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1. Change Manager as Director(Controlling Intended Outcomes)The director image views management as controlling, and changeoutcomes as being achievable as planned. The change manager’s rolehere, as the title indicates, is to steer the organization toward the desiredoutcomes. This assumes that change involves a strategic managementchoice upon which the well-being and survival of the organizationdepends. Let us assume that an organization is “out of alignment” withits external environment, say with regard to the information demands ofa changing regulatory system and the more effective responses ofcompetitors. The change management response could involve a newcorporate information technology (IT) system to apply data analytics tomore efficiently capture “big data” (George et al., 2014). The directorimage assumes that this can be mandated, that the new system can beimplemented following that command, and that it will work well, leadingto a high-performing organization that is more closely aligned to itsexternal environment.
What theoretical support does this image have?As chapter 10 will explain, there are a number of “n-step” models,guidelines, or “recipes” for change implementation that are based on the
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image of the change manager as director. The change manager is advisedto follow the steps indicated (the number of steps varies from model tomodel), more or less in the correct sequence and regardless of the natureof the change, to ensure successful outcomes. These models are unitedby the optimistic view that the intended outcomes of change can beachieved, as long as change managers follow the model, as discussedearlier. Kotter (2007; 2012b) developed one of the best known n-stepmodels. He advocates working systematically through the eight steps inhis approach, more or less in sequence, and not missing or rushing anyof them. Even Kotter acknowledges that change is usually a messy,iterative process. Nevertheless, he remains confident that, if followedcorrectly, his “recipe” will increase the probability of a successfuloutcome.
As chapter 10 also explains, contingency theories argue that there is no“one best model” for change managers to follow. These perspectivesargue that the most appropriate approach is contingent; that is, itdepends on the context and on the circumstances (Stace and Dunphy,2001; Balogun et al., 2016). Contingency theorists thus part companywith n-step “best practice” guides, suggesting that a range of factors suchas the scale and urgency of the change, and the receptivity of those whowill be affected, need to be considered when framing an implementationstrategy. In other words, the “best way” will depend on a combination offactors—but as long as the change manager takes those factors intoaccount and follows the contingent model, then the intended outcomesshould be delivered.
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2. Change Manager as Navigator(Controlling SomeIntended Outcomes)In the navigator image, control is still at the heart of changemanagement action, although external factors mean that, althoughchange managers may achieve some intended change outcomes, theymay have little control over other results. Outcomes are at least partlyemergent rather than completely planned and result from a variety ofinfluences, competing interests, and processes. For example, a changemanager may wish to restructure the business using “agile” autonomousteams to streamline new product design and development (Brosseau etal., 2019). Although a change manager may be able to set up agile teams(an intentional outcome), getting them to work effectively may bechallenging if there is a history of distrust, information hoarding, andboundary protection by the business units. In this situation, functionalmanagers may appoint to the agile teams people who they know willkeep the interests of their department uppermost and block anydecisions that might decrease their organizational power—anunintended outcome of setting up the teams in the first place.
Exploring why change initiatives stall, Eric Beaudan (2006, p. 6) notesthat “No amount of advance thinking, planning and communicationguarantees success. That’s because change is by nature unpredictableand unwieldy. The military have a great way to put this: ‘no plan survivescontact with the enemy’.” He also argues that “leaders need to recognizethat the initial change platform they create is only valid for a short time.They need to conserve their energy to confront the problematic issuesthat will stem from passive resistance and from the unpredictable sideeffects that change itself creates” (Beaudan, 2006, p. 6). Change may beonly partially controllable, with change managers navigating the processtoward a set of outcomes, not all of which may have been intended.
What theoretical support does this image have? Processual theories(see chapter 10) argue that organizational changes unfold over time ina messy and iterative manner and thus rely on the image of changemanager as navigator (Langley et al., 2013; Dawson and Andriopoulos,2017). In this perspective, the outcomes of change are shaped by acombination of factors, including:
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The role of the change manager is not to direct, but to identify options,accumulate resources, monitor progress, and navigate a way through thisuncertainty, ambiguity, and complexity.
