WEEK 5 TO DO DISCUSSION A systematic review of the research suggests that there are ten steps to successful change. Most organizations seem to ignore this evidence, and this may contribute to the repo
Managing Organizational Change: A Multiple Perspectives Approach
Ian Palmer
REFERENCE OF THE BOOK
Palmer, I., Dunford, R., & Buchanan, D. A. (2017). Managing organizational change: A multiple perspectives approach(3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.
CHAPTER 9
Organization Development and Sense-Making Approaches
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter you should be able to:
LO 9.1 Appreciate more clearly the organizational change approaches underpinning the coach and interpreter images of managing change.
LO 9.2 Understand the Organization Development (OD) approach to change.
LO 9.3 Be aware of extensions of the OD approach such as Appreciative Inquiry, Positive Organizational Scholarship, and Dialogic OD.
LO 9.4 Understand the sense-making approach to change.
Jeff Bezos, CEO
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LO 9.1 Alternative Approaches to Managing Change
Of the six images of managing change, the caretaker and nurturer images have their foundations in the field of organization theory; the other four images—director, coach, navigator, and interpreter—have stronger foundations in the organizational change field. This chapter and chapter 10 delve further into the foundations of the four images that are rooted in the organizational change field and explore their implications for how to manage organizational change. They are also the four images that, in various ways, assume that the change manager has an important influence on the way change occurs in organizations. In contrast, the first two images, caretaker and nurturer, have in common an assumption that change managers receive rather than initiate change. Therefore, this chapter and chapter 10 explore the four images that assume that change managers have an active role in the initiation, support, and outcomes of organizational change. This chapter considers the foundational approaches associated with the coach and interpreter images; chapter 10 considers the foundational approaches associated with the director and navigator images.
Underpinned by the coach image, the Organization Development (OD) approach is one where its adherents present their developmental prescriptions for achieving change as being based, at least traditionally, upon a core set of values, ones that emphasize that change should benefit not just organizations but the people who staff them.
OD has played a central role in the organizational change field for over half a century. In their 2012 review of OD, Burnes and Cooke (p. 1396) argue that it “has been, and arguably, still is, the major approach to organizational change across the Western world, and increasingly globally.” However, as this chapter and chapter 10 illustrate, different images of change management are associated with different ideas about what sort of approaches (and techniques) should be used to try to bring about change within organizations. It is not surprising, therefore, that OD’s long history has been accompanied, from time to time, by expressions of concern as to its continuing relevance, leading some writers to raise the question of whether OD is “in crisis”; both the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science [40(4), 2004] and OD Practitioner [46(4), 2014] have had special issues focused on the question of OD’s ongoing relevance. A long-standing criticism of OD has been the claim that it has been sidelined from the concerns of the business community because of its preoccupation with humanistic values rather than with other issues such as business strategy (Hornstein, 2001; Beer, 2014).
Approaches to managing change other than OD have emerged, For example, underpinned by the interpreter image, the sense-making approach maintains that change emerges over time and consists of a series of interpretive activities that help to create in people new meanings about their organizations and about the ways in which they can operate differently in the future.
We commence this chapter considering the approaches underpinned by the coach image and then move on to the interpreter image. Further approaches to managing change are addressed in chapter 10.
LO 9.2 Organization Development (OD)
In this section, we consider the underlying tenets of the OD approach to managing change along with the role of the OD practitioner. We then review a number of challenges that have been directed at OD including the continuing relevance of the values underlying thePage 283 OD approach, the universal applicability of these values, and the relevance of OD to large-scale change.
Traditional OD Approach: Fundamental Values
OD as a change intervention approach has developed over time and incorporated a number of different perspectives (see table 9.1), each of which is discussed in this chapter.
TABLE 9.1
The Evolution of Organization Development
In drawing together the common threads of traditional OD, Beckhard (1969) depicts the classic OD approach as one that 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 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 behavior is a focus of the change effort.
Experiential-based learning is important as it helps to identify current behaviors and modifications that are needed.
Groups and teams form the key focus for change.
Though it is commonly presented as being aimed at incremental, developmental, first-order change, other writers claim that 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 (Nicholl, 1998a). Three value sets are involved:
Humanistic values relate to openness, honesty, and integrity.
Democratic values relate to social justice, freedom of choice, and involvement.
Developmental values relate to authenticity, growth, and self-realization (Nicholl, 1998c).
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Human development, fairness, openness, choice, and the balance between autonomy and constraint are fundamental to these values (Burke, 1997). It is said that these values were radical and “a gutsy set of beliefs” in relation to the time in which they were developed; that is, in the 1940s and 1950s when organizational hierarchy was dominant, emphasizing authority, rationality, and efficiency rather than humanism and individuality (Burke, 1997). In this sense, the traditional practice of OD has as its focus people and is not necessarily meant to solely focus on the interests of management or the profitability of the firm (Nicholl, 1998a).
The OD Practitioner
Central to the traditional OD approach is the role of the “OD practitioner” who may be either internal or external to the organization. A typical OD practitioner helps to “structure activities to help the organization members solve their own problems and learn to do that better” (French and Bell, 1995, p. 4). Where this is based upon action research, it involves a variety of steps such as (Cummings and Worley, 2019):
Problem identification. Someone in the organization becomes aware of what he or she thinks is a problem that needs to be addressed.
Consultation with an OD practitioner. The client and the practitioner come together with the latter endeavoring to create a collaborative dialogue.
Data gathering and problem diagnosis. Interviews, observations, surveys, and analysis of performance data occur to assist in problem diagnosis. Each of these techniques is recognized as an intervention in itself in the sense that it involves an interaction with people.
Feedback. The consultant provides the client with relevant data, at the same time protecting the identity of people from whom information was obtained.
Joint problem diagnosis. As part of the action research process, people are involved in consideration of information and discuss what it means in terms of required changes.
Joint action planning. The specific actions that need to be taken are identified.
Change actions. The introduction of and transition to new techniques and behaviors occur.
Further data gathering. Outcomes of change are determined and further actions identified.
In coaching people through such change processes, Cummings and Worley (2019) argue that OD practitioners need a variety of skills, including:
Intrapersonal skills. Having a well-developed set of values and personal integrity including the ability to retain their own health in high-stress organizational situations.
Interpersonal skills. Skills that are needed to work with groups, gain their trust, and “provide them with counseling and coaching.”
General consultation skill. Including knowledge about intervention techniques to assist them in diagnosing problems and designing change interventions.
Organization Development theory. Ensuring that they have a current understanding of the specialist field of which they are a part.
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A key idea underpinning many OD interventions is psychologist Kurt Lewin’s three-step model of change: unfreezing how the organization operates, changing the organization in specific ways, and then refreezing the changes into the operations of the organization. [While some critics, in particular Cummings et al. (2016), have argued that the three-step model is more a creation of Lewin’s followers than of Lewin himself, more recent research by Burnes (2020) has shown the three-step concept to be well-embedded in Lewin’s work.] How the three-step model of change relates to the actions of the OD practitioner is set out in table 9.2.
TABLE 9.2
Classic OD Change Intervention Processes
Sources: Adapted from French and Bell (1995) and Cummings and Worley (2019).
Criticisms of OD
As the application of OD as an approach to managing change became more widespread, so did attention to its limitations. Even advocates of the OD approach began to acknowledge that there are problems in the field. For example, French and Bell (1995) identified six of these:
OD definitions and concepts. OD may consist of single or multiple interventions over different periods of time, so establishing the relationship between “OD” and its ability to enhance “organizational effectiveness” is difficult, especially given that the latter term itself also lacks precise definitions.
Internal validity problems. This relates to 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.Page 286
Problems with measuring attitude changes. Using pre-change and then post-change surveys to measure attitudinal changes are problematic as people may view the scale differently when they answer it a second time.
Problems with normal science approaches to research. The ability to use these techniques (hypothesis testing, assessing cause–effect relationships, etc.) is questioned in relation to OD being a process based on action research.
OD and the Challenge of Managing Covert Processes
Bob Marshak is a very experienced and highly regarded OD consultant. For Marshak, one of the great OD challenges is dealing with what he describes as “covert processes,” those “powerful processes that impact organizations but remain unseen, unspoken, or unacknowledged [and which] include hidden agendas, blind spots, organizational politics, the elephant in the room, secret hopes and wishes, tacit assumptions, and unconscious dynamics” (Marshak, 2006, p. xi.).
To reduce the likelihood that covert processes thwart an attempt to bring about organizational change, Marshak (2006) identifies five “keys” to dealing with covert processes in the context of an OD intervention:
Create a (psychologically) safe environment. Do whatever you can to create a climate of trust and respect where people feel safe to reveal their thoughts and beliefs.
