Organisation Change and Transition

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Organisation Change and Transition

• Week 5
• Developing People and Organisations

2
Lecture Structure

• Understanding the Levels of Change an Development
  in Organisations?
• (Individual Team Organisation)
• Organisational Development (OD)
• Definitions, Aims and Underlying Assumptions of
  OD?
• How does OD work
• OD Approaches
• OD Techniques (Families of OD techniques
  innovative techniques)
• Final Thoughts on the OD approach to
  Organisational change?
• Group Activities
• Summary and Conclusions

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Understanding theLevels of Change in
Organisations

• Systems thinking important when viewing
  organisation change an Organisation is a
  totality of component parts
• Useful to examine and analyse change in the
  various components
• Three different yet overlapping levels
• (Inter) Individual
• (Inter) Group
• Total system (Inter-organisation Organisation
  Development)

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Understanding the Levels of Change in
OrganisationsIndividual Level

• Change often brought about at the individual
  level through
• Recruitment, Selection, Replacement and
  Displacement
• Training and Development
• Coaching and Counselling
• Individual Responses to Change
• Resisted (3 Types) or embraced?
• All change is a loss experience
• People need opportunity to discuss and deal with
  their feelings

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Levels of Change in OrganisationsIndividual Level

• Psychological Reaction to Change

Internalisation Reflection Learning
Mood
Denial
Consolidation
Shock
Depression
Testing
Letting go Acceptance of reality
Time
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Levels of Change in OrganisationsGroup Level

• Change often brought about at the group level
  through
• Team Building
• Self Directed Groups
• Importance of Inter-group relationships
• Group Responses to Change
• Resistance through
• Turf Protection and Competition
• Closing Ranks
• Changing Allegiances and or ownership
• Demanding New Leadership

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Levels of Change in Organisations
Organisational Level

• Classic Definitions if Organisational Development
  (OD)
• An effort which is Planned, Organisation-wide and
  Managed from the Top, to Increase organisation
  effectiveness and health through Planned
  intervention in organisations processes, using
  behavioural science knowledge Beckhard and
  Harris 1987
• A long range effort to improve an organisations
  problem solving and renewal processes,
  particularly through more effective and
  collaborative management of organisation culture
  with special emphasis on the culture of formal
  work teams with the assistance of a change
  agent or catalyst, and the use of the theory and
  technology of applied behavioural science.
  French and Bell, 1999

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What are the aims of OD?

• Enhancing congruence between organisational
  structure, processes, strategy, people and
  culture
• Developing new and creative organisational
  solutions
• Developing organisations self-renewing capacity
  Beer, 1980

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What does OD involve?

• Planning
• Problem orientation
• Systems approach
• Not a fix, but a strategy
• Focus on improvement
• Integration with the management process

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Underlying Assumptions of OD (Importance of
People)

• Individuals attitudes to work and resultant work
  habits are reactions to how they are treated and
  not linked to their intrinsic personality
• Work organised around peoples needs as well as
  organisational requirements produces higher
  quality and productivity
• Most individuals seek challenging work and desire
  responsibility for accomplishing organisational
  objectives to which they are committed
• The basic building blocks of organisations are
  groups of people therefore basic units of
  change are also groups

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Underlying Assumptions of OD

• 5. Organisation Culture tends to suppress open
  expression of feelings which adversely affects
  problem solving, personal growth, and work
  satisfaction
• 6. Groups which learn to give feedback to
  members in a constructive way facilitate
  individual growth
• 7. When change is introduced it will be most
  effective if the groups and individuals involved
  have a sense of ownership in the process
• 8. Basic value of all OD theory and practice is
  that of choice. Through the collection and
  feedback of relevant data made available by
  trust, and openness more choice become
  available to the organisation, and to the
  individual, and hence better decisions can be
  made.

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How does OD Work? OD Approaches and Techniques

• OD Processes
• Lewins Three Phase OD Model
• The Action Research Approach
• OD Intervention Techniques (the action component)
• Just one component of the OD formula sets of
  structured activities in which selected
  organisational units (target groups or
  individuals) engage in a task or a sequence of
  tasks with the goals of organisational
  improvement and individual development (French
  and Bell, 1999)
• Families of OD interventions
• Final Thoughts on OD

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How does OD Work? Lewins 3 Phase OD Model
UNFREEZING Resistance to change lessened, need
for change created (Equilibrium disturbed)
MOVING From old behaviour to the new (Changes)
REFREEZING Change made permanent
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How does OD Work? Reviewing Lewins 3 Step Model

• Main criticisms
• Too Simplistic and mechanistic assumptions
  regarding organisational stability organisations
  are never frozen (Kanter et al, 1992 10)
• Suited only for small sale incremental and
  isolated change
• Ignores power and politics
• Top down approach ignores bottom-up change
• But
• Recent support for model from Burnes (2004) (See
  article on website)

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How does OD Work?Action Research Philosophy

