lOMoARcPSD

Summary - book "Managing Organizational Change"

Organisational Theory & Dynamics (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam)

Distributing prohibited | Downloaded by Burak Kale (burakkale91@gmail.com)

lOMoARcPSD

OTD Managing Organizational Change

Chapter 7 - 11

Chapter 7: Implementing Change: Organization Development,

Appreciative Inquiry, Positive Organizational Scholarship, and
Sense-Making Approaches
Of the six images of change, the caretaker and nurturer have their foundation in the field of
organizational theory. The other four images (director, coach, navigator, and interpreter) have
stronger foundations in the organizational field.
Caretaker & Nurturer: have in common an assumption that changes managers receive rather
than initiate change
Director, coach, navigator and interpreter: assume the change manager has an important
influence on the way change occurs in organizations.
Traditional OD Approach: Fundamental values
Organization Development (OD) as a change intervention technique has developed over time, being
influences by a number of different trajectories there is no single, underlying theory that unifies
the field as a whole. The classic OD approach has the following characteristics:
It is planned and involves a systematic diagnosis of the whole organizational system, a plan
for its improvement, and provision of adequate resources
The top of the organization is committed to the change process
It aims at improving the effectiveness of the organization in order to help it achieve its
mission
It is long-term, typically taking two or three years to achieve effective change
It is action oriented
Changing attitudes and behaviours is a focus for change
Experiential-based learning helps to identify current behaviours and modifications that are
needed
What unifies the OD field, at least traditionally, is an emphasis on a core set of values. These values
build upon humanistic psychology and emphasize the importance of developing people in work
organizations and helping them to achieve satisfaction. Three values are involved:
Humanistic values
Democratic values
Developmental values
Traditional practice of OD has its focus people and is not necessarily meant to be solely focused on
the interests of managers or the profitability of the firm
The OD Practitioner
May be either external or internal to the organization

Distributing prohibited | Downloaded by Burak Kale (burakkale91@gmail.com)

lOMoARcPSD

Typical OD consultant helps to structure activities to help the organization members solve
their own problems and learn to be better
Involves a variety of steps:
o Problem identification
o Consultation with an OD practitioner
o Data gathering and problem diagnosis
o Feedback
o Joint Problem Diagnosis
o Joint Action Planning
o Change Action
o Further data gathering
Cummings and Worely argue that OD practitioners need a variety of skills, including:
intrapersonal skills, interpersonal skills, general consultation skills, organization development
theory
Underpinning the OD practitioner interventions is the classic change process model
developed by Kurt Lewin. He developed a three stage model of how change occurs:
UNFREEZING CHANGING

REFREEZING

Unfreezing: how the organization operates

Changing: in specific ways
Refreezing: the changes into the operations of the organization

Criticism of OD
Problems in the field:
OD definitions and concepts: establishing the relationship between OD and its ability to
enhance organizational effectiveness is difficult
Internal validity problems: whether the change that occurred was caused by the change
intervention or a range of other factors
External validity problems: this is the generalizability question and relates to whether OD and
its techniques are appropriate to all organizational settings
Lack of theory: there is no comprehensive theory of change to assist researchers in knowing
what to look for in what they study
Problems with measuring attitude changes:
Problems with normal science approaches to research
Current Relevance of ODs Traditional Values
OD has lost some of its power, its presence and perhaps its perspective
Occurred particularly as practitioners have been placed in a position od advising on and
implementing management strategies such as downsizing and reengineering despite their
potential to hurt individuals and therefore go against fundamental values of OD
Nicholl argues that OD practitioners need to remind themselves of the dilemma they face, of
assisting both individual development and organizational performance characterized as
contradictory elements
Some OD writers challenge managers to make their organizations more inclusive, to create
accountability, to reinforce interdependence, to expand notions of time and space, to ensure
the wise use of natural resources, and to redefine the purpose of organization in terms of
multiple stakeholders

Distributing prohibited | Downloaded by Burak Kale (burakkale91@gmail.com)