Seek movement not exposure. Focus on moving the situation forward, not being judgmental about the matter revealed (i.e., progress not punishment).
Assume that people are trying their best. Put the focus on inquiry rather than judgment.
Look in the mirror. Be self-aware so that your behavior as the consultant is driven by the situation of the people you are working with and not your own covert norms and beliefs.
Act consistently with expectations. Stay within the scope of your brief as explained to participants at the outset unless you explicitly renegotiate expectations with them.
French and Bell (1995, p. 334) adopted an optimistic view of this situation, arguing that “these do not appear to be insurmountable problems at this time, although they continue to plague research efforts.” However, other writers were critical of such optimism, pointing out that the approach is largely descriptive and prescriptive, often failing to adequately consider the inherent limitations and underlying assumptions of its own techniques (Oswick and Grant, 1996). OD has been presented with a range of other criticisms relating to the extent to which it deals adequately with issues such as leadership, strategic change, power, and reward systems (Cummings and Worley, 2019). Three further criticisms relate to the current relevance of OD’s traditional values, the universality of those values, and the ability of OD to engage in large-scale change. Each of these issues is addressed next.
Current Relevance of OD’s Traditional Values
Despite its longevity, or perhaps because of it, the issue of the ongoing relevance of the values underlying OD continues to be a matter of debate (see, e.g., Jamieson and Marshak, 2018). Going back 20+ years, prominent OD thought leader Warner Burke (1997, p. 7) argued that, for many experienced OD practitioners, “the profession has lost its way—that its values are no longer sufficiently honored, much less practiced, and that the unrelenting emphasis onPage 287 the bottom line has taken over.” This sentiment was a reaction to the growing role of some OD practitioners as advisers on corporate restructurings, mergers and takeovers, and so on, despite the lack of evidence of the values core to OD being central to such changes.
As a result, a view formed that “OD has lost some of its power, its presence, and perhaps its perspective” (Burke, 1997, p. 7). An editor of OD Practitioner at the time, Dave Nicholl, agreed with Burke’s general assessment, pointing to how many of the values of OD are confrontational to many of the values held in our organizations, leading to “stark contrasts” between being relevant and value-neutral or being value-laden and marginal (Nicholl, 1998c). Nicholl argued that OD practitioners need to remind themselves of the dilemma they face, of assisting both individual development and organizational performance—which he characterizes as “contradictory elements.” By delving back into OD’s heritage, Nicholl (1999) suggested that they regain their humility and present to clients not certainty but educated conjecture. Finally, he proposed the need for a paradigm shift in how the corporation is viewed and rebuilt, allowing space to recognize that corporations are not necessarily just institutions for profit but social institutions.
Other OD writers have challenged managers to make their organizations more inclusive (multiple levels of involvement in decision making), to create mutual accountability (linking performance remuneration to adherence to core values, stakeholders, and corporate sustainability), to reinforce interdependence (between individuals, organizations, and the wider society), to expand notions of time and space (such as considering the impact of decisions for future generations), to ensure the wise use of natural resources (such as consideration of renewable and nonrenewable resources), and to redefine the purpose of the organization in terms of multiple stakeholders (including customers, stockholders, community, planet, descendants, organizational leaders, employees, and directors) (Gelinas and James, 1999).
OD Values An Anachronism or Something Worth Preserving?
The valuing of inclusion, open communication, collaboration, and empowerment has caused OD to struggle in recent decades in the face of a perception that these are values from a “gentler” time and inconsistent with fiercely competitive markets where only rapid change, driven by top-down edict, can give hope of survival. However, Burnes and Cooke (2012) query this characterization of OD. Instead they ask, “Are we in a time when the issue of values has never been more important?” They suggest that many countries are struggling with the impact of organizations exhibiting unethical, and financially or environmentally unsustainable, practices. If this is so, Burnes and Cooke (2012, p. 1417) argue, OD “with its humanist, democratic and ethical values, wide range of participative tools and techniques, and experience in promoting behavior changes, is ideally placed . . . to play a leading role in the movement to a more ethical and sustainable future.”
Similarly, widely experienced professor and consultant, Harvard Business School’s Mike Beer (2014, p. 61), argues:
With the corporate scandals of the past decade, clear evidence that we are doing damage to our planet, and the great recession of 2008 . . . higher ambition CEOs are reframing the purpose of their firm from increasing shareholder value to contributing to all stakeholders . . . . This trend is opening up new opportunities for the field of OD to help these higher ambition leaders to create a better world. Higher ambition companies integrate head, heart, and hands.
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Are OD Values Universal?
One challenge leveled at OD is whether the approach and the values underpinning it are relevant outside of the United States, where it was predominantly developed. As with the issue of the continuing relevance of OD values over time (as previously discussed), debate over the global appropriateness of OD values continues (see, e.g., Sorenson and Yaeger, 2014).
Some advocates portray OD change values as being universal, with cultural differences serving as “a veneer which covers common fundamental human existence” (Blake et al., 2000, p. 60). For example, Blake et al. (2000) claim that the classic Managerial (or Leadership) Grid framework developed by Robert Blake and Jane Mouton in the 1960s has been applied successfully in many different countries. For Blake et al. (2000, p. 54) this framework was “probably the first systematic, comprehensive approach to organizational change” and had played a central role in the development of OD. They argue that the grid sustains and extends core OD values in seeking greater candor, openness, and trust in organizations. The grid maps seven leadership styles that vary in terms of their emphasis on people versus results: controlling, accommodating, status quo, indifferent, paternalist, opportunist, and sound—the latter style being preferred insofar as it portrays a leadership style that is concerned for both results and people (Blake et al., 2000).
The grid has been used as the basis for change leadership seminars, helping to establish both individual awareness and skills. In response to the question of the grid’s applicability outside of the United States, they claim that it has been used extensively in a variety of countries (including within Asia), in part because of “its ability to effectively employ a universal model of effective management and organization development within diverse cultures” (Blake et al., 2000, p. 59). Similarly, for Sorenson and Yaeger (2014, p. 58) the evidence from years of application of OD in diverse countries is that national cultural values are more akin to “a veneer that covers more fundamental and universal needs, needs which are reflected in the fundamental values of OD.”
However, other OD advocates are more circumspect about how far the OD approach is relevant across cultural boundaries. For example, Marshak (1993) contends that there are fundamentally different assumptions underlying Eastern (Confucian/Taoist) and Western (Lewinian/OD) views of organizational change. These differences are outlined in table 9.3. Marshak’s (1993) view is that OD practitioners need to view with care any assumptions they may hold that OD practices have universal applicability, while Mirvis (2006) recommends that OD become more open to a pluralism of ideas by drawing from both Eastern and Western styles of thought. Similarly, Fagenson-Eland, Ensher, and Burke (2004, p. 461), based on the findings of a seven-nation study, conclude that “OD practitioners should carefully consider dimensions of national culture when recommending specific OD interventions.”
TABLE 9.3
Is OD Change Culture-Bound?
Source: Adapted from Marshak (1993).
Engaging in Large-Scale Change
One of the biggest challenges to the traditional OD field was the criticism that it was ill suited to handle large-scale organizational change. Traditional OD techniques focused onPage 289 working with individuals and group dynamics through processes such as survey feedback and team building. Such methods came under attack as being insufficient to deal with the large-scale changes needed by organizations to cope with the hypercompetitive business world that confronts them (Manning and Binzagr, 1996, p. 269). OD was seen as “too slow, too incremental and too participative” to be the way to manage change at a time when organizations often faced the need to make major change and to do so with speed (Burnes and Cooke, 2012, p. 1397).
As a result of such criticisms, many OD practitioners began to move their focus from micro-organizational issues to macro, large-system issues, including aligning change to the strategic needs of the organization (Worley et al., 1996). This has led to the development of a range of techniques designed to get the whole organizational system, or at least representatives of different stakeholders of the whole system, into a room at one and the same time.
Whole system techniques take a variety of forms and names, including search conference (see table 9.4), future search, real-time strategic change, world café, town hall meetings, simu-real, whole-system design, open-space technology, ICA strategic planning process, participative design, fast-cycle full participation, large-scale interactive process, and appreciative future search (Axelrod, 1992; Bunker and Alban, 1992, 1997; Dannemiller and Jacobs, 1992; Emery and Purser, 1996; Fuller, Griffin and Ludema, 2000; Holman, Devane and Cody, 2007; Klein, 1992; Levine and Mohr, 1998). Such techniques are typically designed to work with up to thousands of people at one time.
