Why do organizations change?
Organizations change because they must in order to remain relevant, productive, and profitable. Organizations that do not change quickly enough risk becoming obsolete.
What practical models can help us manage change in organization?
Kotter Stages 1 through 5: Preparing for Change
First stage, in order for a change process to actually begin (with any hope of continuing), the first stage of any change process in an organization must ensure that people feel an urgent need for change. Everyone involved, or potentially involved, needs to have both a cognitive understanding of why change is necessary and an emotional investment in what needs to be done and why.
The second stage of any change process involves getting the right people involved to lead change. This can include employees at all levels, but it must include top level management. Without them, most change efforts will fail.
Stage three involves the creation of a new strategic vision for the organization. A new strategy is often created at the top of the organization by the senior team and/or the Board of Trustees. But when preparing for a large-scale change, it is important to gather information and to involve key employees from throughout the organization.
In stage four, steps must be taken to make sure the new vision is effectively communicated throughout the organization. If employees know what’s going on and why, they are far more likely to be willing to make changes – even difficult ones.
Fifth stage, after employees understand the new vision, it is time to empower a broad group of change agents. This means finding, training, and creating a plan for a broad group of employees to actively support the change process. Change agents work to continue to communicate, inspire, and mobilize employees to engage in new behaviors, attitudes, and even values. They must, of course, have the skills to help employees be enthusiastic about the change and to deal with the details of change implementation.
Although empowering change agents is an important part of the model, it is a stage that often fails in organizations. Part of the reason for this failure is that change agent skills, such as managing resistance, engaging in inspirational leadership, and displaying personal resilience, are not necessarily what people learn at work. In fact, in many organizations, skills related to sponsoring and encouraging change are discouraged.
Kotter Stages 6 though 8: Change
Sixth stage, successfully pull off short-term victories, is somewhat counterintuitive. Leaders should set their sights on identifying opportunities for small victories that bring confidence that the change process is going in the right direction, rather than going one big, splashy, noticeable change.
Stage seven involves consolidating the small victories and going after more and bigger changes. By this time, employee’s hearts and minds will have shifted, and they will be inspired and motivated to continue and to take on even bigger, more significant change efforts.
Finally, in the last stage of change process, the new ways of thinking and doing must be solidified in the organizational culture. This can take the form of changing some of the “symbols” of the culture (such as the mission statement), emphasizing and capitalizing on the “good stories” that have emerged about the new organization, or embedding the new ways of being and doing into organizational systems and processes.
Organizational change fails because leaders ignore or overlook on one more steps in this model. For instance, without selecting and empowering a coalition of leaders to implement change, obstacles become barriers. Overconfidence after accomplishing small gains might make leaders believe that they achieved success. Even when the vision of change is successfully accomplished with significant gains, the failure to embed the change into the organization culture can lead to long-term failure.
Which model can help us understand change?
Lewin’s model looks at change as having three distinct phases. Prior to the beginning of a change process, a system is seen frozen, and the status quo is firmly in place. Later, in the first stage of the process, the system begins to “unfreeze”. Then, in the second phase, change occurs. Finally, in the third stage, the system refreezes, settling into a new status quo.
The model as originally presented argues that social habits are fixed, or frozen. To initiate change these social habits have to “unfreeze”, which requires “[breaking] open the shell of complacency…[by causing] an emotional stir-up” to bring these habits into consciousness, where they can be worked on. After desired changes are activated, a process of refreezing occurs that locks in new ways of feeling, thinking, and behaving.
Dynamic forces are at work that are both driving change and preventing it. When these forces are balanced, no change occurs and the status quo remains in place. In contrast, when driving forces become more powerful than restraining forces, the system begins to unfreeze – old habits are questioned, old patterns of behavior don’t seem to work as well, and employees might feel anxious and uncertain. If the driving forces continue to be powerful enough, change can occur. Then, the forces for and against change are once balanced, which allows employees and the organization to settle into new habits, processes, and activities.
Consider the Context: The “Whole Picture”
Change at any level of a system has to include a deep understanding of the context in which behaviors, patterns, and habits have developed. This means that it’s not enough to simply look at a person, group, or organization – you have to look at the entire picture and how each part of a system linked to and related to other parts. The well-known parable shows us what this means.
The poor frog in the parable misses a few things about the big picture – namely, that the scorpion was a scorpion, after all. The frog also failed to explore the situation: Why did the scorpion want to cross the river? How important was it? What was on the other side? More scorpions? Did the scorpion really care about living or dying? Were there other scorpions around, with their own agendas? Was there anything else that would prevent the scorpion from being a scorpion? What, after all, was the reason the scorpion wanted to change, and could he?
This even made me think of myself, “Have I ever felt like a frog? Have I missed important information or asked the wrong questions when deciding to do something new? Can I see any patterns in the information I tend to pay attention to or tend to miss when making changes in my life or at work?”
Change can occurs when group and cultural norms, values, and dynamics are addressed. In other words, it isn’t enough to simply try to change individuals, because the power of culture almost always trumps a person’s desire to change – even when it is sincere. That’s because culture is a powerful restraining force that helps maintain the status quo.
It is likely that when I started to teach in College, I learned new things about how to behave with others, build new friendships, and communicate. Upon entering this new “system”, I realized that I would have to learn new behaviors, and maybe even new way of seeing myself. There were many “stars”, and I’d have to behave somewhat differently than I did before. I made a number of changes to how I behave, how I perceive others, and even how I see myself. The norms and expectations of the group we belong to are powerful drivers of our behavior. Then, I realized when trying to change a situation, I need to understand the situation as it is before trying to change it. Change must start with a significant examination of what currently exists, such as forces for (those that help) and against (those that interfere) change.
Change Is Constant: The Permanent White-Water Metaphor
Change is constant at work and in life due to factors such as advancing technology and social, economic, and political shift. Old ways of life are being replaced by radical new ways of approaching basic human activities: communication, health, lifestyle, birth, and death. Is constant change a bad thing? Imagine living in a world that did not involve change. Tomorrow would be the same as today (which would be boring). Technology would stay the same (meaning there would be no new computers, phones, cars, or energy sources). Social norms, such as how people relate to one another, who’s on top, and who’s not, would stay the same (which would mean hopelessness for some people, such as the poor or those who experience discrimination). With no services, products, or markets, competition would be static, and world’s economy would be flat. This sounds awful, isn’t it? Yet, people complain about change all the time and have trouble understanding it, coping with it, and managing it. To be successful in our dynamic organizations today, we need to understand change on a personal level, and also how to support others as they face change in how they work and live. It made me think all those “Changes I Initiated and Wanted” and “Changes That Were Forced on Me”.
Permanent white water is a metaphor that refers to the fact that organizational systems face unrelenting turbulence and constant change. As a result, managers have to accept that they have limited control over their environments. However, in real white-water rapids, expert rafters know how to use paddles, body weight, posture, currents, and the quiet water near the shore to help them deal with the dangers of navigation. So, managers and leaders should need to learn the equivalent skills for dealing with fast-paced and constant change in organizations and the environment.
In fact, as a College Instructor, I must be a creative lifelong learner, steering myself toward new skills and the information I’ll need to deal with constant change.
