Organizational

Change
 Change at Nissan Motor
Company

© AFP/Corbis

 Carlos Ghosn launched a turnaround at Nissan

Motor Company that saved the Japanese
automaker and relied on change management
practices rarely seen in Japan.
Lewin’s Force Field Analysis Model

 Developed by Kurt Lewin

Restraining
 Driving forces Forces

 Push organizations toward

change
 External forces or leader’s vision
Driving
 Restraining forces Forces

 Resistanceto change --
employee behaviors that block
the change process
 Force Field Analysis Model
Restraining
Desired Forces
Conditions

Restraining
Forces Driving
Forces
Restraining
Forces

Current Driving
Conditions Forces
Driving
Forces

Before During After

Change Change Change
 Resistance to Change
 Direct Costs

 Saving Face

 Fear of the Unknown

Forces for
Change  Breaking Routines

 Incongruent Systems

 Incongruent Team
Dynamics
 Creating an Urgency for
Change
 Inform employees about driving forces
 Most difficult when organization is doing
well
 Must be real, not contrived
 Customer-driven change
 Adverse consequences for firm
 Human element energizes employees
 Unilever Reduces Resistance to
Change
Gary Calveley (right) brought
in team coaches to train
employees throughout the
process of changing Unilever’s
Elida Faberge factory into
Europe’s best factory. A
theatrical production helped to
communicate the changes that Dean Smith/The Camera Crew

Calveley was trying to achieve

through coaching.
 Minimizing Resistance to
Communication
Change
 Highest priority and first
strategy for change
 Improves urgency to
change
 Reduces uncertainty (fear
of unknown)
 Problems -- time
consuming and costly
 Minimizing Resistance to
Communication
Change
 Provides new knowledge and
Training skills
 Includes coaching and action
learning
 Helps break old routines and
adopt new roles
 Problems -- potentially time
consuming and costly
 Minimizing Resistance to
Communication
Change
 Increases ownership of
Training change
Employee  Helps saving face and
Involvement reducing fear of unknown
 Includes task forces, search
conferences
 Problems -- time-
consuming, potential
conflict
 Minimizing Resistance to
Communication
Change

When communication,
training, and involvement
Training
do not resolve stress
Employee  Potential benefits
Involvement
More motivation to
Stress
Management change
Less fear of unknown
Fewer direct costs
 Problems -- time-
consuming, expensive,
doesn’t help everyone
 Minimizing Resistance to
Communication
Change
Training  When people clearly lose
something and won’t
Employee
Involvement
otherwise support change
Stress  Influence by exchange--
Management reduces direct costs
Negotiation  Problems
• Expensive
• Increases compliance, not
commitment
 Minimizing Resistance to
Communication
Change
Training
 When all else fails
Employee
Involvement  Assertive influence
Stress  Firing people -- radical
Management
form of “unlearning”
Negotiation  Problems
• Reduces trust
Coercion • May create more subtle
resistance
 Refreezing the Desired
Conditions
 Realigning organizational systems
and team dynamics with the desired
changes
 Alter rewards to reinforce new behaviors
 Feedback systems
 Help employees learn how they are
doing
 Provide support for the new behavior
patterns
Strategic Vision at Hanson Brick

 Richard Manning (shown in

photo) relied on strategic
vision and his role as a change
agent to integrate seven
companies into a single
corporate entity at Hanson
Brick’s North American
operations.
Strategic Vision & Change

 Need a vision of the

desired future state
 Minimizes employee
fear of the unknown
 Clarifies role
perceptions

© Robert Padgett
Change Agents
 Change agents apply
transformational leadership
 Help develop a vision
 Communicate the vision
 Act consistently with the vision
 Build commitment to the vision
 Also requires transactional
leadership
 Aligning employee behavior through
rewards, resources, feedback ,etc.
 Action Research Approach
 Change needs both action and
research focus
 Action orientation
 Solve problems and change the
organizational system
 Research orientation
 Concepts guide the change
 Data needed to diagnose problem,
identify intervention, evaluate change
Action Research Process
Establish
Client-
Consultant
Relations

Diagnose Evaluate/
Introduce
Need for Stabilize
Change
Change Change

Disengage
Consultant’s
Services
 Appreciative Inquiry at Hunter
Douglas
 The Hunter Douglas Window
Fashions Division in
Colorado relied on
appreciative inquiry as well
as a search conference to
create a collective vision, re-
instill a sense of community
among employees, and build
leadership within the Courtesy of Amanda Trotsen-Bloom

company.
Appreciative Inquiry Approach
 Directs the group’s attention
away from its own problems
and focuses participants on the
group’s potential and positive
elements.

 Reframes relationships around

the positive rather than being
problem oriented

Courtesy of Amanda Trotsen-Bloom

Appreciative Inquiry Process

Discovery Dreaming Designing Delivering

Forming Engaging in Developing

Discovering
ideas about dialogue objectives
the best of
“what might about “what about “what
“what is”
be” should be” will be”
 Parallel Learning Structure
Approach
 Highly participative social structures
 Members representative across the formal
hierarchy
 Sufficiently free from firm’s constraints
 Develop solutions for organizational
change which are then applied back into
the larger organization
Parallel Learning Structures
Parallel
Organization
Structure
 Cross-Cultural and Ethical
Concerns
 Cross-Cultural Concerns
 Linear and open conflict assumptions different
from values in some cultures

 Ethical Concerns
 Privacy rights of individuals
 Management power
 Individuals’ self-esteem
 Consultant’s role
 Rules for the Road Ahead

 Understand your needs and values

 Understand your competencies
 Set career goals
 Maintain networks
 Get a mentor
Organizations are About People

 “Take away my people, but leave my

factories, and soon grass will grow on the
factory floors. Take away my factories, but
leave my people, and soon we will have a
new and better factory.”
 Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919)
Organizational
Change