TABLE 9.4
An Example of a Search Conference Format
Source: Adapted from Baburoglu and Garr (1992).
The various techniques do entail differences. 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 (although its defining characteristics may need to be actively agreed upon) and that organizations and their participants join together democratically to identify appropriate adaptationPage 290 processes. Other differences relate to the extent to which the technique includes a majority of organizational members and stakeholders. Some techniques are highly structured and use a consultant who manages the process, whereas others utilize a more flexible self-design approach (Manning and Binzagr, 1996).
World Café
World Café is a large-scale OD intervention technique developed by Juanita Brown and David Isaacs (2005). It has been described by Jorgenson and Steier (2013, p. 393) as “one of a new generation of methods that attempt to achieve collective change by bringing all members or stakeholders of a system together in one place, using a highly structured process of movement to create flexible and coevolving networks of conversations.”
Typically, the event is held away from the normal workplace and uses small face-to-face groupings seated at a collection of small café-like tables as the basis for rounds of conversations. Convened by one or more facilitators, the World Café involves a series of issues and questions being addressed by participants. Table membership changes between various rounds (of questions) although one person usually remains as the “table host.” Each table usually “reports back” (verbally) to the group as a whole between rounds, and the meeting culminates in the whole group discussing what has occurred.
Jorgenson and Steier (2013, p. 393) note:
The event is densely symbolic. Tables are often covered with red and white checked tablecloths reminiscent of an Italian restaurant as well as bud vases with flowers. Sheets of butcher block paper laid on each table along with colored markers or crayons are intended to evoke an atmosphere of play and allow participants, if they desire, to capture emerging ideas with sketches or notes.
Adapted from Jorgenson and Steier (2013).
Although designed, as the name suggests, for application in large-scale system-wide situations such as that represented in the World Trade Center example given in the box “Large-Scale Interventions,” these methods have also been applied in smaller-scale situations such as that described in the box “World Café on a Small Scale.”
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Large-Scale Interventions “Listening to the City”: Town Hall Meeting on Rebuilding the World Trade Center after 9/11
In New York City on July 20, 2002, over 4,300 New York citizens came together for what has been billed as the largest town hall meeting ever held. The meeting was organized by AmericaSpeaks, at that time a nonprofit organization headed by Carolyn Lukensmeyer, who used twenty-first-century town hall meetings to design and facilitate large-scale dialogues on public issues. She would group up to 5,000 people into one room. She profiled participants so that the group as a whole represented the various interests and stakeholders associated with the issues for discussion and debate and arranged participants into small groups of around a dozen people, each having a facilitator. Each group had a networked computer that recorded the ideas of the participants and a wireless network within the room to transfer these data to a central computer. This enabled a “theme team” to read the data from each group, identify key themes in real time, distill them, and present them back to the whole room via large overhead video screens. Each participant in the room had a wireless keypad that he or she could then use to vote in relation to the distilled themes. This provided instant feedback to the entire group, which, at the conclusion of the day, received a summary of the major issues and outcomes. Involving key decision makers in the meeting was an important way of trying to ensure that the outcomes of the day had a meaningful input into public policy.
In the case of the World Trade Center, the town hall meeting was held after five months of organizing, sponsored in part by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) and the Port Authorities of New York and New Jersey. During this period, a representative sample of New Yorkers was identified and invited to the July 20 meeting, which was titled “Listening to the City.” The room contained 500 tables, each with a facilitator. Theme team members provided feedback throughout the day, and issue experts were on hand to answer specific questions from participants. Representatives from various federal, state, and city agencies also were present. A key outcome of the meeting was an expression of dissatisfaction with the six memorial site options being considered and a demand for one having more open space; the meeting also made recommendations regarding expansion of the transit service and more affordable housing. The outcome was that the LMDC began a new planning process for the World Trade Center, and the Port Authority agreed to reduce the amount of commercial development planned for the site to enable more space for hotel and retail. As reported by the New York Daily News (July 21, 2002), “the process was an exercise in democracy.”
Based on Lukensmeyer and Brigham (2002).
World Café on a Small Scale The Museum of Science and Industry
The Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) is in Tampa, Florida, and has used a World Café format for various purposes including meetings that involved staff and members of the local community in the discussion of planning and design matters. Having had World Café experience, a decision was made to try this format for a meeting of its 30-member executive board that was scheduled to explore possible futures—and identify “actionable ideas”—for MOSI. World Café was seen as an approach that would signal to members that this was intended to be a very different sort of meeting from the highly structured ones that were the executive board norm in its usual setting (a traditionalPage 292 boardroom with members seated around one large elliptical table).
Participants sat at small round tables (seating four). The presenters explained the purpose of the event and the World Café process, and the first round began with the presenters asking the participants to discuss their own experiences of really good conversations and what it was about those conversations that made them “really good.” In future rounds, presenters asked respondents to discuss questions such as “What could MOSI be like in five years?” and “We’re now five years in the future and MOSI has attained these goals. What did we do to get here” (Jorgenson and Steier, 2013, p. 396).
Postscript: Reactions to this use of World Café differed between participants. Although several board members agreed with one colleague’s enthusiastic response that “this was the first time in a long time that we really talked to each other” and that “maybe this is what a board meeting could be like,” another responded rather ambiguously, “Yes, this has been great but now let’s get down to business” (Jorgenson and Steier, 2013, p. 396). For some people, an experience like World Café opens up a new set of possibilities as to how they could work with each other in the future; for others it is dismissed as a (possibly interesting) diversion before they return to “business as usual.”
Jorgenson and Steier (2013)
Proponents of large-scale intervention approaches are glowing, sometimes almost evangelical, in expounding their benefits. Weisbord (1992b, pp. 9–10) claims that Future Search conference outcomes “can be quite startling” and produce restructured bureaucratic hierarchies in which “people previously in opposition often act together across historic barriers in less than 48 hours.” Results emerge “with greater speed and increased commitment and greatly reduced resistance by the rest of the organization” (Axelrod, 1992, p. 507) enhancing “innovation, adaptation, and learning” (Axelrod, 2001, p. 22).
However, alongside testaments to the success of these techniques are disagreements regarding both the origin of large-scale, whole-system change techniques and their likely effectiveness in highly volatile environments. Some writers disagree with the version of “OD history” that depicts the field as having moved over time from a micro to a macro focus. They maintain that large-scale techniques have always been part of the OD approach and that “ODers have a strong tendency to neglect their past” (Golembiewski, 1999, p. 5). Others such as Herman (2000) maintain that because of the need for more rapid responses, systemwide culture change programs are less relevant today than more specific, situational interventions such as virtual team building and management of merger processes.
Aligned with this critique is the issue of the feasibility of systemwide changes in an era when “[t]he old model of the organization as the center of its universe, with its customers, share-owners, suppliers, etc. rotating around it, is no longer applicable in ‘new-era’ organizations” (Herman, 2000, p. 110). As one OD practitioner argues, “I’m not sure that ‘system wide’ change is really possible, since the real system often include[s] a number of strategic partners who may never buy into changes that fit one company but not another” (cited in Herman, 2000, p. 109).
However, others disagree. For OD consultant Susan Hoberecht and her colleagues (2011), the increasing centrality of inter-organizational alliances and networks in thePage 293 business world provides an opportunity for change methods with a systemwide focus because in such an environment a greater than ever premium is placed on the effective operating of interdependencies. In such an environment, Hoberecht et al. (2011) argue, large-scale interventions have particular relevance.
For an empirically based assessment of various aspects of the effectiveness of large-scale interventions, see Worley et al. (2011).
LO 9.3 Appreciative Inquiry (AI)
Techniques of “inclusion” appropriate to large-scale or large-group intervention techniques led to them being labeled as part of a new “engagement paradigm” (Axelrod, 2001, p. 25), a “new type of social innovation” (Bunker and Alban, 1992, p. 473), a “paradigm shift” (Dannemiller and Jacobs, 1992, p. 497), and “an evolution in human thought, vision and values uniquely suited to our awesome 21st Century technical, economic, and social dilemmas” (Weisbord, 1992b, p. 6). They represented a shift from the emphasis on problem-solving and conflict management, common to earlier OD programs, to a focus on joint envisioning of the future. For example, Fuller, Griffin, and Ludema (2000, p. 31) maintain that with a problem-solving approach comes the assumption that “organizing-is-a-problem-to-be-solved,” one that entails steps such as problem identification, analysis of causes and solutions, and the development of action plans.
Contrary to this logic, Fuller et al. (2000) point to the assumptions underlying the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) approach to change, which seeks to identify what is currently working best and to build on this knowledge to help develop and design what might be achieved in the future. They outline the technique as involving four steps:
Discovering or 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 organization’s destiny or future.
