Week 5:

Practitioner perspectives
on managing change
 Week 5:
Managing effective
Change programs
Acknowledgement of sources
Text: Waddell, Cummings & Worley (2000).
Other sources: French & Bell (1999); Senior (1997).
 Learning Objective

• To understand the different elements

of a successful change program
 Change Management Activities
Creating Vision
• Describing the Core Ideology Motivating Change
• Constructing the Envisioned • Creating readiness for
Future change
• Overcoming resistance
Developing Political to change
Support
• Assessing Change Agent
Power
Effective
• Identifying Key Change
Stakeholders Management
• Influencing Stakeholders

Managing the Transition Sustaining Momentum

• Activity Planning • Providing Resources for Change
• Commitment Planning •Building a Support System for Change Agents
• Management Structures •Developing New Competencies and Skills
•Reinforcing New Behaviors
•Staying the Course
 Motivating Change

• Organizational change involves moving from

the known to the unknown.
• Creating Readiness for Change
– Generally people’s readiness for change depends on
creating a felt need for change.
• Sensitize the organisation to pressures for change
• Identify gaps between actual and desired states
• Convey credible positive expectations for change

Organisation Development & Change 8-5

 Motivating Change
• Sensitize the Organisation to Pressures for
Change
– Innumerable pressures for change operate both
externally and internally to organization.
– External pressures to change include heavy foreign
competition, rapidly changing technology, and the
draw of global markets.
– Internal pressures to change include new
leadership, poor product quality, high production
costs, and excessive employee absenteeism and
turnover.
 Motivating Change

• Identify Gaps Between Actual and Desired States

– Desired states may include organizational goals and
standards, as well as a general vision of a more
desirable future state.
– Significant discrepancies between actual and ideal
states can motivate organization members to initiate
corrective changes, particularly when members are
committed to achieving those ideals.
 Motivating Change

• Convey credible positive expectations for change

– Organization members invariably have expectations
about the results of organizational changes.
– Expectations can serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy,
leading members to invest energy in change programs
that they expect will succeed.
– Members are likely to develop greater commitment to
the change process and to direct more energy into the
constructive behaviors needed to implement it.
– The key to achieving these positive effects is to
communicate realistic, positive expectations about the
organizational changes.
 Motivating Change

• Managing Resistance to Change

– Change can arouse considerable anxiety about letting go
of the known and moving to an uncertain future.
– People may be unsure whether their existing skills and
contributions will be valued in the future, or have
significant question about their they can learn to
function effectively and to achieve benefits in the new
situation.
– Resistance to change can come from three sources at
the organization level
• Technical Resistance to Change
• Political Resistance
• Cultural Resistance
 Motivating Change
• Three major strategies for dealing with resistance to
change
– Empathy and Support
– Communication
– Participation and Involvement
• Empathy and Support
– A first step in overcoming resistance is learning how people
are experiencing change.
– This will help to identify people who are having trouble
accepting the changes, the nature of their resistance, and
possible ways to overcome – it requires a great deal of
empathy.
 Creating a Vision
• Discover and Describe the Organisation’s
Core Ideology
– What are the core values that inform members
what is important in the organisation?
– What is the organisation’s core purpose or reason
for being?
• Construct the Envisioned Future
– What are the bold and valued outcomes?
– What is the desired future state?
 Managing Political Support

• Assess Change Agent Power

• Identify Key Stakeholders
• Influence Stakeholders
 Sources of Power and Power
Strategies for Change Agents

Knowledge Playing it Straight

Others’ Support Using Social

Networks

Going Around the

Personality Formal System
 Managing the Transition
• Activity Planning
– What’s the “roadmap” for change?
• Commitment Planning
– Who’s support is needed, where do they stand,
and how to influence their behavior?
• Management Structures
– What’s the appropriate arrangement of people
and power to drive the change?
 Change as a Transition State

Current Transition Desired

State State Future
State
 Sustaining Momentum

• Provide Resources for Change

• Build a Support System for Change
Agents
• Develop New Competencies and Skills
• Reinforce New Behaviors
• Stay the Course
 NEXT WEEK

• Overview of interventions

• Reading: Chapters 9, 17 & 18

• Additional reading: French & Bell (1999) Chapter

8; Senior (1997) Chapter 8