Table of Contents |
Once an organization decides the scope of the change, and whether or not it impacts individuals or groups, they can begin the process to implement a change. Knowing these things first (as you learned in the last tutorial) is key to creating an effective change management plan.
Change management is the process of designing and implementing organizational change. Most leaders are responsible for some degree of change management, but some managers and independent consultants may specialize in change management processes. Leaders are more effective in managing change if they understand the common practices for managing change as well as the perspectives and practices used by these specialists.
There are numerous models of change available to managers, and it can be difficult to discern the differences between them when creating a planned change process. Indeed, it can be daunting and confusing to sort through and understand which models are most appropriate and relevant for a particular situation. Every model of change has its strengths and its limitations, and it is important to understand what these may be. The type of change methodology used in a particular situation should be matched to the needs of that situation.
It may be helpful to use several questions when deciding on the appropriate approach to use in a planned change process.
The first question has to do with the fundamental need for change and the scope of the change. Is the organization in a state of deficiency that needs significant fixing, or is it in a state of high performance, where there exists a need for refining and tweaking?
One common motivation for change is when an organization is in some state of dysfunction with significant and serious problems, like a patient in a hospital in need of serious medical attention. A dysfunctional organization may require transformational change, in which the fundamental assumptions, beliefs, and organizing ideas of the organization are thoroughly challenged and altered. This is called deficit-based change, in which negative outcomes (like financial shortfalls or a toxic work environment) motivate the change.
EXAMPLE
If a company is seeing slumping sales quarter after quarter, they are likely needing to make a deficit-based change, such as revamp of the product or service or better understanding of the market needs.Not all deficiencies mean the organization is dysfunctional or performing poorly, however. It may be that laws or policies have changed, that environmental factors have changed, or that technology has changed the way the organization does things and thus requires a reorganization.
EXAMPLE
When the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990, schools had to radically transform to meet the demands of the law for students with disabilities. This required organizational change that could be described as deficit-based but did not indicate the schools were failing or dysfunctional before the new laws were enacted.In contrast, a high-performing organization may require incremental change as the organization continues to build on solid fundamentals to refine and add to its capacity for high performance. This often leads to abundance-based change, in which employees aim for greater degrees of excellence in their work.
EXAMPLE
A company that is experiencing high sales for a particular product may decide to change and add accessories that go with that product, creating an abundance-based changeA second important question addresses the mechanisms of change. This question is crucial because the answers determine the preferred designs for planned change and the perceptions of the effectiveness of the change.
Top-down approaches rely on a small group of individuals at the top of the organization to design a process and instruct others throughout the change process. Most employees in the top-down approach are simply expected to follow directions. In other words, this approach to change relies on the formal organization to drive the legitimacy of the change.
The opposite of the top-down change approach is the emergent or bottom-up approach. This approach relies on the belief that employees will be more invested in change if they play a role in the process of designing the change. Participatory management, the inclusion of employees in the deliberations about key business decisions, is a common practice that aligns with the emergent approach to change.
EXAMPLE
The differences between top-down and bottom-up approaches can be dramatic. Following the top-down approach, leaders might determine that the organizational structure needs to be reconfigured to better accommodate a significant shift in its business. They might assume that they can implement the new structure and that employee routines and patterns of behavior will then change in a natural progression.The bottom-up approach may reverse this logic. Employees might first work together to explore the tasks that are essential to a specific business problem, they might experiment with potential changes, and then managers might rearrange structures to match the new, emergent way of doing work. In contrast to the top-down approach, in a bottom-up process, a shift in structure may be a last step.
A challenge for many managers in the bottom-up approach is that they cannot directly control planned changes. Rather, they must rely on processes that draw employees together and expect that employees will respond. This requires faith, trusting that the process of involving people will lead to desirable emergent changes.