The technique is also depicted diagrammatically in Figure 9.1. An illustrative sample of questions for this four-step process is provided in table 9.5.
FIGURE 9.1
Appreciative Inquiry 4-D Cycle
TABLE 9.5
An Illustrative Sample of Appreciative Inquiry Questions
The following questions were part of an AI-based OD engagement that consultant Meghana Rao (2014, p. 81) carried out in a U.S. social services agency.
In these techniques the act of participation or inclusion of a wide variety of voices itself constitutes a change in the organization. The “what” to change and the “how” to change cannot be easily separated.
In their outline of the benefits of Appreciative Inquiry, Fuller et al. (2000, p. 31) claim that it “releases an outpouring of new constructive 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.” These are not minor claims. Certainly, the techniques have been reportedly used successfully in a variety of organizational settings (Weisbord, 1999b). However, whether these approaches are successful in achieving their outcomes is difficult to establish, being based most often on the assertions of their proponents rather than on rigorous research evidence.
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Appreciative Inquiry at Roadway Express
Roadway Express, a North American industrial and commercial transportation company, adopted an Appreciative Inquiry approach to change its culture and management. Working with Case Western Reserve University, the company embarked on a major leadership-training program to develop skills and capabilities for sustained economic performance. In what was called the Breakthrough Leadership Program, 150 Roadway Express leaders went through personal discovery exercises involving developing personal vision statements, identifying personal strengths and weaknesses, developing personalPage 295 learning plans, and experimenting with these back in the work setting. Executive coaches served to facilitate these processes.
In the next phase, David Cooperrider, who co-founded Appreciative Inquiry, worked with them in convening summits (large group meetings), each held over two days and consisting of a cross section of stakeholders (customers, staff, suppliers, and others). The aim of these summits was to identify what the “ideal” was for the organization in relation to a variety of business issues. Each summit went through the four AI stages (discovery, dreaming, designing, and delivering) to facilitate cooperation and collaboration throughout the organization. From 2000 to 2004, 8,000 Roadway people experienced this process with over 70 summits being held in this time. At the end of each summit, in what was referred to as the “open microphone” segment, participants “publicly pledged their commitment to each other to see the changes embodied in the action plans through to completion” (Van Oosten, 2006, p. 712).
Van Oosten (2006)
LO 9.3 Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS)
Dubbed as a “new movement in organizational science,” Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) is an umbrella term that emerged in the early 2000s to encompass approaches such as Appreciative Inquiry and others, including positive psychology and community psychology (Cameron and Caza, 2004, p. 731). POS developed out of a view that for most of the history of OD, attention had mainly been paid to identifying instances of “negatively motivated change” (or problems) in organizations and designing change programs to eliminate them (Cameron and McNaughtan, 2014). Following this line of argument, thinking about the positive aspects of organizational life—and building change programs to spread these aspects elsewhere in organizations—has been relatively neglected.
To take a POS perspective involves what one of its founders, Kim Cameron, describes as “four connotations” (Cameron and McNaughtan, 2014, p. 447):
“Adopting a positive lens,” which means that whether one is dealing with celebrations/successes or adversity/problems, the focus is on “life giving elements.”
“Focusing on positively deviant performance,” which means investigating outcomes that are well in excess of any normally expected performance, that is, outcomes that are spectacular, surprising, or extraordinary.
“Assuming an affirmative bias” involves holding the view that positivity generates in individuals, groups, and organizations the capacity for greater achievements.
“Examining virtuousness” involves assuming that all “human systems” are inclined toward “the highest aspirations of mankind.”
In line with the coaching metaphor, POS can be depicted as coaching organizations to identify their “best plays,” to understand the behaviors and dynamics underlying them, and then to work out how to spread them to other parts of their “game” (the organization).
POS has had its critics. Fineman (2006, pp. 270–73) raises four issues that question whether POS can really live up to its “positive” aims. First, he questions whether we can really agree on which behaviors are “positive.” What passes for being positive will vary in differentPage 296 environments. For example, in reviewing a number of research studies, he points out how “‘courageous,’ ‘principled’ corporate whistle-blowers are also readily regarded as traitors, reneging on the unspoken corporate code (‘virtue’) to never wash one’s dirty linen in public.”
Second, he (2006, pp. 274–75) 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.” For example: “Happiness may trigger anxiety (‘will my happiness last?’). Love can be mixed with bitterness and jealousy. Anger can feel energizing and exciting.” By focusing on positive experiences, he maintains, approaches such as Appreciative Inquiry fail “to value the opportunities for positive change that are possible from negative experiences, such as embarrassing events, periods of anger, anxiety, fear, or shame.”
Third, he (2006, p. 276) points to how what are regarded as positive behaviors and emotions differ, not just in different organizational environments but also across different cultural environments. Drawing on the work of writers on culture, he points out how “[e]ffusive hope, an energizing emotion in the West, is not a sentiment or term prevalent in cultures and sub-cultures influenced by Confucianism and Buddhism.”
Fourth, he (2006, p. 281) suggests that there is “an unarticulated dark side to positiveness.” This occurs where there 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 practices that impose a “culture of fun” in the workplace. These programs “have a mixed or uncertain record, and some can produce the very opposite of the self-actualization and liberation they seek” (Fineman, 2006, p. 281).
In response to these criticisms, defenders of POS argue that their perspective complements and expands rather than replaces the perspective of those who “only wrestle with the question of what’s wrong in organizations” (Roberts, 2006, p. 294). Indeed, those whose focus is on the latter question “may inadvertently ignore the areas of human flourishing that enliven and contribute value to organizations, even in the face of significant human and structural challenges” (Roberts, 2006, p. 295). POS is presented as “concerned with understanding the integration of positive and negative conditions, not merely with an absence of the negative” (Cameron and Caza, 2004, p. 732). Rather than assume that there are no universally positive virtues, the task of POS is to “discover the extent to which virtues and goodness are culturally influenced (Roberts, 2006, p. 298). Roberts (2006) suggests that criticism of POS may be due to a combination of the critics not wanting to step outside of their comfort zone—an approach to managing change that is focused on identifying problems—and lack of consideration for the relative infancy of POS as an area of practice.
Where does this leave the manager of change? On the one side, 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” (Roberts, 2006, p. 294). On the other side are critical scholars who 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, the critics of POS urge POS advocates to recognize how underlying power relationships and interests in organizations (and beyond) will limit their actions; they also are urged to recognize that what passes as being positive will vary in different contexts and may not be shared by all. However, such critical reflections do not seem to have dented, in any significant way, the increasing momentum that the POS movement has gained, at least in North America. Whether it achieves the same momentum outside of the United States remains to be seen.
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Cameron and McNaughtan (2014, p. 456) revisit the findings of a decade of application of POS ideas to organizational change covering such variables as virtuous practices (e.g., compassion), humanistic values, the meaningfulness of work, high-quality interpersonal communication, hope, energy, and self-efficacy. They summarize the results as “provid[ing] support for the benefits of positive change practices in real-world work settings.” Quinn and Cameron (2019) provide a summary, description, and discussion of POS’ distinctive approach to organizational change.
LO 9.3 Dialogic Organization Development
As OD developed through its various manifestations, such as Large Group Interventions and Appreciative Inquiry, it was moving more and more away from the classic, diagnosis-driven, approach to OD (as described in the initial sections of this chapter). Gervase Bushe and Bob Marshak (2009) characterized this change by contrasting the traditional “Diagnostic OD” with what they described as “Dialogic OD.”
Bushe and Marshak (2009) contrast the characteristics of Diagnostic and Dialogic OD. Whereas traditional, or Diagnostic, OD emphasizes that any problem requiring change could be addressed by first applying an objective diagnosis of the circumstances of the situation, Dialogic OD treats reality as subjective so that the priority in intervening in an organization was to identify and acknowledge different stakeholders’ interpretations of what for them was “reality.” In parallel with this, the role of the OD consultant moved from being the provider of data for fact-driven decision making to being the facilitator of processes that encouraged “conversations” around change issues (Marshak, 2013; Bushe and Marshak, 2015) (see the box “From the Originators of Dialogic OD, Gervase Bushe and Bob Marshak”).
From the Originators of Dialogic OD Gervase Bushe and Bob Marshak
By 2005 each of us had separately concluded that various OD change methods were being practiced that didn’t follow the basic orthodoxies found in OD textbooks. Although we didn’t really know each other at that time, we decided to collaborate on defining the premises and practices we believed underlay approaches as disparate as Open Space Technology, Appreciative Inquiry, and the Art of Hosting, to name a few. In a 2009 article we originated the name and concept of “Dialogic OD,” based on the principle that change comes from changing everyday conversations and contrasted it with the foundational form of OD we named “Diagnostic OD.”