lOMoARcPSD

Engaging in Large-Scale Change

Traditional OD techniques focused on working with individuals and group dynamics through process
such as survey feedback and team building. Organization Development is said to have moved its
focus from micro-organizational issues to macro, large-system issues, including aligning change to
the strategic needs of the organization. Some techniques assume that organizational participants can
shape and enact both their organization and its surrounding environment, others are based on the
assumption that the environment is given and that organizations and their participants join together
democratically to identify appropriate adaption processes.
Appreciative Inquiry: From Problem Solving to (Building on) What Works Well
Represent a shift from an emphasis on problem solving and the conflict management, common to
earlier OD programs, to a focus on joint envisioning to the future
Discovering: Appreciating the best of what is currently practiced
Building on this knowledge to help envision (or dream) about what the future could be
Designing or co-constructing (through collective dialogue) what should be
Sustaining the organizations destiny or future
o Benefits of appreciative inquiry: release an outpouring of new conversations,
unleashes a self-sustaining learning capacity within the organization, creates the
conditions necessary for self-organizing to flourish and provides a reservoir of strength
for positive change
Emergence of Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS)
POS as a new organizational science emerged in early 2000 to encompass approaches such as
appreciative inquiry and others, including positive psychology and community psychology
It is an umbrella term that categorize previous research and provides an organizing frame for
current and future research on positive states, outcomes and generative mechanisms in
individuals, dyads, groups, organizations and societies
POS can be depicted as coaching organizations to identify their best plays, to understand the
behaviours and dynamics underlying them, and then to work out how to spread them to
other parts of their game.
Adopting a critical perspective, Finemann raises four issues that question whether POS can
really live up to its positive aims:
o First: he questions whether we can really agree on which behaviours are positive
o Second: he questions whether the positive can be separated from the negative or
whether they are really two sides of the same coin inextricably welded and mutually
reinforcing
o Third: he points to how what are regarded as positive behaviours and emotions
differ, not just in different organizational environments but across different cultural
environments
o Fourth: suggest that there is an unarticulated dark side to positiveness. This occurs
where is a lack of recognition that there are different interests in organizations and
that not all people respond well to so called positive programs like empowerment
and emotional intelligence or practice that impose a culture of fun in the workplace
Proponents of POS wish to change organizations with an implicit desire to enhance the
quality of life for individuals who work within and are affected by organizations
Critical Scholars do not lay out an alternative call to action for agents of change so much as
caution them if they assume that they will be successful in their positive ventures, instead,

Distributing prohibited | Downloaded by Burak Kale (burakkale91@gmail.com)

lOMoARcPSD

they are urged to recognize how underlying power relationships and interests in
organizations will limit their actions
Interpreter Image of Implementing Change: Sense-Making Approaches
Weicks point of departure is to argue against three common assumptions:
Inertia: under this assumption, planned, intended change is necessary in order to disrupt the
forces that contribute to a lack of change in an organization so that there is a lag between
environmental change and organizational adaption
A standardized change program is needed: this assumption is of limited value since it fails to
activate what he regards as the 4 drivers of organizational change:
o Animation
o Direction
o Paying attention and updating
o Respectful, candid interaction
Unfreezing: unfreezing is based on the view that organizations suffer from inertia and need
to be unfrozen, however , if change is continuous and emergent then the system is already
unfrozen, If there is deemed to be ineffectiveness in the system then this position is that the
best change is as follows:
FREEZE
REBALANCE UNFREEZE

Chapter 8: Implementing Change: Change Management,

Contingency, and Processual Approaches

Director image: this image underpins the change management approaches that are often
associated with the work of many large consulting companies
Adherents to this approach (director) take a strategic view of how to go about achieving
lasting organizational change
Contingency change theorists and practitioners take an it depends approach I which the
style of change, especially the style of change leadership, is dependent on the scale of the
proposed change and the readiness of staff to receive it.

Director Image of Managing Change: Change Management and

Contingency Approaches
Common to the various change management approaches is that they provide multistep models of
how to achieve large scale, transformational change. These and other models differ not just in terms
of the number of steps but whether all steps need to be followed, whether they need to be followed
in sequence, and whether they need to be adapted to specific settings.
Discontinuous change: more likely to be associated with static environments and in this
situation all keys need to be applied scrupulously, whereas

Distributing prohibited | Downloaded by Burak Kale (burakkale91@gmail.com)