EXAMPLE
In practice, top-down and bottom-up practices often work together. Leaders might exercise top-down authority to define and declare what change is necessary. Then, they might design processes that engage and empower employees throughout an organization to design how the change will be brought about. Working toward a generally defined goal, employees at all levels are highly engaged in the change process from beginning to end. This approach has the effect of encouraging self-organization throughout the organization as employees make and implement decisions with minimal direction.As a general rule of thumb, the more complex the potential change, the greater the need to involve employees in the process of planning and implementing change.
Perhaps most important is the willingness or reluctance to engage in change by the staff at an organization, and the mindset of leaders about the staff’s willingness to change. In the conventional mindset, leaders assume that most people are inclined to resist change, and therefore, they need to be managed in a way that encourages them to accept change. In this view, people in an organization may be seen as objects, sometimes even as obstacles, that need to be managed or controlled.
When leaders use conventional methods, they demonstrate a tendency to assume that their perspectives are more informed, sound, and logical than the perspectives of employees. They will work hard to convince employees about the correctness of their decisions, relying on logic to prove the point. They may be inclined to use deficit-based change methods that employees are likely to see as manipulative or coercive. The conventional mindset is the default or dominant mode of change in most organizations.
In contrast, with an appreciative mindset, leaders assume that people are inclined to embrace change when they are respected as individuals with intrinsic worth, agency, and capability. In this view, employees in an organization may be seen as partners, sometimes even as champions of change, who can do significant things. Leaders involve employees through meaningful dialogue and seek to lead with a sense of purpose. They may start the change process by highlighting the values that people may hold in common to establish an environment in which employees develop a strong sense of connection with one another. With a strong social infrastructure, they involve employees through participatory processes that allow them to develop common goals and processes for achieving significant changes.
| Type of Change | Definition | Likely Usage | Situation Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deficit-Based Change | Risk of negative consequences requires change. | Used when something isn’t going as expected and allows the organization to pivot to close a deficiency. | Jestina allowed sales employees to work remotely, but sales are down, so she begins requiring two days in the office to assist in the needed sales increases. |
| Abundance-Based Change | When higher achievement is needed. | Used when an organization sees a potential opportunity they’d like to pursue. | The soft drink constantly sells out in one region in Mexico, so a new warehouse opens in that region. |
| Top-Down Approach | Small groups design the change process. | Usually used when managers are unsure of how employees will accept the change. | Jestina and the human resources manager need to develop some new policies around remote working hour requirements. |
| Emergent or Bottom-Up Approach | Employees play a role in designing the change. | Used when it is really important to get employee buy-in, such as when developing a mission statement. | Jestina asks her warehouse team to consider new order processing software and puts a work team in place to research their options. |
| Conventional Mindset | When leaders assume people won’t accept a change. | If a manager doesn’t expect the change to be accepted, they may use this approach to “sell” the change to employees. | Jestina needs to make a change on the sales team and doesn’t expect a positive attitude about the change. |
| Appreciative Mindset | When leaders assume people will embrace change. | If a change is a positive to most employees and/or if the manager is highly respected by employees. | Jestina is a good manager who shows respect to employees, so she expects them to willingly accept change. |
The three questions we have raised here can lead to many variations in the way that leaders design and implement change. For example, it is likely for a change process to be either deficit-based, top-down, and conventional; or abundance-based, bottom-up, and positive. But sometimes change processes are mixed in their design and delivery—for example, starting with a deficit-based perspective yet choosing to use an abundance-based design to create transformational change through a bottom-up, participatory, appreciative process. In today’s business environment, it is rare to find an approach that purely fits any of these categories.
In the subsequent tutorials, we will look at both conventional and emergent change models that may be analyzed through the three questions we addressed in this tutorial.
Source: THIS TUTORIAL HAS BEEN ADAPTED FROM OPENSTAX "ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR". ACCESS FOR FREE AT OPENSTAX.ORG/BOOKS/ORGANIZATIONAL-BEHAVIOR/PAGES/1-INTRODUCTION. LICENSE: CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION 4.0 INTERNATIONAL.