Later we articulated key ideas derived from the interpretive and complexity sciences that lead to a Dialogic OD Mindset and the “secret sauce” of ingredients that in combination produce transformational change. Those ingredients, occurring in no specific order, include: disruption of ongoing patterns of social agreement such that the emergence of new patterns of organizing become possible; introduction of a “generative image,” for example sustainable development, that stimulates new thinking and possibilities not previously considered; and development of new narratives that become part of the day-to-day conversations that guide how organizational actors think about and respond to situations.
We believe Dialogic OD is especially effective in a VUCA [volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity] world of continual change. Given those conditions,Page 298 instead of trying to control the uncontrollable, Dialogic OD asks leaders to enrich stakeholder networks, promote open-ended inquiry and support groups that self-generate small experiments that challenge conventional wisdom and may lead to new outcomes not previously considered. Leaders stay involved by amplifying and embedding new ideas and practices that work. In brief, leaders become sponsors and framers of dialogic processes that stimulate innovation and invention, rather than trying to maintain illusory control as directors or managers of planned change.
Private correspondence from Bob Marshak to the authors, March 11, 2015.
Central to the Dialogic OD approach is the view that “real change” only occurs when mindsets are altered and that this is more likely to occur through “generative conversations” than persuasion by “facts.” Altered mindsets are represented by changes at the level of language and associated changes at the level of actions taken by organization members. This changed approach is also associated with moves from (1) seeing change as a relatively manageable, plannable, linear process to one that could be unpredictable with far from predictable moves from diagnosis to outcomes and (2) “the shift from fixing a problem to cultivating a system capable of addressing its own challenges” (Holman, 2013, p. 20) (see table 9.6).
TABLE 9.6
How Dialogic OD and Diagnostic OD Are Different: Base Assumptions
Source: Adapted from Marshak, R. J. 2015. My journey into Dialogic organization development. OD Practitioner 47(2):47–52 (from table 1, p. 48).
As OD continues to evolve, it remains a major “school of thought” as to how organizational change should be managed. Although debates exist as to what form of OD is optimal, Tenkasi (2018, p. 67) argues the virtues of OD as follows:
The idea of top down centralised change leadership is becoming more and more obsolete as we devolve from monolithic organizational structures to nimble and agile decentralised structures. The need of the hour is involving communities of stakeholders, empowerment across a broad swath of the organization, and facilitating poly-vocal conversations to determine the scope and the process of change.
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However, not all OD practitioners are sure that a move from [Diagnostic] OD to Dialogic OD is sufficient to position OD optimally for being able to have an influence on how change in organizations is managed. For example, both Worley (2014) and Bartunek and Woodman (2015) argue that the diagnostic–dialogic dichotomy is unhelpful and that “we should be talking about whether a comprehensive and systematic diagnostic OD can be integrated with a really good dialogic OD to create a powerful change process” (Worley, 2014, p. 70). For Worley (2014, p. 70), the dialogic–diagnostic focus places too much attention on “OD as process”; he argues that for OD “to capture its full potential” practitioners must complement their process skills with skills and knowledge “related to the principles and frameworks of strategy and organization design.”
Dialogic OD in Practice Using Organizational Theatre
As part of a change that involved the implementation of a new customer relationship management (CRM) system, the employees of a financial services organization were asked to request customers to make an appointment at which their financial situation would be reviewed free of charge. Employees were to make this request during the course of regular over-the-counter transactions. However, the targeted number of appointments was not being reached, and it appeared that the barrier was employees not feeling confident about making the required approach.
In response the financial institution arranged for a theatre company to craft and present a play that illustrated the conversations and interactions involved in the interface between customer and employee. A half-day theatre workshop was then conducted in which participating employees were invited to ask questions of the actors and to suggest changes to the script to make the play more “realistic.” A second workshop followed at which employees volunteered scenarios that would make the play even more typical of the customer interface situations in which they were involved. The employees then joined the theatre actors in acting out the roles in the evolved script. Following the workshops, a collective discussion took place on proactive customer conversations.
Measures made following employee participation in the theatre process showed a significant improvement in both self-efficacy beliefs and task performance compared to a control group of employees who did not participate in the theatre.
Badham et al. (2015)
What OD Must Do to Be Influential
Michael Beer, Professor Emeritus at HBS and co-founder of consulting firm TruePoint Partners—reflecting on 50 years in OD (Beer, 2014)—argues that OD is at a crossroads in terms of its ability to be influential. According to Beer, even if an OD engagement directly involves just one of the following processes, the OD practitioner must consider how what they are doing will enhance all three of the following:
Performance alignment. High performance that flows from the organization’s design, processes, and capabilities being aligned with its strategy
Psychological alignment. The commitment of people that follows from alignment between the organization’s culture and humanistic values
Capacity for learning and change. The organization supporting, on an ongoing basis, honest conversations on any matters that inhibit the first two items in the list.
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OD in Different Settings
Law enforcement
Pyle, B. S., and Cangemi, J. 2019. Organizational change in law enforcement: Community-oriented policing as transformational leadership. Organization Development Journal (Winter):81–88.
Hospital
Kamolsiri, P., Tayko, P. R. M., and Mullin, V. 2018. The impact of OD interventions on high-performing teams in hospitals. Organization Development Journal (Summer):51–74.
Small to medium enterprises
Stewart, S., and Gapp, R. 2017. The role of organizational development in understanding leadership to achieve sustainability practices in small to medium enterprises. Organization Development Journal (Summer):33–57.
Media organization
Birmingham, C. 2012. How OD principles of change still matter in an impossible situation. OD Practitioner 44(4):61–64.
The U.S. Army
Koknke, A., and Gonda, T. 2013. Creating a collaborative virtual command centre among four separate organizations in the United States Army. Organization Development Journal (Winter):75–92.
Nonprofit organizations
Gratton, P. C. 2018. Organization Development and strategic planning for non-profit organizations. Organization Development Journal (Summer):27–38.
Mergers and acquisitions
Marks, M. L., and Mirvis, P. H. 2012. Applying OD to make mergers and acquisitions work. OD Practitioner 44(3):5–12.
China
Tang, Y. 2018. Theory S: A Chinese transformative OD framework. Organization Development Journal (Winter):77–98.
LO 9.6 Sense-Making
As discussed in chapter 2, the interpreter image emphasizes the role of the change manager as a “manager of meaning”; that is, it emphasizes that a core skill of a change manager is the capacity to frame meaning for those involved. Times of change can be confusing to those affected, and a key element of what change managers do through their various actions and communications is convey a sense of “what’s going on.” Organizational change is a process that is “problematic” in terms of its outcomes “because it undermines and challenges [people’s] existing schemata, which serve as the interpretive frames of reference through which to make sense of the world” (Lockett et al., 2014).
Change often means that the leaders of an organization are seeking to take it in a significantly new direction and/or to have the organization function in a significantly different manner. To do so, the sense-making process is likely to involve a sequence that Mantere and colleagues (2012) describe as beginning with “sense-breaking” (as the leaders challenge the appropriateness of the status quo), followed by “sense-giving” (their attempts to reshape people’s understandings of the direction they should be heading).
Managers lacking self-awareness will often convey a message that is other than they would intend. People in organizations interpret managers’ actions symbolically, and,Page 301 particularly where formal communications leave ambiguity, such interpretations will fill the “meaning gap.” Good change managers are likely to have a high level of self-awareness and recognize that their capacity to provide a narrative along the lines of “what’s going on and why?”—that is, acting as an interpreter—can meet a need. What is at stake, according to Iveroth and Hallencreutz (2015, p. 3), is that sense-making is central to creating “the necessary awareness, understanding and willpower needed to make people change.”
Drawing on the interpreter image of managing organizational change, Karl Weick’s (2000; Weick et al., 2005) sense-making model provides an alternative approach to the OD school. Weick’s (2000) point of departure is to argue against three common change assumptions.
The first is the assumption of inertia. Under this assumption, planned, intended change is necessary 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 adaptation. He suggests that the central role given to inertia is misplaced and results from a focus on structure rather than a focus on the structuring flows and processes through which organizational work occurs. Adopting the latter perspective leads one to see organizations as being in an ongoing state of accomplishment and re-accomplishment with organizational routines constantly undergoing adjustments to better fit changing circumstances.
