Chapter 15- Leading Change
Otters Eight-Step Model
1. Establish a sense of urgency 2. Form a powerful guiding coalition 3. Create a vision 4. Communicate the vision 5. empower action 6. create quick wins 7. build on the change 8. Make it stick
Workout has several steps:
1. The manager introduces a problem to a team of employees that have relevant expertise. 2. The manager leaves, and the employees work together for about two days on the problem. 3. The manager returns and the employees report their proposals to solve the problem. 4. On the spot, the manager must accept the proposals, decline them or ask for more information. If more information is requested, a process to make a final decision must be articulated.
How to overcome resistance to change: Building Support and Commitment
Building Support and Commitment reduces resistance because employees have the support through counseling or sabbaticals to ease the strain. Commitment to the organization also increases commitment to change.
How to overcome resistance to change: Developing Positive Relationships
Developing Positive Relationships through trust in management increases commitment to organizational change. Research has shown that high quality Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) relationships reduce resistance. Leaders provide explanations to followers that help them cope with change and commit to it
Changes in workforce:
Economy- recession, downsizing and restructuring Technology- rapid, must keep up Globalization- rise of multinational corporations Competition- global competition, mergers and acquisitions
How to overcome resistance to change: Education and communication
Education and communication reduces misinformation about the change and helps convince employees that change is needed.
Evolution of work: Today
Flattened Structure Flexible Working Hours Shared Information Engaging, empowering, and inspiring leadership Cloud technology Email is secondary form of communication Create the ladder Connected and engaged company Work from anywhere
How to overcome resistance to change: Implementing Changes Fairly
Implementing Changes Fairly improves the chances that employees will accept change. Organizational justice is a major concern of most employees and it becomes more important during change.
How to overcome resistance to change: Participation
Participation matters as demonstrated by the Coch and People are more likely to accept changes that they help design.
TEDx: Joseph Gerry: Model for leading change
Peer influence You yourself are a role model but also who you surround yourself with Emotional contagion- positive and negative affect people Skills and behavior
Why do People Resist change?
Personal reasons -habit, security, economics, and fear of the unknown. Organizational reasons - structural inertia (structure is too rigid to support the change), group inertia, threats to expertise, and threats to established power relationships. Couldn't change and fit in with the enviornment
Incremental and Reactive Change =
Put out small fire Solve problems on a day-to-day basis. Quick fixed to short-term concerns
How to overcome resistance to change: Selecting People who Accept Change
Selecting People who Accept Change supports changes since research shows that people have personality traits that enable them to be more flexible when it comes to coping with change (Oreg, 2006).
Radical and Reactive=
Stop the bleeding Crisis management Industry shakeups, economic turmoil, financial shocks
Physical Setting
These are the characteristics of the physical space and how it is arranged (Robertson, Roberts & Porras, 1993).
Social Factors
These factors include individual differences and team interactions, and the organizational culture.
Technology
This is how raw materials and inputs transform into outputs, such as work flow design and job design.
Formal Organization
This provides the coordination and control necessary for organized activity; examples are formal structures and reward systems.
Radical and Proactive=
Transformational Doing things fundamentally differently. Change basic assumptions. Revolution
A classic Harvard Business Review article by Kotter and Schlesinger offers the following additional guidelines to help overcome resistance to change
True
Employees will tend toward the status quo or equilibrium, so there needs to be a constant attention to refreezing the new system and behaviors after the change is implemented
True
The forces for organizational culture have resulted in the need for organizations to be proactive rather than reactive
True
Incremental and Proactive=
Tweaking Anticipate and plan Improve current ways of doing things Fine tune. Guided Evolution
Process consultation -
a leader needs an outside point of view on an organizational issue and hires a consultant with OD expertise who assists in a helping mode guides leader to solve it through consultation rather than offer solution
The five leadership learning disciplines 2. Mental Models
are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures and images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action.
Manipulation and Cooptation tactics
are sometimes used in organizational transitions because they are relatively less expensive than the tactics listed above. Manipulation occurs when change agents use underhanded techniques such as the selective sharing of information and careful staging of events. Cooptation is basically "buying" the support of those who are needed. For example, change task force members would be paid a bonus for serving on the task force.
Unfreezing
challenges the status quo by shaking up assumptions.
In a learning organization, leaders facilitate organizational change by:
creating a workplace that is flexible and innovative. If employees are always learning and willing to do or try new things, change is easier to accept and implement. What you're trying to do as a leader is develop a learning organization: that is adaptive, where people learn, organization is constantly bettering itself, and is sustainable. Allows you to have more influence and people change their ways
Workforce diversity
due to gender, race/ethnicity, and generations work
Team building -
employs group activities that involve a great deal of interaction among team members to increase trust
Organizational development (OD)
is a collection of social psychology methods employed to improve organizational effectiveness and employee well-being. Kurt Lumon- founding father of OD- done by changing organization so that it fits with the environment in which it operates
Appreciative inquiry (AI)
is a recently-developed OD intervention that is an example of action research. The basic assumption is that people and organizations move in the direction that they visualize for the future. Participants begin the AI process by reflecting on a peak experience and then engage conversation about it with others in a group setting. (despite being successful, non successful, and people can ask questions about it.. People find out what lead to peak performance or bad performance)
The five leadership learning disciplines 4. Team Learning
is aligning and developing teams to generate results they want. People on the team act and learn together. They grow rapidly from team interactions. (learn more from everybody else and by yourself)
The five leadership learning disciplines 1. Personal Mastery
is competence plus the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality objectively.
The five leadership learning disciplines 5. Systems Thinking
is learning from experience, understanding cause and effect. This component integrates all of the others and is the fifth discipline. (these 4 different dimension work together and develop a learning organization and worth more than some of the parts
The five leadership learning disciplines 3. Building Shared Vision
is the sharing of a long-term view of the future which is uplifting, and encourages experimentation and innovation. (Where are we going- and promotes things like innovation)
Survey feedback
one of the most commonly-employed OD techniques. Data is collected and analyzed and reported to organization
Changing
represents movement toward a new desired state.
Coercion
should be used rarely, if at all, as discussed in the leadership chapter of this book (Chapter 2). Direct threats of loss of status, pay or other things that employees care about may gain short-term compliance but these tactics will rarely gain commitment to the change.
Resistance -
that the employees fight the change and try to undermine it
Refreezing
the changes by reinforcement and restructuring is the third phase to make the changes permanent.
Commitment -
the most desirable reaction in which the employees support change and help the organization implement it
Compliance -
they simply go along with the change but secretly hope that is a program that will come to an end soon
Workout -
was pioneered at General Electric and provided a method for employees to get new ideas head by top management without having to go through hierarchical levels of bureaucracy.