lOMoARcPSD

Dynamic environments: where change is continuous, keys two (mobilize), three (catalyse),
seven (handle emotions), eight (handle power) will be less vital since staff will be more
accustomed to change
Nadler depicts discontinuous change as being a continuous cycle rather than a linear process and
identifies three core elements that need to be managed during the transformational process
Need to manage organizational power
Need to motivate people to participate in the change, in particular dealing with the anxieties
associated with change
Need to manage the transition itself
Ghoshal & Barlett, argue for the importance of sequencing and implementation of activities in a
change process. They identify 3 distinct but interrelated transformational change phases:
Rationalization: streamlining company operations
Revitalization: leveraging resources and linking opportunities across the whole organization
Regeneration: managing business unit operations and tensions, while at the same time
collaborating elsewhere in the organization to achieve performance
Muddling along and taking one stage at a time may be the most appropriate means of
handling complex changes
Although managing change will never be easy, with the right attitude and approach, it can be
most gratifying adventure
One of the best-known change management models, now widely regarded as a classic in the
field is John Kotters eight step model
Kotter argues that successful change follows a see-feel-change pattern in which problems
need to be presented in a compelling way that captures the attention of others; this awakes
in them the feeling about the need for change, and the change itself reinforces new
behaviours
OD Change Management Debates
Change management as a field is depected by OD writers as the brash child of the large consulting
companies. While drawing on a number of ODs techniques, change management is said to have
supplanted rather than extended OD as a new field. This has occurred in 3 ways:
1. This new field has a broader scope than OD, considering human performance and
development as one feature of organizational change efforts but related to other issues such
as technology, operations and strategy
2. The role of the classic OD practitioner is as a third-party facilitator or coach. Contrary to this,
the change management consultant operates with technical knowledge and as part of a team
consisting skill sets that cover a range of strategy and organizational areas
3. OD is presented as changing individual attitudes and ideas as a prelude to wider structural
changes in organizations. Change management is contrasted with this on the grounds that it
is through structural changes that new behaviours are assumed to emerge
Contingency Approaches
While change management models contain variation and flexibility, an underlying assumption is that
there is one best way of producing organizational change although it is not clear which of the
various models offered is the best one for the manager of change to follow.
Contingency theorists challenge this assumption and argue that the style of change will
depend upon the scale of the change and the receptivity of organizational members for
engaging in change
The style of change as well as the scale of change has to be matched to the needs of the
organization

Distributing prohibited | Downloaded by Burak Kale (burakkale91@gmail.com)

lOMoARcPSD

Dunphy and Stace identify 5 main change approaches:

1. Development transitions: refer to situations in which there is constant change as a result
of the organization adapting itself to external, environmental changes
2. Task-focused transitions: change management style is directive with the change leader
acting as a captain seeking the compliance of organizational members to redefine how
the organization operates in specific areas
3. Charismatic transformation: people accept that the organization is out of step with its
environment and that there is a need for radical, revolutionary change. A charismatic
leader is able to operate symbolically to gain emotional commitment of staff to new
directions
4. Turnarounds: aimed at frame-breaking changes. Turnaround change leader operate as
commanders utilizing their positions of power to force required changes through the
organization. Coercive/directive change style is argued to be needed where there is little
staff support for change and little time available to the organization to seek their
engagement
5. Taylorism: associated with fine-tuning, paternalistic approaches to managing change
Medium to high performance organizations are likely to be using consultative and directive
change management styles, while those using fine-tuning or Taylorism are likely to be least
successful, especially given the hypercompetitive business environment
Huy categorizes change into four ideal types:
o Commanding change intervention: one where the tie period is short term, abrupt
and rapid. Change is usually implemented by senior executives
o Engineering intervention: oriented toward a medium-term, relatively fast change
perspective and often assisted by work design analysts who assist in changing work
and operational systems
o Teaching intervention: takes more a gradual, longer term OD change perspective.
Assisted by outside process consultants
o Socializing intervention: is also gradual and long-term. Sees change as developing
through participative experiential learning based on self-monitoring

Why Contingency Approaches are not dominant

The notion of fitting an organizational change program to the type of change required may
be easier to articulate in theory than to deliver in practice.
Compared to the off-the-shelf neatness and simplicity offered by the change management
models, contingency approaches are more ambiguous and require greater choice and
decisions by managers about what type of change situation they are facing and therefore
which avenue to pursue
The main focus of contingency approaches is on the specific style of leadership, matched to
the scale of required change, rather than on a specific set of change action steps
If an organization is to adopt differing paths of change and employ differing styles of change
leadership at differing times and in association with differing changes, this raises the
question about the credibility or sincerity with which staff view senior management actions
There is a question about what is contingent to managing change

Navigator Images of Managing Change: Processual Approaches

Adopting a political and cultural view of change for Pettigrew means recognizing that intervening in
an organization to create strategic change is likely to be a challenge to the dominating ideology,

Distributing prohibited | Downloaded by Burak Kale (burakkale91@gmail.com)

lOMoARcPSD

culture, and systems of meaning and interpretation, as well as the structures, priorities, and power
relations of the organization.
What does Managing Change mean from a Processual Approach?
Creating strategic change is in essence a long-term conditioning, educating, and influence
process designed to establish the dominating legitimacy of a different pattern of relation
between strategic context and content
Means that managers of change need to examine the context of change in order to identify
sources of continuity as well as performance gaps and misfits
context and continuity shape the starting point in which change processes emerge, falter,
and proceed
o External context (economic, political and competitive)
o Internal context (strategy, structure, culture and power relations)
o Context provides both opportunities and constraints for managers of change
Number of stages to engaging in the management of change:
o One is a problem-sensing stage
o Development of concern about the problem
o Gaining acknowledgement and understanding of the importance of the problem
o Planning and acting stage involves clarifying future directions and objectives
o Stabilizing change, or making things which happen stick