The second assumption is that a standardized change program is needed. However, Weick (2000) says that this assumption is of limited value because it fails to activate what he regards as the four drivers of organizational change. As outlined in chapter 2, these drivers are:
Animation. Whereby people remain in motion and may experiment, e.g., with job descriptions
Direction. Including being able to implement, in novel ways, directed strategies
Paying attention and updating. Such as updating knowledge of the environment and reviewing and rewriting organizational requirements
Respectful, candid interaction. Occurs when people are encouraged to speak out and engage in dialogue, particularly when things are not working well
These drivers emerge from a sense-making perspective that assumes “that change engages efforts to make sense of events that don’t fit together” (Weick, 2000, p. 232). For Weick, most programmed or intentional changes fail to activate one or more of these sense-making forces that assist individuals in managing ambiguity.
The third assumption is that of unfreezing, most often associated with Kurt Lewin’s unfreezing–changing–refreezing change formula. 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. Further efforts at unfreezing could disrupt what is essentially a complex adaptive system that is already working” (Weick, 2000, p. 235). If there is deemed to be ineffectiveness in the system, then his position is that the best change sequence is as follows:
Freeze. To show what is occurring in the way things are currently adapting
Rebalance. To remove blockages in the adaptive processes
Unfreeze. To enable further emergent and improvisational changes to occur
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In this view of organizational change, change agents are those who are best able to identify how adaptive emergent changes are currently occurring, much of which often are dismissed as noise in the system.
As noted in chapter 2, from a sense-making perspective, it is up to managers of change “to author interpretations and labels that capture the patterns in those adaptive choices [and] within the framework of sense-making, management sees what the front line says and tells the world what it means” (Weick, 2000, p. 238). Sense-making is “a social process of meaning construction and reconstruction through which managers understand, interpret, and create sense for themselves and others of their changing organizational context and surroundings” (Rouleau and Balogun, 2010, p. 955).
In a landmark study in using and extending the sense-making framework to the management of organizational change, Jean Helms Mills (2003) looked at the organizational changes at Nova Scotia Power, a large electrical utility company based on the eastern shore of Canada. From 1982 to 2002, Nova Scotia Power went through a variety of major organizational changes, including the introduction of:
a cultural change program
privatization
downsizing
business process reengineering
strategic business units
balanced scorecard accounting
Jean Helms Mills (2003) found that there were a variety of interpretations within the organization about these change programs. Drawing on the work of Weick (2000), she argues that these differing sense-making activities across the organization are indicative of the importance of understanding change as the accomplishment of ongoing processes for making sense of organizational events. She uses Weick’s (2000) eight features of a sense-making framework to show how they impacted on understandings of organizational changes in the company. She draws out from each feature their implications for change managers (see table 9.7).
TABLE 9.7
Eight Features of a Sense-Making Framework
Source: Based on Helms Mills (2003).
Similarly, in a study of downsizing in Telenor, Norway’s main telecom organization, Bean and Hamilton (2006) point to the way its corporate leaders used sense-making to frame changes to the company in terms of making it an innovative, flexible, learning organization. After the downsizing, while some staff accepted the corporate “alignment” frame, others adopted an “alienated” frame, feeling marginalized and fearing for their job security. The researchers suggest that framing of change is fragile, with employees’ interpretations of senior management pronouncements varying from frame validating (accepting) to frame breaking (challenging). That is, when the change manager acts as an interpreter, there is no guarantee that the manager’s interpretations will not be contested.
As noted in chapter 8 on the topic of resistance to change, people in organizations can hold very strong views about an organization including what it “stands for” and how it should operate, and that these views (“mental models”) can make people resistant to change that they see as inconsistent with these views. Another way of expressing this same point is that people in organizations can be disinclined to accept the change manager’sPage 303Page 304 construction of events (i.e., his or her interpretation). As noted in chapter 7 on change communication strategies, the communicated message is not necessarily the message as understood by the receiver. In regard to the construction of events as provided by the change manager, it is not just that there may be some misunderstanding of the “story” the manager is seeking to communicate—the story may be well and truly understood—but it may not be accepted as “the facts of the situation.”
The sense-making approach alerts change managers to the different facets that influence interpretations of events. At the same time, it is clear that these influences are often deeply embedded and less tangible than a clear set of steps that can be followed. From this perspective, managers of change need to be what Bolman and Deal (2017) describe as more artistic than rational, interpreting experience and expressing it in forms that can be felt, understood, and appreciated by others.
Change managers who are comfortable with these concepts are likely to find the sense-making framework of assistance to them in exploring the “tangled underbrush” of organizational change (Bolman and Deal, 2017). At the same time, they need to be mindful of organizational limitations on their sense-making abilities. This point is made by Balogun and Johnson (2004, p. 545) in their study of sense-making by middle managers when they “question the extent to which leaders can manage the development of change recipients’ schemata, particularly in the larger, geographically dispersed, modularized organizations we are increasingly seeing.”
Contested Interpretations in Metropolitan Police Department
Metropolitan (a pseudonym) police department began a change process that involved an organizational restructuring in which an increased share of resources was allocated to pro-active policing (intelligence gathering) and to a mode of organizing that prioritized having the capacity to rapidly deploy police when and where they were needed. The change managers’ narrative emphasized the importance of the need to make these specific changes so that the police could be more “flexible” and by so doing deal more effectively with organized crime, which was demonstrating a capacity to speedily form and/or disband criminal teams to meet current needs.
However, the framing of the need for change as a matter of needed “flexibility” was not viewed that way by many of the police because they experienced the change as involving the regular turnover in squad membership. The significance of this experience was that consistency and longevity of squad membership were seen by many police as vital elements in producing both deep knowledge about specific areas of crime (e.g., armed robbery) and deep relations of trust (between squad members), which they saw as central to effective policing.
Dunford et al. (2013)
In chapter 8, we made the point that the simple dichotomy “managers lead change, workers resist change” was simplistic and did not serve us well if we wished to have a deeper and more useful understanding of resistance to organizational change. A similar and equally simplistic dichotomy is sometimes applied to the rolePage 305 of managers in regard to sense-making and sense-giving. In times of change, an organization’s managers are commonly assumed to be the sense-givers who contribute—often to a major extent—to the sense-making by employees. However, the category of “manager” can apply to a large and diverse body of people, many of whom are not part of their organization’s most senior leadership team and not fully aware of all details of “what’s going on.” Consequently, in some change situations, a subset of an organization’s managers are likely to see themselves as more on the receiving end of change (“change recipients”) than part of the team that is the architect of the change (see the box “Brand Corporation: Where You ‘Sit’ Influences Your Sense-Making, Even for Managers”).
Brand Corporation Where You “Sit” Influences Your Sense-Making, Even for Managers
Brand Corporation, the European division of a fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) multinational, announced that it was reorganizing in response to declining financial performance. Sales and marketing strategy, which had up to that point been determined at country level, was centralized at the Europe level, with other functions (finance, IT, HR) to follow.
As the centralization process continued, members of the UK management team began to define their situation as one in which they had, in effect, become middle managers responsible for strategy implementation, a lesser status than the senior managers they had been when they had strategy creation authority. They saw their new role as one in which they were rarely consulted and were on the receiving end of decisions that were predominantly presented to them as fait accompli. These interpretations of the situation were accompanied and reinforced by a view that European managers were largely invisible.
This negative interpretation of the change expanded to include the belief that local and national knowledge and practices were being devalued and that the “people-based values” they saw themselves as practicing pre-change were not held by those at the center. For the UK management team this meant that, in turn, the change was defined as producing an organization in which people were not considered to be important, leading to a disengaged organization.
Balogun et al. (2015)
In reviewing the sense-making framework, it is clear that it provides less a set of prescriptions for managers of change and more a set of understandings about how to proceed. It acknowledges the messiness of change and accepts that competing voices mean that not all intended outcomes are likely to be achieved. However, critical to engaging these competing voices is the ability to shape and influence how they make sense of organizational events.
Although (as noted earlier in this chapter) OD has been subject to critique as it has evolved, this is much less the case for sense-making. For an exception, see Sandberg and Tsoukas (2015).
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Can Sense-Making Success Become a Problem?
“The Office” is a Nordic firm that began a change process as a result of an announced forthcoming merger. As part of the change process, the top management of The Office put a lot of effort into convincing staff that the current organization was substantially underperforming due to being overly bureaucratic and as a result failing to be the innovative organization that it was intended to be. The strategy of The Office was presented by top management to staff as outdated and inappropriate.
The discrediting of the current arrangements at The Office—as described above—provided the basis for “sense-breaking.” “Sense-giving” occurred through top management framing the merger as a way in which the staff of The Office would become part of a new and much higher performing entity, capable of operating with a quality, flexibility and level of customer service that The Office could not deliver in its present form. This sense-giving succeeded, and the staff of The Office bought into the message.
