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Principles & Models of Change

This paper examines various principles and models in change management which have proven to be effective in organizations. The models included are from Kurt Lewin, John Kotter, Dan Cohen, Ben Bissell, Ken Pritchett, the field of Human Performance Improvement, the book “Who Moved My Cheese” by Spencer Johnson and concepts relating to the MBTI and Kiersey Temperaments. Additionally, principles of change leadership and communication are included from numerous theorists and practitioners which are listed in the Reference section. The format is:

General Change Principles

Leading & Facilitating Change

Empowerment

Barriers & Resistance To Change

Making Change Stick

Final Perspectives

General Change Principles

Organizational change involves alterations in the organization, whether planned or unplanned. Most (if not all) models of change management today are iterations of the original model developed by Kurt Lewin in 1947.Lewin believed there are three primary stages in any organizational change initiative and that how well leadership handles each stage determines organizational effectiveness. The first stage he called “Unfreezing” which involved convincing people that the status quo is unsustainable, or at least inferior to a new potential or opportunity, and dismantling the existing mind set. This first stage includes the aspect of creating a climate for change and involves increasing urgency, making decisions as to who or what group will lead the change (whatever that change is going to be) and then gaining buy in as to what the goals and vision of the change ought to be.

Lewin’s second stage (“Moving”) is where the change occurs and involves implementing the change initiative itself.This is typically a period of confusion and transition. In this stage, people are aware that the old ways are being challenged but do not have a clear picture as to what will be replacing them yet or what the end outcome will look like. This second stage includes empowering people in the organization to take responsibility and be an active part of the change process. The process of communicating for buy in from others continues in this stage and also includes making sure people have the resources, training, tools, motivational level and encouragement to implement the change. This implementation involves going way beyond compliance into transformation and motivational engagement. This stage includes many aspects of the “learning organization” where employees are encouraged to take reasonable risks and be able to share not only what is working but, equally important, what is not working so lessons can be learned, shared and leveraged.

“Freezing” is the last stage and involves creating conditions where the change will sustainitself where a new mindset is galvanized and employee’s comfort levels are returningto and exceeding functional levels prior to the change. Leadership in this stage takes the form of following through on original processes, policies and systems that were started, continuing to encourage employees to stay true to the new ways and ensuring that reward systems and leadership behaviors are not inadvertently punishing people for doing things the new way and rewarding them for doing it the old way. In all three stages, emotional concerns, fears and defenses of people have to be listened to and addressed.

Concerning Lewin’s model, Shein (1995) writes that:

The key for the leader is to see that human change, whether individual or group, is a profound psychological dynamic process that involves painful unlearning (of the old ways) with minimal loss of ego identity, pride and difficult relearning as one attempts to restructure ones thoughts, perceptions, feelings and attitudes around the new ways. All forms of learning and change start with some form of dissatisfaction or frustration generated by data that disconfirms or disrupts our expectations or hopes; basically a realization of a need to change from the current state. People are often extremely concerned with risking failure and loss of self-esteem, embarrassment or humiliation in the learning or change process.This learning anxiety is a fundamental obstacle or barrier which interferes and derails change initiatives.

Schein (1995) continues: “the true artistry of change management lies in the various kinds of tactics that change agents (leaders) employ to create psychological safety”. Change efforts have a much greater chance of succeeding if people feel safe during the change process. Not only is it important for leaders to make it as safe as possible for those experiencing the change, but the leader must also facilitate and create conditions where creativity is encouraged. Heifetz (1994) writes: “Throughout the change process, the solution for new problems may lie outside the existing repertoire, which is exactly when adaptive work is needed”. As this concept applies to scientific organizations, it is important for us not to rely solely on scientific expertise and technical credibility as we engage in problem solving activities, decision making and visioning through our change processes. These competencies should not overshadowleadership characteristics based more in the interpersonal dynamics, human element and emotional aspects of change to leverage creativity and decision making capacity of self and others as well as encourage reasonable risk taking through empowering employees.

In the “Heart of Change Field Guide”, John Kotter makes the point that in the beginning stages of a change initiative, employees not only need to see the logical, objective, and fact based reasoning behind why the change needs to occur but also the emotional component as well which affect attitude and motivation. This includes how the current status quo in the organization is affecting employees, processes, stakeholders and the viability of the organization including how well leadership is able to include and leverage the emotional aspects of the change. Along with the preparation and implementation of change are important questions that need to be answered including: Why is it important there be a change to begin with? How important is this change and what are possible ramifications or consequences? How will the change affect programmatic or organizational processes, outputs and outcomes? Who will be affected by the change? Who needs to know what and when? What will happen to motivation of employees and stakeholders during the change and how can we reduce negative impacts?