Chapter 9: Linking Vision and Change

You need to get the vision right if you want to have any chance of achieving a successful
organizational change
Having a strategic vision is linked to competitive advantage, enhancing organizational
performance and achieving sustained organizational growth
Clear vision enable boards to determine how well organizational leaders are performing and
identify gaps between the vision and current practices
Lack of vision is associated with organizational decline and failure
Lacking vision is used to explain why companies fail to build their core competencies despite
having access to adequate technical resources to do so
Problem is to avoid a vision that is either too abstract, with platitudes and grandiose
statements that provide little in the way of detail about what the future should look like, or
too specific and encourage inly incremental improvements, focusing on short-term goals,
metrics and targets
Whether a vision is meaningful will depend on 3 features:
o Content or the attributes of the vision (what it is and says)
o Context in which the vision is utilized (where it is used and by whom)
o Process by which the vision is developed (how it emerges and who has input into it)

Distributing prohibited | Downloaded by Burak Kale (burakkale91@gmail.com)

lOMoARcPSD

Content of Meaningful Vision

Effective visions are focused enough to guide decision-making yet are flexible enough to
accommodate individual initiative and changing circumstances
Vision Attributes
Most visions include references to future or ideal to which organizational change should be
directed
The vision itself is presented as a picture or image that serves as a guide or goal
It is referred to as inspiring, motivating, emotional and analytical
According to Boal & Hoijberg, effective visions have a:
o Cognitive component (focuses on outcomes and how to achieve them)
o Affective component (helps to motivate people and gain their commitment to it)
Backoff identify 4 generic features of visions that are likely to enhance organizational
performance:
o Possibility: meant that visions should entail innovative possibilities for dramatic
organizational improvements
o Desirability: they mean the extent to which it draws upon shared organizational
norms and values about the way things should be done
o Actionability: mean the ability of people to see in the vision actions that they can
take that are relevant to them
o Articulation: mean that the vision has imagery that is powerful enough to
communicate clearly a picture of where the organization is headed
Pendlebury, Grouard and Mestons vision has three components:
o Why the change is needed (the problem)
o The aim of the change (the solution)
o The change actions that will be taken (the means)
Three components are also identified by Scott-Morgan
o Aspiration (picturing what the future organization will be)
o Inspiration (creating excitement about heading there)
o Perspiration (highlighting what needs to be done)
Relationship of Vision to Mission and Goals
Nutt & Backoff regard vision as being similar to mission and goals in providing direction and
identifying change actions that are needed. However, they do not necessarily articulate the actions
that are needed to produce this result. Vision usually paint a picture of the future and is inspirational,
mission statements are more purposive and instrumental in outlining what needs to be done.
Relationship of Vision to Market Strategy
To create competitive advantage, vision and strategy must be unconventional, often
counterintuitive, and differentiated from those of other companies. Vision has an external and
internal dimension:
External dimension: shared view within the organization of what are the market, customer,
competitors, industry dynamics, and likely macroeconomic impacts on the market
Internal dimension: organizational beliefs and values. It is through this that meaning is
created throughout the organization about what it is that the organization does - and from
here other strategic actions are taken

Distributing prohibited | Downloaded by Burak Kale (burakkale91@gmail.com)

lOMoARcPSD

How Context Affects Vision

Nutt and Backoff evaluate four organizational contexts in terms of their ability to produce visionary
change:
Rigid organizations: classified as those that have little in the way of available resources and
lack acceptance of the need for change
Bold organizations: have low resources but high acceptance of the need for change.
Characterized by more organic structures and being less rule-bound.
Overmanaged organizations: high resource availability but little acceptance of the need for
change. More stable environment and dominated by past practices that are seen to have
worked well and to remain relevant.
Liberated organizations: those where visionary processes are likely to be most successful.
High acceptance of the need for change and high availability of resources.

Process by Which Visions Emerge

Crafting the Vision
Vision technique: telling, selling, testing, consulting, co-creating
Letting the vision emerge from debates among multifunctional groups in an organization has
the potential to lead to more creative visons and actions
Nutt and Backoff identify 3 processes for crafting a vision:
o Leader-dominated approach: CEO provides the strategic vision for the organization
o Pump-priming approach: CEO provides visionary ideas and gets selected people and
groups within the organization to further develop these ideas within the broad
parameters set out by the CEO
o Facilitation approach: draws more directly on participative management
philosophies by engaging a wide range of people in a process of developing and
articulating a vision. CEO who acts as a facilitator, orchestrating the crafting process
Holpp and Kelly identify 3 differing approaches or sets of questions through which vision may
be acquired:
o Intuitive approach relies on the use of imagination and imagery to encourage staff to
participate in vision development
o Analytical approach, visions are not so much imagined as defined in relation to
organizational or departmental missions and roles
o Benchmarking approach a vision statement is developed by focusing on the actions
and standards utilized by the organizations toughest competitors.
o Intuitive and analytical approaches are more internally focused, the benchmarking
approach is more externally focused. There are several downsides to all these
approaches
Connecting the Vision to the Organizations inner Voice
Search for inner voice of the organization is needed to find visions that resonate within the
organization and narrow the gap between the talk and the walk
Vision is as much about insight as far sight

