CHAPTER 5

The process of
organisational change
LEARNING OUTCOMES
• After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
– Summarise the steps in the process of organisational change
and apply them to current situations.
– Describe the methods for designing change management
processes and assess their relevance in the contemporary
environment.
– Explain the five kinds of processes used in the implementation
of change.
– Justify the feedback processes for implementation and
evaluation of managed change programs.
– Critically assess the concept of institutionalisation of the
changed state.
DIAGNOSING ORGANISATIONS
 What is diagnosis?
 The need for diagnostic models
 The Open Systems model

Critical Question: What do you understand ‘diagnosis’

to mean? Can you give any examples?
WHAT IS DIAGNOSIS?
• Broadly, the process of understanding how the
organisation is functioning
• The client and the OD practitioner, internal or
external, working together to identify the focus of
the issue or problem
• The process of the OD practitioner, using diagnostic
models and various methods for gathering data,
collecting and analysing diagnostic information
about the issue or problem

Critical Question: How do these explanations vary to

your answers in the previous slide?
A USEFUL DIAGNOSTIC TOOL:
OPEN SYSTEMS MODEL
DIAGNOSTIC CONSIDERATIONS
USING THE OPEN SYSTEMS MODEL
• Inputs, transformations and outputs
• Boundaries
• Feedback
• Equifinality
• Alignment

Critical Question: Of the considerations above, is there

one that is indispensable or critical to the process?
COLLECTING AND ANALYSING
DIAGNOSTIC INFORMATION
 The data-collection and feedback cycle
 The diagnostic relationship
 Methods for collecting data
 Sampling
 Feeding back diagnostic information
 Characteristics of the feedback process
THE DATA COLLECTION AND
FEEDBACK CYCLE
THE DIAGNOSTIC RELATIONSHIP
• The OD practitioner needs to establish their role as a
change agent during the data collection phase by
clarifying:
• Who am I? • Who will have access to
• Why am I here and what the data?
am I doing? • What’s in it for you?
• Who do I work for? • Can I be trusted?
• What do I want from you
and why?
• How will I protect your
confidentiality?

Critical Questions and Activities: Think about what

you would want to know before you would participate.
What feelings would you have? Is this list enough?
MAJOR METHODS FOR
COLLECTING DATA
• Questionnaires
• Interviews
• Observations
• Unobtrusive methods

Critical Activity: Create a table which lists the

advantages and disadvantages of each
(Table 5.1 text p. 144). Can you add examples?
QUESTIONNAIRES
• One of the most efficient ways to collect data
• Contain fixed-response questions
• Administered to large numbers of people
simultaneously
• Can be analysed quickly
• Permits quantitative analysis
• Data can easily be fed back to employees
QUESTIONNAIRES (CONT.)
• Advantages
– Large quantities of data
– Relatively inexpensive
• Drawbacks
– Little opportunity for empathy with subjects
– Rigid structure

Critical Questions: Have you completed a survey

recently (e.g. student experience survey, consumer
survey)? How did you feel at the time? How could
the process be improved?
INTERVIEWS
• Interviews may be highly structured
– resembling questionnaires
• Interviews may be highly unstructured
– starting with general questions that allow
the respondent to lead the way
INTERVIEWS (CONT.)
• Advantages
– Adaptive
– Empathic
– Builds rapport with subjects
• Potential problems
– Relatively expensive
– Coding and interpretation can be difficult

Critical Question: Have you been interviewed

(e.g. for a job)? How did you feel?
Could it have been improved?
OBSERVATIONS
• A more direct way of collecting data
• Observe organisational behaviours in
their functional settings
OBSERVATIONS (CONT.)
• Advantages
– Yields data on actual behaviour
– Real time, not retrospective
• Potential problems
– Difficulties in interpretation
– Sampling inconsistencies and observer bias
– Expense

Critical Question: How would you remain objective

on an emotional topic/issue? Give an example.
UNOBTRUSIVE MEASURES
• Data is collected from secondary sources
– Records of absenteeism, tardiness, grievances, quantity
and quality of production or service, financial performance,
correspondence with key stakeholders
• Helpful in diagnosing group and individual outputs
UNOBTRUSIVE MEASURES (CONT.)
• Advantages
– Non-reactive, no response bias
– High face validity
– Easily quantified
• Potential problems
– Access and retrieval difficulties
– Validity concerns
– Coding and interpretation difficulties, for example, the
information is mostly general and not specific to an
individual

Critical Questions: Do the disadvantages outweigh

the advantages of these measures? Why/why not?
SAMPLING
• Population versus sample
• Importance of sample size
• Process of sampling
• Types of samples
– Random
– Convenience

Critical Question: Who determines the

validity of sampling?
FEEDING BACK DIAGNOSTIC
INFORMATION
• Determining the context of the feedback
• Possible effects of the feedback
• Characteristics of the feedback
DETERMINING THE CONTENT OF
FEEDBACK
Content of feedback:
• Relevant • Limited
• Understandable • Significant
• Descriptive • Comparative
• Verifiable • Unfinalised
• Timely
POSSIBLE EFFECTS OF FEEDBACK
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE
FEEDBACK PROCESS
• Attention to the following will enable the OD
practitioner to move forward to design a
successful intervention
– Motivate everyone to work with the data
– Structure the meeting for focus and clear effective
communication of the message
– Ensure appropriate membership
– Be clear about what can be changed and what cannot
– Use effective process skills to support positive outcomes
DESIGNING INTERVENTIONS
• How to design effective interventions
• Contingencies related to the change situation
• Contingencies related to the target of change