Change managers must accept that there will be unanticipateddisruptions and that options and resources need to be reviewed. Changenavigators are also advised to encourage staff involvement. For seniormanagement, rather than directing and controlling the process, thepriority is to ensure receptivity to change (Rafferty et al., 2013) and thatthose involved have the skills and motivation to contribute. However,given the untidy, nonlinear nature of change, navigators—consistentwith the metaphor—have room to maneuver; the course of change mayneed to be plotted and replotted in response to new information anddevelopments. There is no guarantee that the final destination will be asinitially intended. In some instances, change may be ongoing, with noclear end point.
the past, present, and future context in which the organizationfunctions, including external and internal factorsthe substance of the change, which could be new technology, processredesign, a new payment system, or changes to organizationalstructure and culturethe implementation process—tasks, decisions, timing politicalbehavior, inside and outside the organizationinteractions between these factors.
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3. Change Manager as Caretaker(Controlling Unintended Outcomes)In the caretaker image, the (ideal) management role is still one ofcontrol, although the ability to exercise that control is severelyconstrained by a range of internal and external forces that propel changerelatively independent of management intentions. For example, despitethe change manager’s desire to encourage entrepreneurial andinnovative behavior, this may become a failing exercise as theorganization grows; becomes more bureaucratic; and enacts strategicplanning cycles, rules, regulations, and centralized practices. In thissituation, the issues linked to inexorable growth are outside the controlof an individual change manager. In this rather pessimistic image, atbest managers are caretakers, shepherding their organizations along tothe best of their ability.
Theoretical support for the caretaker image can be drawn from threeorganizational theories: life-cycle, population ecology, and institutionaltheory.
Life-cycle theory views organizations passing through well-definedstages from birth to growth, maturity, and then decline or death. Thesestages are part of a natural, developmental cycle. There is an underlyinglogic or trajectory, and the stages are sequential (Van de Ven and Poole,1995; Van de Ven and Sun, 2011). There is little that managers can do toprevent this natural development; at best they are caretakers of theorganization as it passes through the various stages. Harrison andShirom (1999) identify the caretaker activities associated with the mainstages in the organizational life cycle, and these are summarizedin table 2.2. Change managers thus have a limited role, smoothing thevarious transitions rather than controlling whether or not they occur.
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TABLE 2.2 Life-Cycle Stages and Caretaker ActivitiesDevelopmental Stage Caretaker ActivitiesEntrepreneurial Stage
Founder initiates an idea
Collectivity Stage
Coordination through informal means as groupidentity develops
Formalization Stage
Formalization of operations emphasizing rules andprocedures, efficiency, and stability
Elaboration Stage
Change and renewal as structure becomes morecomplex and environment changes
Make sure that resouravailable
Establish market nich
Design processes to aand creativity
Ensure founder genercommitment to vision
Coordinate communicdecision making
Build cohesion and mand culture
Develop skills throughreward systems
Facilitate shift to profemanagement
Monitor internal operaexternal environment
Focus procedures on equality
Strike balance betweecoordination, and con
Adapt current productnew ones
Ensure structure facilicoordination
Plan for turnaround, c
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Population ecology theory focuses on how the environment selectsorganizations for survival or extinction, drawing on biology and neo-Darwinism (White et al., 1997). Whole populations of organizations canthus change as a result of ongoing cycles of variation, selection,and retention:
Some population ecology theorists suggest that there are limited actionsthat change managers can take to influence these forces, such as:
In general, however, this perspective implies that managers have littleinfluence over change where whole populations of organizations areaffected by external forces. For example, managers of many financialinstitutions struggled to deal with the widespread global crisis triggeredby the collapse of Lehman Brothers, an investment bank, in September2008. That event affected adversely the global population of financeorganizations (and the governments that had to recapitalize them).
Institutional theory argues that change managers take broadlysimilar decisions and actions across whole populations of organizations.The central concern of this perspective is not to explain change, but tounderstand “the startling homogeneity of organizational forms andpractices” (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983, p. 148; Oertel et al., 2016). Thesesimilarities can be explained by the pressures associated with theinterconnectedness of organizations that operate in the same sector orenvironment. DiMaggio and Powell (1983) distinguish three pressures,which in practice interact:
Source: Adapted from Harrison and Shirom (1999), pp. 307–14.
renewal
Organizational variation occurs as the result of randomchance.Organizational selection occurs when an environment selects thosethat best fit the conditions.Organizational retention involves forces (e.g., inertia and persistence)that sustain organizational forms, thus counteracting variation andselection.
interacting with other organizations to lessen the impact ofenvironmental factorsrepositioning the organization in a new market or other environment
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Not all organizations succumb to these pressures; there are whatDiMaggio and Powell call “deviant peers.” However, the assumption isthat these external forces are inexorable and individual managers haveonly limited ability to implement change outcomes that are notconsistent with these forces. At best, change managers are caretakerswith little influence over the long-term direction of change.
