded rationality
Organizational decision groupthink
making 7 4 maximizing
brainstorming
Decision making and satisficing
evidence 7 8
nominal group technique
prescriptive models of decision
making escalation of commitment
Recap, Revision, Research
assignment 7 explanatory models of decision evidence-based decision making
Springboard, OB cinema 7 making decision-based evidence making
heuristic
Chapter exercises,
References 7 2

Learning outcomes
When you have read this chapter, you should be able to define those
key terms in your own words, and you should also be able to:

1. Distinguish between prescriptive, descriptive and explanatory

models of decision making and provide an example of each.
2. Distinguish different decision conditions on the basis of risk and
programmability.
3. Consider the advantages and disadvantages of group decision
making.
4. Identify the factors used to decide whether to adopt individual or
group decision making.
5. Match organizational conditions with the decision-making
processes that favour them.