• Change needs both action and research focus
• Action orientation
• Solve problems and change the organisational
  system
• Research orientation
• Concepts guide the change
• Data needed to diagnose problem, identify
  intervention, evaluate change

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How does OD Work?The Action Research process1
Key executive perception of problems
Action (new behaviours)
Data gathering (reassessment of state of system)
Consultation with behavioural scientist consultant
Action planning (determine objectives and how to
get there)
Data gathering and diagnosis by consultant
Feedback
Discussion and work on data feedback and data by
client group
Further data gathering
Discussion and work on feedback and emerging data
Feedback to key client or client group
Feedback to client group
Action planning
Joint action planning (objectives of OD programme
and means of attaining goals, eg team building
Data gathering
Action
Etc
Source French and Bell, 1999
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How does OD Work?The Action Research process2
Establish Client- Consultant Relations
Diagnose Need for Change
Disengage Consultants Services
Source McShane 2004
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How does OD Work? The Action Research process3
PRESENT STATE (1a) Diagnose current situation
FUTURE STATE (1b) Develop a vision for change
(5) Assess and reinforce change
THE CHANGE AGENT
(2) Gain commitment to the vision
(4) Implement change
(3) Develop an action plan
JOURNEY TO THE FUTURE
Source Senior 2002
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How does OD Work?Intervention Techniques (the
action component)

• Families of OD Interventions
• Diagnostic activities
• Team-building activities
• Inter-group activities
• Survey Feedback activities
• Education and training activities
• Techno-structural or structural activities
• Process consultation activities

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How does OD Work?Intervention Techniques (the
action component)

• Families of OD Interventions
• 8. Grid organisation development activities
• 9. Third-Party peacemaking activities
• 10. Coaching and counselling activities
• 11. Life and career planning activities
• 12. Planning and goal setting activities
• 13. Strategic management activities
• 14. Organisational transformation activities

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How does OD Work?Intervention Techniques (More
Recent Techniques)

• Open-space Technology
• Whoever comes is the right people
• Whatever happens is the only thing that could
  happen
• Whenever it starts is the right time
• When it is over it is over
• The law of two feet
• Future Search Conference
• Looking at the past, present and future
• Developing of ideal future scenarios
• Find common ground
• Develop shared vision
• Action list for the individual, group, whole
  organisation

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How does OD Work?Intervention Techniques (More
Recent Techniques)

• Appreciative Inquiry
• Approach to organisational change based on
  strengths rather than weaknesses, on a vision of
  what is possible rather than an analysis of what
  is not (Barrett and Cooperrider, 1990)
• Directs the groups attention away from its own
  problems and focuses participants on the groups
  potential and positive elements.
• Reframes relationships around the positive rather
  than being problem oriented

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How does OD Work?Intervention Techniques (More
Recent Techniques) Appreciative Inquiry Process
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How does OD Work?Intervention Techniques (More
Recent Techniques)

• Parallel Learning
• Highly participative social structures
• Members representative across the formal
  hierarchy
• Sufficiently free from firms constraints
• Develop solutions for organizational change which
  are then applied back into the larger organization

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Parallel Learning Structures
Parallel Structure
Organisation
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How does OD Work?Final Thoughts on OD

• Get participation
• Successful change is inevitably a participative
  process. Crucial question who owns the problem?
  Cannot change others much if you believe change
  is only for them and not for you
• Get resources
• First of all, time to think
• Second, OD advice and help
• Third, backing of senior and top management for
  implementation
• Start small, but start real
• Start with pilot success of first test should
  be visible to all and easily communicated

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Summary and Conclusions

• Change and Development can be understood on three
  main levels
• OD a large scale plan to change total
  organisation
• Many diverse techniques employed to bring about
  Organisational Development
• But need to understand the messy complex nature
  at all levels

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Reading and References

• Cooperrider and Srivastra (1987) Appreciative
  inquiry into organisational life, in, Research
  in Organisational Change and Development, Pasmore
  and Woodman (eds) Vol.1 JAI Press.
• Beckhard, R and Harris, R.T. (1987)
  Organisational transitions Managing Human
  Assets, Free Press New York.
• Beer, M. (1980) Organisation Change and
  Development, Goodyear Santa Monica
• Burnes, B. (2004) Kurt Lewin and the planned
  approach to change a reappraisal, Journal of
  management Studies, 41 (6) 977-1002
• French, W.L. and Bell, C.H. (1999) Organisation
  Development, Behaviour Science interventions for
  Organisational Improvement, Englewood Cliffs
  Prentice Hall.
• Senior, B (2002) Senior, B. (2002) Organisational
  Change, London Prentice-Hall.
• McShane, S.L. (2004) Canadian Organizational
  Behaviour (Fifth Canadian Edition), Toronto,
  McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited.
• Kanter, R.M., Stein, B.A. and Jick, T.A. (1992)
  The Challenge of Organisational Change, New York
  Free Press.