Leadership Strategy and Performance

Lecture 8 280220
Change Management

Dr Pauline Jas
School of Sociology and Social Policy
University of Nottingham
Room B28, Law and Social Sciences Building
0115 95 15 425
pauline.jas@nottingham.ac.uk
The University of Nottingham
Change – assumptions and myths (Hughes,
2011)

Change is scary; ‘better the devil you know’; people will resist
change
“He [sic] who innovates will have for his [sic] enemies all those
who are well off under the existing order of things, and only
lukewarm supported in those who might be better off under the
new” (Machiavelli, 1469-1527)
About 70% of all change initiatives fail (myth!)
Ambiguities – espoused change, unanticipated outcomes
Context – drivers of change, internal or imposed
Perceptions – multiple accounts, divergent interests
Time – sustainability
Measurability - evaluation
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Change leadership (Higgs & Rowland, 2011)

Shaping behaviour – leader-centric

Framing change – group-focused
Creating capacity – system focused

Directive – top-down, assuming rationality, no deviation or

involvement
Self-assembly – strategic direction at the top, local adaptation in
implementation allowed
Master – direction from the top, open to input from others,
building line-leadership capabilities in change management.
Emergent – broad sense of direction and a few “hard rules”’ focus
on sense-making and improvisation.
Stories of change

65 stories from 33 organisations – public, private, third sector

Approaches that see change as complex phenomenon are more

successful
Causal relationships between leader behaviours and change
approaches are not established in this study
More effective leader behaviours tend to be “enabling” rather
than shaping the behaviour of the followers
In line with general leadership theory of Transformational
leadership

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Change agents (Caldwell, 2003)

Suited to planned change in stable orgs

Based on assumption of change as linear, rational, and
manageable
Consensus best way of change, can be facilitated, ignoring
vested interests, politics, group dynamics
Focused on implementation limited to discrete initiatives aimed
at institutionalising change
Four models

Leadership model: top of org, strategic, far-reaching,

transformational, change
Management model: middle level, functional specialist,
building support for change
Consultancy model: external or internal, any and all functions
of change process
Team model: teams of anyone, doing anything in change
process
Critique on management consultants
(Fincham, 1999)

knowledge industry – the translation of knowledge into

practice
ownership of practice – clients buy without learning and
knowledge underlying the practice
standard practice regardless of suitability
faddish practices – those in vogue at the time
techno-managerial as well as strategy and direction setting
“a group that has gained an insidious power, unaccountable
and unseen” (336)
pursuers of own interests without due regard for clients’ needs
Clients’ motivation beyond operational or strategic input –
legitimising decisions already made, carrying out unpopular
courses of action (Kitay and Wright, 2004)
Boundary shakers
(Balogun et al., 2005)

Change agents within networks – boundary shakers

Strategic approaches – support and buy-in for change initiative
and implementation
Facilitating incorporation of the aims of the initiatives into
rewards and incentives structures
Ability to persuade people to adopt the change without
traditional line-management power
Understanding interests of actors throughout the organisation,
managing expectations and perspectives, aligning different
agendas - people-centred approaches
Interim managers in turnaround (Jas, 2013)

Organisational failure often leads to call for executive heads to

roll – new leaders are expected to make a difference
Organisation in state of flux, gaps in senior management,
uncertainty about next steps
Highly skilled people with topic specific expertise and
organisational development support
Using unique position to effect change
Quick-wins as well as sustainable improvement
Hidden problems despite detailed reports
Building confidence as well as being challenging
Delayed/invisible effects, played down by successors
Group discussion

What type of change management have you observed in your

case study organisation? Was this successful, and how do
you know? If not, what other approach to change
management could have been more successful? Why?

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