Unfortunately, complications then arose in the inter-organizational negotiations, and the merger was abruptly cancelled less than a week before the planned merger date. The Office’s top management presented the failed merger as a good outcome and announced the reintroduction of a strategy almost identical to the one they had been following for 10 years. The reaction from The Office staff was “a sullen lack of enthusiasm” (Mantere et al., 2012, p. 186), even a sense of betrayal.
The top management had done such a good job of sense-breaking and sense-giving that the pre-merger version of The Office had been reframed by staff as no longer appropriate or acceptable, and this interpretation was not changed just because the merger had not proceeded.
Based on Mantere et al. (2012).
Managing Change from a Sense-Making Perspective Some Basic Advice
Change managers should try to provide a clear narrative that articulates the what, why, and how of a proposed change.
Humans are creatures who abhor a “meaning vacuum”; in the absence of clear communication, they will draw conclusions, i.e., attribute meaning to fill the void. This is something that an organization should try to avoid at a time of change as all sorts of misconstructions might take hold and make change more difficult to achieve.
There is no guarantee that change managers’ attempts at sense-giving will be successful as organizational members live in a world of multiple narratives and, regardless of authority structures, the interpretation being presented by a change manager need not have greater credibility than other narratives. For example, some organizations are characterized by a very strong sense of identity, which can give the “what we stand for, how we do things, what we value,” an almost moral quality that can make organizational members very disinclined to “switch narratives.”
Managers (including those in a change management role) in an organization are “interpreters” whether they like it or not. They cannot choose to opt out of having this role. Their only choice is how consciously or explicitly they play this role. Managers’ actions have symbolic meaning and will be interpreted (by other organizational members) in this way. In this regard see Exercise 9.4.
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EXERCISE 9.1
Reports from the Front Line
LO 9.2
This exercise requires you to interview two Organization Development practitioners about how they go about doing their work. Compare and contrast them in terms of the following issues:
their background
values they espouse
steps they say they use in approaching a consulting assignment
tensions they identify in working as an OD practitioner
their perceptions of the way the OD field has changed and likely changes into the future
What general conclusions do you draw about the practice of OD?
EXERCISE 9.2
Designing a Large-Scale Change Intervention
LO 9.2
Choose a current issue in your local neighborhood. This exercise gets you to figure out how you would design a large-scale change intervention program in relation to this issue. Give consideration to the following issues:
How many people would it make sense to involve?
Where and when would you hold it?
How would you ensure that you have a representative cross sample of relevant people in the room at the same time? What data sources would you need to achieve this?
Who are the key decision makers in relation to this issue? What arguments will you use to get them to attend the meeting?
How will you structure the agenda of the meeting? What would be the best way of doing this so that people who attend on that day have appropriate buy-in to it?
How would you run the actual meeting?
What technology would you need to make it work well?
What would people take away from the meeting?
What follow-up actions would you plan to ensure that actions and decisions flowed from it?
What possible funding sources might you draw on to finance the meeting?
As a result of considering such questions, what new issues emerge for you, as a large-scale change intervention agent, to consider? What specific skills would you need to make such an event work well? Which of these skills would you need to develop more?
EXERCISE 9.3
Making Sense of Sense-Making
LO 9.4
Identify a current change in an organization with which you are familiar. Alternatively, identify a current public issue about which “something must be done.” In relation to the change issue, think about what sense-making changes might need to be enacted and how you would go about doing this. Assess this in terms of the eight elements of the sense-making framework suggested by Helms Mills (2003) and as set out in table 9.6:
Identity construction
Social sense-making
Extracted cues
Ongoing sense-making
Retrospection
Plausibility
Enactment
Projection
What ones did you feel you might have the most and least control over? Why? What implications does this have for adopting a sense-making approach to organizational change?
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EXERCISE 9.4
Interpreting the Interpreter: Change at Target
LO 9.4
Target in 2019 was one of the 10 largest retailers in the United States (Walmart was no. 1), but it has had to deal with some difficult times. In the decade to 2014, Target’s earnings dropped from $3.2 billion to $1.5 billion with net income as a percentage of sales similarly dropping from 4.6 percent to 2 percent during this period. These were key elements of the context into which Brian Cornell arrived in August 2014 as Target’s new CEO. Some of the actions he then took included:
He made an impromptu and incognito visit to a Target store in Dallas to talk to customers. Not recognized by store employees or customers, he sought candid opinions from shoppers. This action by the CEO was a surprise to Target executives because it was a significant departure from past practice. Prior to Cornell’s arrival, store visits had occurred—supposedly as intelligence-gathering exercises—but they had been “meticulously planned affairs, only less formal than, say, a presidential visit” with the store managers notified in advance and “the ‘regular shoppers’ handpicked and vetted” (Wahba, 2015, p. 86).
When he first arrived at Target’s headquarters (in Minneapolis), Cornell was allocated the newly refurbished CEO’s suite, but he insisted on moving to a smaller office close to Target’s global data nerve center. The 10 staff members in this center monitored live feeds from social media—including Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter—and from TV stations to locate stories and information on product launches, customer comments, etc. The nerve center staff watched social media on large screens and used software to aggregate data for later analysis.
With the intention of putting pressure on Amazon and Walmart, Cornell changed Target’s policy to one offering free shipping for online orders during the holidays, a “decision that was made in a matter of days rather than the months it would have taken in the past” (Wahba, 2015, p. 88).
It was not unusual for Cornell to ask colleagues about their “work–life” balance and especially their workout habits. He encouraged colleagues to take time for fitness activities and wasn’t “the type who exalts the machismo of outlandish hours” (Wahba, 2015, p. 88).
Cornell relaxed the company’s dress code and ate in the company café where he mixed with staff.
He moved the company’s recruitment policy to change the situation from one where Target was “long populated by lifers” to one making more effort to “recruit outsiders with fresh ideas” (Wahba, 2015, p. 94).
Consider the proposition that managers’ actions have symbolic meaning and will be interpreted (by other organizational members) in this way:
What do you see as the symbolism associated with Target CEO Brian Cornell’s actions?
If you had been a Target employee, what might you have concluded about the nature of the change happening in Target?
Case Source
Wahba (2015).
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EXERCISE 9.5
Change at DuPont
LO 9.2, 9.3, 9.4
As we walked through the manufacturing areas of DuPont, the plant manager, Tom Harris, greeted each worker by name. The plant was on a site that stretched over 10 acres beside the South River on the edge of town, and it was the major employer in the community.
The plant seemed to be a permanent fixture, or at least more permanent than most things. There had been changes, big ones, but the plant was still the plant. The Orlon manufacturing operation had been shut down, the equipment dismantled and sent to China. As far as I could find out early in my work there, these changes, despite their magnitude, were seen as doing the regular business of the enterprise. No one framed the changes as needing unusual attention, so there was no change management design. The projects—getting rid of one operation and installing another—were planned and executed just like any project. Change management was not a rubric used to either accomplish or explain what was going on. More changes were coming, whether there was any formal practice of change management or not. The plant would soon enough look very different from what I saw on that first tour with Tom.
I first met Tom when he came to the University of Virginia seeking to make contact with the academic community in order to bring some of the latest thinking in business to his operation. His interest lay in introducing his managers to new ideas and in applying those ideas to improving the plant. He was not, he said, looking for solutions to specific problems, but rather in improving overall organization effectiveness. This was important because he was under increasing pressure to do more with less.
In February, this general bulletin was sent to all employees, and I began the fieldwork from which a portrayal of the work culture would be built.
Gib Akin, a professor from the University of Virginia, will be spending time at the plant. He has been asked to give us some new perspectives on our work and our organization that we might use to help us develop people and continually improve. Most importantly, he is here to help us appreciate and develop what goes right, assist us in building on our strengths, to make the plant work better for everybody. His presence is not due to any particular problem but is a result of our desire to continuously improve.
Over the next six months, I conducted interviews with workers and managers, spending time in the workplace, and learning about everyday life there. This yielded a thick description of the shared stock of knowledge that organizational members used to interpret events and generate behavior. What we made explicit with this process was the local, widely used, every day, common-sense model of work performance, unique to this scene. In a sense, this was the local organization theory that people used for getting along at work.
Of course, this theory was more important than any imported academic theory of organization, because it had to work well or the users would not be successful in their work. This was the practical theory in use every day and by everyone. Such culturally embedded theory also tends to create what it is intended to explain, thus making it even more powerful and generative. For example, in this plant, the local model of teamwork was organized around a southern stock-car racing metaphor, which was not only used to explain teamwork but was also the pattern for accomplishing it. And since everyone knew the metaphor, and used it, it became so.