coercive, including social and cultural expectations, and government-mandated changesmimetic, as organizations imitate or model themselves on thestructures and practices of other organizations in their field, oftenthose which they consider to be more successfulnormative, through the professionalization of work such thatmanagers in different organizations adopt similar values and workingmethods that are similar to each other
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4. Change Manager as Coach(Shaping Intended Outcomes)In the coach image, the assumption is that change managers (or changeconsultants) can intentionally shape the organization’s capabilities inparticular ways. Like a sports coach, the change manager shapes theorganization’s or team’s capabilities to ensure that, in a competitivesituation, it will be more likely to succeed. Rather than dictating the stateof each play as the director might do, the coach relies on establishing theright values, skills, and “drills” so that the organization’s members canachieve the desired outcomes.
What theoretical support does this image have? Organizationdevelopment (OD) theory reinforces the “shaping” image of the changemanager as coach, by stressing the importance of values such ashumanism, democracy, and individual development (see chapter 9).OD “interventions” are designed to develop skills, reduce interpersonaland inter-divisional conflict, and structure activities in ways that helpthe organization’s members to better understand, define, and solve theirown problems (Ibarra and Scoular, 2019). As the OD movement evolved,the emphasis shifted from team-based and other small-scaleinterventions to organization-wide programs, designed to “get the wholesystem in the room” (Burnes and Cook, 2012; Cheung-Judge andHolbeche, 2015). As a movement underpinned by values, OD advocatescan be evangelical about helping organization members to develop theirown problem-solving skills to achieve intended outcomes, claiming thatthe approach works and that it produces results with less resistance,greater speed, and higher commitment.
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5. Change Manager as Interpreter(Shaping Some Intended Outcomes)The change manager as interpreter has the task of creating meaning forothers, helping them to make sense of events and developments, which,in themselves, constitute a changed organization. It is up to changemanagers to represent to others just what these changes mean. However,there are often competing interpretations of the same issues, especiallywhere there are different groups who do not necessarily share commoninterests and perceptions (Buchanan and Dawson, 2007). This suggeststhat only some meanings—and therefore some change intentions—arelikely to be realized.
What theoretical support does this image have? Architect of theinfluential processual perspective on organizational change, Pettigrew(1985, p. 442) sees the “management of meaning” as central. He argues,“The management of meaning refers to a process of symbol constructionand value use designed to create legitimacy for one’s own ideas, actions,and demands, and to delegitimize the demands of one’s opponents.” Thechange manager seeking to introduce significant, strategic change maythus be faced with the prospect of trying to create a story that willdislodge a well-established ideology, culture, and system of meaning.Change managers, of course, do not have a monopoly on storytellingskills; sometimes the stories of others are better, and they “win.”
The interpreter image is central to Weick’s (1995; 2000) sensemakingtheory of organizational change. Sensemaking, Weick explains, is whatwe do when we face a problem—a surprise or a crisis, for example—andhave to work out how we are going to respond. For sensemaking to workin these situations, however, four factors have to be present. First, it hasto be possible to take some action to address the problem; almost anyaction will do, as long as experiment and exploration are allowed.Second, that action must be directed toward a purpose or goal. Third, thecontext must allow people to be attentive to what is happening and toupdate their understanding accordingly. Fourth, people need to beallowed to share their views openly, in a climate of mutual trust andrespect. Weick calls these four components ofsensemaking animation, direction, attention, and respectful interaction.
Weick (2000, p. 225) also observes that emergent, continuous,cumulative change is the norm in most organizations. The textbook focus
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on planned, transformational, revolutionary, disruptive change is partialand misleading. Emergent change involves the development of new waysof working that were not previously planned:
The recurring story is one of autonomous initiatives thatbubble up internally; continuous emergent change;steady learning from both failure and success; strategyimplementation that is replaced by strategy making; theappearance of innovations that are unplanned,unforeseen, and unexpected; and small actions that havesurprisingly large consequences.
Emergent changes are thus driven by continuous sensemaking, often byfrontline staff, and not by senior management. Indeed, top-teamintervention may inhibit change. Weick (2000, p. 234) argues that, whilethe four sensemaking activities of animation, direction, attention, andrespectful interaction are necessary for learning, adaptation, and change,“they are also the four activities most likely to be curbed severely in ahierarchical command-and-control system.” For successful change,Weick concludes, management must become interpreters, recognizingthat “organizational change is emergent change laid down by choicesmade on the front line. The job of management is to authorinterpretations and labels that capture the patterns in those adaptivechoices. . . . management doesn’t create change. It certifies change”(Weick, 2000, p. 238; emphasis added).