When Vision Fail

Change visions may fail when the objective is:

Distributing prohibited | Downloaded by Burak Kale (burakkale91@gmail.com)

lOMoARcPSD

Too specific
Too vague
Inadequate
Too unrealistic
Blurred
Are rear view mirrors
Too complex
Irrelevant

Ability of the vision over time

Visions fail when:
The walk is different from the talk
It is treated as the holy grail
Too disconnected from the present
Too abstract or too concrete
Developed without using a creative process
Little participation
Complacency
Presence of Competing Visions
Vision collisions: the presence of multiple and conflicting visions
Can occur where the vision is crafted by organizational strategists who are convinced about
the need for change but this need is not shared by change implementers or change
recipients, who may still be completing earlier changes already introduced in the
organization

Linking Vision to Change: 3 Debates

Does Vision drive Change or Emerge during Change?
Vision drives Change:
Vision is one of the first steps that is needed in organizational change
Without a vision, changes introduced by managers may seem arbitrary and unneeded
Vision emerges during Change:
May be something that is not possible to articulate early on during transformational or
discontinuous change
Only after discontinuous change has commenced that such information will be available to
assist in vision development
Those leading discontinuous change often soak in the problems facing them, observe the
results of their ongoing efforts and the make changes as needed on a real time basis
Does Vision hinder or help Change?
Vision helps change:
Tangible benefits are said to be associated with organizations that have skilful visions
Lipton identifies 5 key ways in which skilful visions can enhance organizations:
o Enhancing performance
o Facilitating organizational change
o Enabling sound strategic planning

Distributing prohibited | Downloaded by Burak Kale (burakkale91@gmail.com)

lOMoARcPSD

o Recruiting needed talent

o Focusing on decision making
Strategic vision helps to produce stretch in an organizations; that is, it creates a feeling of
incompetence resulting from the gap between the future and the current reality
It helps leverage these resources, that is, identify new, innovative ways of utilizing them
Stretch and leverage can be used to identify new strategic ways of achieving the vision,
including change actions such as:
o Flanking (exploiting a weakness in a dominant competitor)
o Encircling competitors (by gaining greater control of the market)
o Destabilizing a market (by changing the competitive rules that operate)

Visions hinder change:

Can occur when visionary or charismatic leaders use an emotional appeal as the basis for
engaging in change actions and neglect the necessary attention to operational detail that is
needed to make the change work
Problem that vision directs attention ore to the future rather than to dealing with where the
company is at present
Vision can hinder change where the wrong vision drives change, where leaders overstimulate
perceptions of crisis, or where the vision fails to produce what was promised and followers
become disillusioned and lose confidence in the leader and the organization
Vision development approaches that do not involve the people who will be affected are
thought to have negative consequences for producing successful organizational change
Identity will always be somewhat unclear and people will always want to talk about it
Some authors argue rather than use vision, use coherence: they refer to acting in a manner
consistent with who you are given your present spot in the business landscape
Changes in visions may disrupt organizational identities, thereby producing resistance to
change. In introducing a new vision, care needs to be taken in assessing, first, whether it
enables or disables identity forming processes and, second, what will be the likely impact on
the willingness of individuals to become involved in the change?
Vision an Attribute of Heroic Leaders or of Heroic Organizations?
Vision is an attribute of heroic leaders:
Effective charismatic or visionary leaders create desired identity images including
trustworthiness, credibility, morality, innovativeness, esteem and power
Charismatic leaders secure such images in their follower and enact their visions through four
processes:
o Framing
o Scripting
o Staging
o Performing
To be an inspirational leader, vision is necessary but not enough by itself
In addition to vision and energy, the following is also needed:
o Ability to reveal personal weakness to followers
o Ability to sense how things are in both the organization and the wider environment
o Ability to display tough empathy with followers
o Daring to be different

Distributing prohibited | Downloaded by Burak Kale (burakkale91@gmail.com)

lOMoARcPSD

Another variant suggests that visionary leaders are needed at an everyday level throughout
the organization not just at the top. These people provide supervision. They use interactions,
role modelling, and conversations with staff to enable them to gain or realize:
o Perspective
o Purpose
o Processes
o Possibilities
o Potential
o Passion
In this perspective, vision needs to be renewed daily in order that staff remain engaged and
motivated