Tom and the other managers were surprised to learn of the NASCAR (the premier stock-car racing organization) metaphor, but it explained why they had not recognized existing teamwork in the workplace (they had a different metaphor for teamwork) andPage 310 gave them a language in which to introduce change for improvement. Similarly, illumination of the local meaning of effective supervision, high performance, and what constituted a good day at work gave those with leadership roles constructs to work with for making improvements and the language for introducing change.
Managers, and particularly first-line supervisors, were asked to use this new understanding gained from the findings of the study. Their new understanding could be used to interpret the local meaning of effective work to capitalize on strengths to expand and develop existing good practices in order to swamp problems, that is, to render problems less troublesome even if unsolved.
The findings of the study also could be used as the basis for experiments. Members of the so-called Leadership Core Team were instructed to introduce change as an experiment—something to be tried and watched closely, and after a designated time, if it is not working as hoped, it can be stopped. Framing changes as experiments requires thinking through what is expected and how and when to measure the results. And by interpreting the possible results before they happen, all outcomes can be positive. Even if things don’t go as hoped, what does happen can yield learning. All experiments are successes at one level or another.
Tom embraced the framing of change as experiment, and it was probably his most pervasive concept regarding change. “A notion I use all the time is that everything is an experiment. If you describe every change as an experiment, the ability of people to digest it goes up an order of magnitude. And that goes for officers as well as people on the shop floor. As a matter of fact, nothing is forever anyway.”
Case Source
Personal correspondence from Gib Akin.
Questions
To what extent are the following approaches to change embedded in the DuPont story (justify your answer, providing specific examples):
OD
Appreciative Inquiry
Sense-making
In your opinion, how compatible are these three approaches? Why? What evidence is there in the DuPont story for your answer? As a change manager, to what extent could you utilize insights from each approach?
Imagine you are an OD practitioner brought into DuPont at the time of the Orlon manufacturing operation closure. Describe the steps you would take to help manage this change based upon action research.
As a class, decide on a fictional large-scale change that could affect DuPont. Divide the class into three groups (and role-play the situation in two acts). In Act 1, one group will take a problem-solving approach and introduce the change with the second group (DuPont staff affected by the change). In Act 2, a third group (the Appreciative Inquiry group) will introduce the change with the second group (DuPont staff affected by the change). After the exercise, compare and contrast the steps taken in each approach. From the point of view of group two (DuPont staff), which approach seemed to work better? Why? From the point of view of groups one and two, how easy or difficult was it adopting this approach? What broad conclusions can be drawn?
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Additional Reading
Bunker, B. B., and Alban, B. T. 2006. The handbook of large group methods: Creating systemic change in organizations and communities. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Provides details on methods used in large group interventions and multiple cases studies illustrating the successful use of large group methods in a range of industries and countries.
Bushe, G. R., and Marshak, R. J. (eds.). 2015. Dialogic Organization Development: The theory and practice of transformational change. Oakland: CA, Berrett-Koehler. A comprehensive introduction to the evolving field of Dialogic OD from the originators of this approach to managing organizational change.
Cooperrider, D. L., Whitney, D., and Stavros, J. M. 2008. The Appreciative Inquiry handbook: For leaders of change. 2nd ed. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler. A detailed guide to the application of AI, including rationale and examples, from originators of the concept.
Cummings, T. G., and Worley, C. G. 2019. Organization Development and change. 11th ed. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning. A comprehensive and classic textbook on Diagnostic OD.
Kraft, A., Sparr, J. L., and Peus, C. 2018. Giving and making sense about change: The back and forth between leaders and employees. Journal of Business Psychology 33:71–87. Provides a framework that identifies employee sense-making needs at different points in the organizational change process and the associated leader sense-giving activities.
Quinn, R. E., and Cameron, K. S. 2019. Positive Organizational Scholarship and agents of change. Research in Organizational Change and Development 27:31–7. Focuses on the role of the change agent from a Positive Organizational Scholarship perspective.
Roundup
Reflections for the Practicing Change Manager
Do you model the change behavior you desire?
Whose interests do you serve when you engage in change?
Is your approach value-laden or value-neutral? If value-laden, can you articulate what these values are? Are you comfortable with them?
What do you mean when you talk about a change being successful? What criteria do you use? Do they relate to organizational performance? How can you determine this?
Are there other people, inside or outside your organization, who have differing perspectives on such questions? What would you say are the criteria they use to evaluate change? Is your organization open to having conversations around this issue?
If you manage across different countries, to what extent have you observed the necessity for different ways of engaging in organizational change in those countries? Why is this the case?
Can you identify different sense-making activities going on during organizational change? What ability do you have to influence these? Do you exercise power in your attempts to influence the interpretations others have of change situations? With what success? What are the implications of this?
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Here is a short summary of the key points that we would like you to take from this chapter, in relation to each of the learning outcomes:
LO 9.1
* Appreciate more clearly the organizational change approaches underpinning the coach and interpreter images of managing change.
While two of the change images—caretaker and nurturer—present change managers as receiving rather than initiating change, the other four images—director, coach, navigator, and interpreter—present the change manager as having an active, as opposed to reactive, role in how change occurs in organizations. The image of the change manager as coach is particularly strong in the approach to change that has developed with what is known as Organization Development (OD) and its derivatives, including Appreciative Inquiry (AI), change as viewed from within the perspective of Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS), and Dialogic OD. The coach link is that each of these approaches involves encouraging a willingness to change and the developing of change capabilities in people, rather than seeking to bring about change by top-down edict. The image of the change manager as interpreter links closely to a sense-making view of the role of the change manager
LO 9.2
* Understand the Organization Development (OD) approach to change.
Underpinned by the coach image, the Organization Development (OD) approach is one where its adherents present their developmental prescriptions for achieving change as being based, at least traditionally, upon a core set of values: values that emphasize that change should benefit not just organizations but the people who staff them.
LO 9.3
* Be aware of extensions of the OD approach such as Appreciative Inquiry, Positive Organizational Scholarship, and Dialogic OD.
In chapter 2, we suggested that the coach image is a metaphor for thinking about the Organization Development approach. OD practitioners coach organizations and the people in them toward intentional outcomes. These outcomes are shaped by a set of values that emphasize humanistic, democratic, and developmental aspirations. In recent times, these values have been placed under the microscope in terms of their universal applicability, in particular regarding their applicability in an environment that appears to demand radical, not developmental change—an era where the bottom line rather than democratic values appears to have a higher priority for engaging in change. Of course, there does not necessarily have to be a dichotomous choice between a focus on people and a focus on the bottom line; one may lead to the other. Nevertheless, adherents to the OD approach have had to reassess how their approach to managing change can be adapted to the changing times.
Chapter 10 will pick up this theme in more detail; suffice it to say that we expect that the OD approach is likely to remain a strong contender for managing change in the future. However, it is also likely that it will lose its distinctive, traditional character as it is molded in different ways. Some changes move OD more in the direction of delivering tangible, measurable outputs, while others such as POS explicitly assert the importance of organizational interventions that improve the “human condition” in ways that are not reducible to “traditionally pursued organizational outcomes” such as profitability (Cameron and McNaughtan, 2014). This evolution of OD has led some commentators to suggest that there needs to be greater recognition that OD is now notPage 313 one approach but a plurality of approaches. If so, then greater clarity will be needed in how OD is talked about, including whether classic or newer versions of OD—such as Dialogic OD—are being referred to when the term is being used.
LO 9.4
* Understand the sense-making approach to change.
In chapter 2, we depicted the sense-making approach to organizational change as drawing upon an image of the change manager as interpreter. In this chapter, we have been able to delve deeper into the different elements of this image. As Helms Mills’ (2003) study of Nova Scotia Power showed, there are a number of different levels on which the change manager as interpreter operates, each of which requires attention. At the same time, this approach does not imply that mastering each of these levels will always enable intended outcomes to be achieved. Wider forces, both inside and outside the organization, will ensure that there will always be competing forces vying for a privileged place in providing for organizational members an interpretation of “what’s going on here” as well as “what needs to go on here.” The interpreter image therefore points out to change agents the need to have a realistic view of what can be achieved in undergoing organizational change. Although managers of change may find the sense-making approach to be more difficult given that it is less tangible in terms of “what needs to be done,” it is also likely to give other managers comfort in reaffirming their experience of the messiness of change and identification of new ways of approaching it.
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Chapter opening silhouette credit: CharlotteRaboff/Shutterstock
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