The interpreter image of change management may be particularlysignificant during an economic downturn and recession, whencommitment and loyalty to employers are likely to deteriorate. In thiscontext, there may be problems getting staff to support major changeprograms, triggering passive resistance and turnover. To build thatsupport, management needs to try and change the mindset andassociated behaviors by offering a positive interpretation of events(Basford and Schaninger, 2016).
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Interpreters at Work: FourConditions for Changing Mindsets
Emily Lawson and Colin Price (2003) argue that thesuccess of change relies on persuading individuals tochange their “mindsets”—to think differently about theirjobs and the way in which they work. They identify threelevels of organizational change. First, desired outcomes(increase revenue) can often be achieved withoutchanging working practices (selling noncore assets, forexample). Second, employees can be asked to changeworking practices in line with current thinking (findingways to reduce waste, for example). The third levelinvolves fundamental changes in organizational culture, incollective thinking and behavior—from reactive toproactive, hierarchical to collegial, inward looking toexternally focused. There are four conditions for changingmindsets at level three:
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Employees will alter their mindsets only if they see thepoint of the change and agree with it—at least enough togive it a try. The surrounding structures (reward andrecognition systems, for example) must be in tune withthe new behaviour. Employees must have the skills to dowhat it requires. Finally, they must see people theyrespect modelling it actively. Each of these conditions isrealized independently; together they add up to a way ofchanging the behaviour of people in organizations bychanging attitudes about what can and should happen atwork. (Lawson and Price, 2003, p. 32)
In a contested climate, managers as interpreters “need to be able toprovide legitimate arguments and reasons for why their actions fit withinthe situation and should be viewed as legitimate” (Barge and Oliver,2003, p. 138). Downsizing, for example, is one situation wherecompeting interpretations are inevitable. Change managers may portraythis action as a way of strengthening the organization in the face ofenvironmental pressures, thus protecting the jobs of those who remain.Others, however, may tell different stories, of managementincompetence and of underhand ways of “outplacing” politicallytroublesome individuals or even whole departments, under the cover of“efficiency.” Good stories can be more inspiring and motivational than adetailed business case. Balogun et al. (2016) regard stories as devices tomake the content of new strategies easier to understand, enhancingindividuals’ ability to translate change into meaningful actions forthemselves. Vaara et al. (2016) explore how senior managementnarratives concerning strategy and vision contribute to organizationalstability and change by making sense of circumstances and events. Inother words, when it comes to interpreting the meaning of change forothers, the effective interpreter tells better stories than the competition.
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6. Change Manager as Nurturer(Shaping Unintended Outcomes)The image of change manager as nurturer assumes that small changescan have a major impact on the organizations and that managers may beunable to control fully the outcomes of these changes. However, they cannurture the organization and its staff, developing qualities that enablepositive self-organizing. Future directions and outcomes can be nurturedor shaped, but the ability to produce specific intended outcomes islimited by wider, and sometimes chaotic, forces and influences.Checinski et al. (2019) claim that the failure rate of public-sectortransformations, at 80 percent, is higher than in the private sector. Indetermining the outcomes of change, they emphasize the decisive impactof people practices, one of which is nurturing the capabilities that arerequired to succeed with major transformation programs and that areoften lacking in the public sector.
Perspectives supporting the nurturer image include chaos theoryand Confucian/Taoist theory.
Chaos theory argues that organizational change is nonlinear, isfundamental rather than incremental, and does not necessarily entailgrowth (table 2.3). Chaos theorists, drawing also on complexity theory,explore how organizations “continuously regenerate themselves throughadaptive learning and interactive structural change. These effortsperiodically result in the spontaneous emergence of a whole newdynamic order, through a process called self-organization” (Lichtenstein,2000, p. 131). The phenomenon of self-organization is driven by thechaotic nature of organizations, which in turn is a consequence of havingto grapple simultaneously with both change and stability. In this context,the change manager has to nurture the capacity for self-organization,with limited ability to influence the direction and nature of thespontaneous new orders that may emerge. This may sound abstract andpuzzling, but this describes the emergent strategy—and nurturingcapabilities—that the successful Brazilian entrepreneur Ricardo Semler(2000; 2019) adopted in his iconic manufacturing company Semco(Kuiken, 2010). This explains how Semco successfully diversified intoelectronics (see the box “Semco: A Chaotic Business?”).
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