Chapter 10: Strategies for Communicating Change

The importance of communicating during change has been linked to facilitating vision, enhancing,
feedback, providing social support, and helping to modify change as it unfolds. Communication has
been linked to the success of research and development project groups, to establish the
trustworthiness of managers, and to persuading individuals to be involved in change innovations.
Change managers may be able to shape but not always control the communication of change.
The Communication Process
Modelling the Communication Process
The communication mix covers a variety of areas including content, voice, tone, message,
audience, medium, frequency and consistency.
Nelson and Coxhead outline six components in a communication process:
1. Message: verbal and nonverbal attempts to trigger meaning
2. Feedback: providing a response to the sender in order to see if the intended meaning was
conveyed
3. Channel: medium through which message was send (e-mail, letter, face-to-face, etc.)
4. Sender/receiver: individuals who, respectively, send or receive messages
5. Encoding/decoding: creation, transformation and deciphering of message.
6. Noise: distractions that exist in the communication environment and may act to interfere
with the transmission of meaning
Three potential problems during the communication process:

Message overload: occurs when information acquisition is overbalanced compared to an

individuals response capabilities
Message distortion: occurs when meanings are misinterpreted through intentional or
unintentional problems relating to the sending or receiving of the message

Distributing prohibited | Downloaded by Burak Kale (burakkale91@gmail.com)

lOMoARcPSD

Message ambiguity: occurs when an organization has vision but is not prescriptively clear on
how to achieve it
Avoiding such problems will occur when a common language about the change is adopted
and when top management consistently models the desired behaviours

Influence of Language, Power, Gender, and Emotion

Gender, Language and Power

Language doesnt just communicate ideas but reflects and reinforces underlying social
relationships
Alpha male: fast thinkers, having opinions on every topic, being analytical, data-driven,
impatient, and thinking they are smarter than most other people as a result their
communication style can intimidate those around them, they do not listen well, they miss
subtleties, and they put others under extreme pressure to perform

Emotion and Communication

The emotional side of change is an alternative view potential tool for securing the
willingness, commitment, and efforts of subordinates
Bringing about positive emotions that produce excitement and anticipation entails paying
attention to 4 areas:
1. Core message regarding the change
a. Emotional arguments
b. Metaphors
2. Packing the message
a. Emotional mode of communications
b. Humour
c. display emotions
d. characteristics of change leaders
3. Behaviour of change managers staff
a. Fairness and justice
4. Setting
a. Group dynamics
b. Ceremonies
c. Pleasant atmosphere

Three techniques that change managers can use to avoid this situation and the negative emotions
that are associated with it are:

Perspective taking
Threat reducing behaviour
Reflection self-evaluation of their actions to lessen the emergence of negative emotions
While the emotional side of change needs to be acknowledged, not all change managers will
be equally adept in achieving positive emotional response to particular changes

Strategies for communicating change:

Beyond spray and pray

Distributing prohibited | Downloaded by Burak Kale (burakkale91@gmail.com)

lOMoARcPSD

Spray & pray strategy and the withhold & uphold strategy are least likely to be effective in achieving
organizational performance, whereas the underscore & explore strategy maximizes organizational
potential by creatively synthesizing executives initiatives and employee concern.

Contingency Approaches to communication strategies

Your Communication Strategy Depends on the Type of Change

Developmental or incremental transitions aim for widespread involvement and emphasize

face-to-face communication and the use of change teams
Task-focused transitions endeavour to align behaviour with top-management initiatives and
are primarily top-down in nature with greater emphasis placed in formal communication
processes
Charismatic transformations seek to gain emotional commitment to a new way of
proceeding and entail more personalized forms of communication that enable top-down
communication
Turnarounds occur at times of organizational crises and draw on formal, top-down modes of
communication that endeavour to force people to comply with the new direction

Your Communication Strategy Depends on the Stage of the Change

Reardon and Reardon identify 4 leadership styles, which entail different communication processes
and strategies:
In the commanding style, leaders are performance and result oriented and communication
mainly entails directing people toward various tasks
In the logical style, leaders employ strategic actions as a result of discovering the range of
alternatives available to them through analysis and reasoning
In the inspirational style, the leader develops a vision of the future and seeks to encourage
cohesiveness of organizational members around the vision
In the supportive leadership style, the leader is concerned with creating consensus and an
open working environment
They identify 5 main stages of change:
1. Planning stage: focus is on identifying what needs to change and a combination of logical and
inspirational leadership styles is most appropriate
2. Enabling stage: people are selected and trained for the change process, a combination of logical,
inspirational, and supportive styles is needed
3. Launching stage: change commences and entails a series of steps and goals that are best met by
logical and commanding styles
4. Catalysing stage: inspirational and supportive leadership styles are needed to help motivate
people to become engaged in , and assist with the change effort
5. Maintaining stage: people are encourages to continue with a change effort even in the face of
obstacles that confront them.

