Change Management

Change Management

“Change is constant” (Albert Einstein)

Change is about becoming more efficient and effective.

Therefore need to ask:

What to change?

What to change to?

How to change?

How to avoid failure of the change process?

Change Triggers

External change triggers relate to PESTEL and task environment forces.

Internal change triggers relate to performance measurement.

Ridgeway and Wallace (1996) refer to hard and soft issues.

Hard issues (emphasis on technical change)

Strategy

Structure

Systems

Productivity

Performance

Soft issues (people oriented, use of OD)

Culture

Leadership

Behaviour

Competencies

Attitudes

Motivation

Parameters of Successful Change

Daft (1998)

• Ideas and the need for change – perceived need for change

• Adoption – need support

• Resources

• Implementation

Types of Change

Hughes (2010) identifies, in terms of “rhetoric of large scale change language”, four types of large scale change

• Quantum – “changing many elements at once” (cites: Mintzberg et al 2009, Miller and Friesen 1984)

• Transformational – “massive programmes of comprehensive change to turn around or renew” (cites: Mintzberg et al 2009). Johnson and Scholes (2002) also relate this to the organisation acting in a way that is outside its existing paradigm and involves a significant cultural shift.

• Turnaround – “quick dramatic revolution” (cites: Mintzberg et al)

• Bold Strokes –“major and rapid changes imposed top-down” (cites: Kanter et al 1992)

• Long Marches –“small-scale short term incremental changes leading to longer-term transformation”(cites: Kanter et al 1992)

Planned – assumes organisations operate in a stable environment, change is pre-planned, rational, systematic and centrally driven

Emergent - change is seen as continuous, unpredictable and open ended, and emphasises a bottom up approach,...