Critical Question: What do you understand

‘contingency’ to mean?
CRITERIA OF AN EFFECTIVE
INTERVENTION
• An intervention is a set of sequenced planned
actions or events that are intended to help an
organisation increase its effectiveness
• Criteria that define an effective intervention are:
– The extent to which it fits the needs of the organisation
– The degree to which it is based on causal knowledge
of intended outcomes, and
– The extent to which it transfers competence to manage
change to organisation members
HOW TO DESIGN EFFECTIVE
INTERVENTIONS
• No ‘one size fits all’ recipe
• Needs careful attention to detail
• Not enough yet known about what causes change
• Two sets of contingencies that impact on the design
of successful intervention need to be considered:
– Contingencies related to the change situation
– Contingencies related to the target of change
Critical Question: If all contingencies are considered,
should there be scenario planning? What does this
mean and what would be the consequences?
CONTINGENCIES RELATED TO THE
CHANGE SITUATION
• Readiness for change
• Capability to change
• Cultural context
• Capabilities of the change agent
CONTINGENCIES RELATED TO THE
TARGET OF CHANGE
• Strategic issues
– focus on the big picture ensuring that the organisation is
competitive, well-positioned in the market and ready to meet
new challenges
• Technology and structure issues
– focus on ensuring that the design structure and the
technology are aligned to the strategic goals of the
organisation
• Human resource issues
focus on ensuring that personnel practices are aligned to
recruiting and retaining the best people for the organisation
• Interpersonal issues
– focus on developing people and their interpersonal skills
CONTINGENCIES RELATED TO THE
TARGET OF CHANGE

Critical Activity: Apply an example to use to explain this Figure 5.4.

IMPLEMENTING CHANGE
• Overview of Change Activities
– Motivating change
– Creating a vision
– Developing political support
– Managing the transition
– Sustaining momentum

Critical Question: At which stage would you

find resistance to change?
OVERVIEW OF CHANGE ACTIVITIES
MOTIVATING CHANGE
• Identifying the need for change
– A continual process of assessment
• Creating a culture which is ready for change
– Change is inevitable and a certainty; there will always
be a need for improvement; the process of change is
always for the betterment of the organisation and the
people within
• Managing resistance to change
– Resistance can be positive and constructive if there is
empathy and support, communication and involvement
CREATING A VISION
• Describing a desired future state
– Mission and value outcome; future directions
• Energising commitment
– Should be exciting, connected to the past, present and
future … and compelling
DEVELOPING POLITICAL SUPPORT
• Assessing change agent power
– OD practitioner’s sources of power – knowledge,
personality and others’ support
• Identifying key stakeholders
– Who are the other powerbrokers?
• Influencing stakeholders
– ‘Playing it straight’, social networks and utilising the
formal system

Critical Questions: Is politics bad? How can politics

and power be used to undermine a change strategy?
MANAGING THE TRANSITION
• Activity planning
– Detailed ‘road map’ with top management support
• Commitment planning
– Identification of key stakeholders
• Management structures
– Allocation of key roles and responsibilities

Critical Question: Who will have the primary

responsibility to manage a change transition? Why?
SUSTAINING MOMENTUM
• Providing resources for change
– Change cannot develop without tangible and intangible
assistance
• Building a support system for change agents
– A professional network of like-minded personnel
• Developing new competencies and skills
– Change includes innovative perceptions of what may
be achieved
• Reinforcing new behaviours
– Prevent return to the ‘old ways’
Critical Question: Why is it important not to revert to
‘old ways’?
EVALUATING OD INTERVENTIONS
 Implementation and evaluation feedback
 Measurement
 Institutionalising interventions
 Characteristics that effect institutionalisation
 Processes and indicators of institutionalisation.
IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION
FEEDBACK
• Process must not be taken for granted
• Evaluation aimed at guiding implementation is
implementation feedback
• Assessment intended to discover intervention
outcomes is called evaluation feedback
IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION
FEEDBACK (CONT.)
MEASUREMENT
• Selecting variables
– Should derive from the intent that underlies the
interventions; should incorporate the key features
as well as expected results
• Designing good measures
– Operational definition
– Reliability
– Validity

Critical Question: Measurement can always be

manipulated. Do you agree/disagree?
INSTITUTIONALISING
INTERVENTIONS
• Institutional Framework
– Organisation characteristics
– Intervention characteristics
– Institutionalisation processes
– Indicators of institutionalisation
INSTITUTIONALISATION
FRAMEWORK

Critical Question: How may this diagram be improved?

CHARACTERISTICS THAT AFFECT
INSTITUTIONALISATION
• Organisation characteristics
– Congruence
– Stability of environment and technology
– Extent of unionisation
• Intervention characteristics
– Goal specificity
– Programmability
– Level of change target
– Internal and external support
– Sponsor
PROCESSES AND INDICATORS OF
INSTITUTIONALISATION
• Processes of institutionalisation
– Socialisation
– Commitment
– Reward allocation
– Diffusion
– Sensing and calibration
• Indicators of institutionalisation
– Knowledge
– Performance
– Preference
– Normative consensus
– Value consensus
FOOD FOR THOUGHT

‘The greatest victory is that which requires no

battle.’
Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Critical Question: How does this quote relate

to the chapter?
SUMMARY
• Organisational change requires the OD practitioner/change
agent and members of the organisation to follow a process:
– The problem/issue needs to be clearly identified and diagnosed
– To do this, data needs to be collected and analysed
– Feedback then needs to be given back into the organisation
– Knowledge gained from the diagnosis and feedback enables the
design of the intervention
– The planned intervention is then implemented through a series
of activities
– Implementation and evaluation data are then gathered and
desired changes are institutionalised.