Communication Media:
Media Richness

richness: the extent to which the communication style entails interpersonal contact

Distributing prohibited | Downloaded by Burak Kale (burakkale91@gmail.com)

lOMoARcPSD

Nonroutine, difficult management problems are best dealt with using rich media
communication sources such as face-to-face meetings routine issues should use leaner
forms

Quirke suggests that there are 4 types of target change audiences with some people needing:

Waking up: people who will be impacted by the change but really havent taken notice of it
yet
Engaging: people who will be impacted by the change and are rightly concerned and
therefore interested in it
Educating: people who are only marginally affected by or interested in the change and so
only really need to be educated about what is going on
Reassuring: people who are only marginally affected by the change but are nevertheless
concerned that it might affect them in a variety of ways

Chapter 11: Skills for Communicating Change

Different interests of managers and staff can be resolved in a change process (Collins).
The previous assumption is best associated with the director and the coach image of
managing change
The pluralist perspective suggests that managers should realize that no matter how good
their communications techniques are, it is always necessary to be able to detect differences
in interest.
This perspective is best associated with the navigator and the interpreter image managing
change
When changes are inevitable or when the result of change are unpredictable, it is important
that listening skills are applied
Caretaker or nurturer image of managing change

Communication skills for engaging others in the change process

Listening as communication skill
Gerard and Teurfs argue that it is through listening, dialogue, and community building that change
occurs. Transformation ensues when a collaborative culture emerges based on shared meaning and
mutual understanding of thoughts and feelings. This involves skills such as:

Suspending judgement ( in order to produce an open atmosphere of trust)

Identifying assumptions (to reveal misunderstanding)
Listening (to enable learning)
Inquiring and reflecting (in order for new collective understandings to emerge)

They claim that creating community through dialogue leads to three types of cultural
transformations:
Behavioural transformation (involving g new norms and behaviour)
Experiential transformation (whereby groups learn community might be achieved)

Distributing prohibited | Downloaded by Burak Kale (burakkale91@gmail.com)

lOMoARcPSD

Attitudinal transformation (in which individualism is replaced by collaboration)

Jacobs and Coghlan state: rather than listening to staff in order to achieve a convergence of
viewpoints, they suggest that the importance of listening lies in the ability to acknowledge different
points of view:
Change agent learn about the differences through the process of listening
Acknowledging differences, rather than ignoring or not listening to them creates
understanding as a basis of taking coordinated and coherent social action
Telling Stories
People tell stories in conversations to keep the organization from repeating historically bad choices
and to invite the repetition of past successes.
Selling Change upward
New ideas for change can be pushed upward through the organization from staff and various
modes of argument can be used to gain managerial attention in support of change ideas
Issue selling: the process whereby individuals seek to present to senior managers specific
changes that they would like to see occur
Dutton studied the idea of selling. They divide packaging into 2 groups:
o First relates to how the ideas are presented:
Linking the idea to the logic of the business plan
Raising the proposal continuously
Packaging the issue incrementally so that the size of the change does not
appear to be too large
o Second relates to what they termed bundling, linking it either to other ideas and
issues. Achieved by tying the issue to goals that are highly valued such as:
Profitability
Market share
Organizational image
Concerns of key stakeholders
Organizational cultures that do not encourage people to practice open communication may
be the result from 3 interrelated rationales held by staff, not based on facts or data:
o Myths
o Assumptions
o Beliefs
Toxic Handlers
Toxic handlers to describe people whose skills extend to helping others deal with the
organizational pain that can be associated with change
Change can be toxic to staff through either unrealistic expectations or targets, internal
competition, or belligerent and angry bosses, all of which can result in confusion, fear and
anguish among employees
Toxic handlers act as sponges, soaking up the ill-effects of change processes and acting as
intermediaries between staff and toxic organizational policies and bosses

Change Conversation Skills

Talking in Stages

Distributing prohibited | Downloaded by Burak Kale (burakkale91@gmail.com)

lOMoARcPSD

Ford and Ford believe that it is within and through communication that change occurs. Management
of change can be understood to be the management of conversations. They drew upon speech act
theory to argue that change can be thought of as occurring through 4 types of change conversations.
Initiative conversations bring attention to the need for change, whether reactive or proactive. It may
take the form of:
An assertion
A request
A declaration

Conversations for understanding provide an opportunity for people to gain greater

appreciation of the change issues and problems that need to be addressed. 3 crucial
elements:
o It specifies the conditions of satisfaction
o Enables participation and involvement by those affected by the change
o Confirms the interpretation that decision makers place on the change and enables
confirmation and sharing of meanings and understandings
Conversation for performance focus on producing the actual change required:
o Promises are made
o Obligations are entered into
o Accountabilities are established
o Deadlines are set
Conversation for closure signal the completion of the change and may involve:
o Acknowledgements
o Celebrations
o Rewards
Ford and Ford recognize that not all change conversations occur in a linear manner; come
stages may be skipped along the way
Several issues to consider for practicing change managers:
o Where managers are engaged in multiple change processes, there will be issues
relating to how smoothly they are able to transition themselves among different
conversations
o The stages of the conversations may be open to multiple interpretations among
participants
o It is not clear that all managers are able to be trained or able to exhibit all
conversations skills successfully
o Change managers will need to confront the notion of power

Talking coherently
Salience outlines 4 dominant language forms used to convey organizational change conversations:
Ideals (express preferences)
Appeals (seek support)
Rules ( seek to direct the behaviour of individuals)
Deals (serve as a form of bargaining and exchange)
Overreliance on one or another of these forms can lead to problems
Aligning Your Language with the Desired Change

Distributing prohibited | Downloaded by Burak Kale (burakkale91@gmail.com)

lOMoARcPSD

Maintains that one reason why change fails is because the imagery and metaphors that
managers use are out of sync with the type of change they desire leads to confusion
among staff about what is really requires
Marshak urges managers to ensure that their languages aligned to the type of change they
require. He identifies 4 different images of change and the language appropriate to each
type:
o Machine imagery of change: based on fix and maintain view that depicts the
organization as being broken. Words such as repair, adjust, and correct are used
o Developmental imagery of change: build and develop in which the organization
needs to enhance its performance. Change agent is viewed as a trainer or coach and
words such as nurturing, growing, and getting better are aligned to this type
o Transitional imagery of change: move and relocate view in which the change is
designed to alter how the organization operates. Change agent acts as a guide or
planner and words such as moving forward, leaving the past behind are utilized
o Transformational imagery of change: based on liberate and re-create view of the
needed change such as reinventing itself fundamentally changing the nature of the
business or market in which the organization operates. Change agent acts as a
visionary to help discover new possibilities and language appropriate to this type of
change includes reinventing, re-creating and adopting

Creating a common Change Language

Managers often use terms and phrases in a way quite different from the meaning originators applied
to the terms. Moosbruker and Lofton argue that business process reengineering has often failed due
to different use of words and language when business process practitioners and organization
development practitioners attempt to work together.
Where the practitioners involved in implementing change themselves fail to adopt a change
language with common meaning, the change they are seeking to implement is likely to be
problematic

Communicating Change with the outside world

Selling internal Changes to external Stakeholders
Selling internal changes to external stakeholders is an important issue that can affect the impact of
the change on organizational organisational share performance.
Arndt & Bigelow identified 4 key defensive impressions management practices that were used to
protect themselves from negative reactions by their stakeholders:
Excuses attributed the need for the change to forces beyond the actor such as the external
environment
Justifications took responsibility for the decision but presented it in a positive light without
referring to any possible negative consequences
Disclaimers provide reassurance by pointing to careful planning that preceded the
restructuring decision
Concealment statements downplayed the innovative nature of the change and thereby
decreased the perception of risk attached to it
Fiss and Zajac identified 2 sense-giving strategies that were used to legitimate the change:
Acquiescence sense-giving: frames a change as acquiescing to current norms and processes.
Strategic changes are presented as being aligned with current understandings and standards.

Distributing prohibited | Downloaded by Burak Kale (burakkale91@gmail.com)

lOMoARcPSD

Balancing sense-giving: frames a change as deviating from current standards, for example, by
selling the change as a way of meeting the needs of not just stockholders but divergent
organizational constituents

Crisis management and corporate reputation

Organizational crisis are defined as being events that:
o Are highly ambiguous
o Are low in probability but high in threat to organizational survival if they eventuate
o Provide little time to react
o Are often surprising to staff
o Provide a dilemma about the type of change decisions that are needed
Corporate reputation is defined as a collective representation of a firms past actions and
results that describe the firms ability to deliver valued outcomes to multiple stakeholders
Maintaining, re-establishing, or legitimating corporate reputation during times of corporate
crises is therefore a crucial part of managing these types of changes
3 apology strategies:
o Persuasive accounts: of what had happened in order to provide a competing story to
the publicly circulating one
o Statements of regret: about what has happened, but one that acknowledged only
minimal responsibility
o Dissociation: by which the company attempted to distance itself from the source of
the wrongdoing, sometimes by scapegoating specific individuals o by maintaining
that the source of the problem was peripheral to the mainstream operations of the
company
5 crisis management change strategies:
o Mortification
o Corrective action
o Bolstering
o Denial
o Shifting the blame

Distributing prohibited | Downloaded by Burak Kale (burakkale91@gmail.com)