Leading & Facilitating Change

According to Senge (2006), “hierarchical models of leadership, which place the leader at the apex of hierarchical decision making and authority, are inadequate for the leadership needs of the organization facing change.” This indicates that the responsibility for innovation, creativity, the discovery and implementation of key learning’s, and the motivation to accomplish desired outcomes must come from (or at least include) those who are closest to that which is to be changed. Where change involves others outside the organization, leadership must approach stakeholders and all “publics” as though they were capable of not only understanding many of the complexities of what the mission involves but also in developing and participating in the successful implementation of the change itself. This means that leadership,and all those within the organization who will broker this with partner groups and stakeholders,must forfeit a certain degree of control and predictable structure. This can be difficult when, in scientific (and most organizations), the degree to which others are given control (both internal and external stakeholders) is sometimes proportional to the degree to which they may be perceived as being competent. Heifetz (1994) tells us that often, those outside of our agencies can provide “outsight” and give us new and fresh perspectives. To completely leverage the creative ideas, resources and buy in from the American public, empowerment through collaboration must occur.

Heifetz (1994) tells us that “dependency on authority appropriate to technical situations becomes inappropriate when adaptive ones are called for”. This is a very important point since many of the things we do in the Service are “adaptive in nature and involve iterative and adaptive processes”. Heifetz advocates the change leader having the responsibility of switching from operating as a technician to operating as an agent of spontaneous unpredictable adaptive work. As stated above, and where appropriate, this adaptive work involves all stakeholders; including the American public. This public must be involved, empowered and equipped to understand the issues of conservation and to be involved in effective solutions. Thomas Jefferson stated “If we think (the people) are not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion”.

In terms of the organizational roles of a Guiding Team and those involved in change facilitation, Heifetz(1994) states: “When people are challenged, the first line of defense is to apply the responses already in their repertoire. Given the high number of major problems human beings have sorted out through history, applying solutions from the repertoire makes obvious sense.” Heifetzalso tells us that, the harsher the reality, the harder and more intense the followership looks to authority and leadership for a remedy that saves them from adjustment. By and large, it is part of our nature to want answers, not questions for which we may have to find the answers to. Relating to the roles and qualities that should be included in those who lead or guide change through a change initiative, Kotter (2002) sums this up by stating a criteria which includes:

Relevant knowledge about what is happening outside the enterprise or group (essential for creating vision); credibility, connections, and stature within the organization (essential in communicating vision); valid information about the internal workings of the enterprise (essential for removing the barriers that disempower people from acting on the vision); formal authority and the managerial skills associated with planning, organizing, and control (needed to create the short-term wins); the leadership skills associated with vision, communication, and motivation (required for nearly every aspect of the change process). Change leaders and/or members of guiding teams need to show enthusiasm and commitment for the change, model the trust and teamwork, and putgreat energy into raising the level of urgency for the change (Kotter 2002).

Empowerment

Empowerment involves a relationship between people with mutual intentions or purpose and it is about giving people the confidence, competence, freedom, and resources to act on their own judgments.Hence, when a person or group of people are empowered, they undergo a change in their relationship to other people who hold power and with whom they share mutual goals…In a business or organization, empowering employees changes their relationship to each other, management, and the work process.Additionally, empowerment includes dispelling the idea that social harmony means lack of conflict with an undue emphasis on ‘niceness’.(Ciulla, 1996)

Ciulla (1996) states that “unfortunately, therapeutic effectiveness (or effectiveness that avoids challenging people too much and or risks cohesion) has replaced the value of truth in our culture.With this, truths that make people feel better and help them adjust and fit in are far more desirable than truths that rock the boat.”For change efforts to be implemented according to their fullest potential capitalizing on available opportunities, open communication must occur based on honesty, integrity and mutually beneficial interests; not rigid positions. Open and honest but professional crucial conversations need to take place. Ciulla states that “If our culture places more importance on psychic truths (politically correct and conforming truths) than on real truths,and if some truths or therapeutic frictions are effective because they make people happier, then leaders fall short of real expectations of empowerment.”With this, Ciulla (1996) distinguishes between genuine empowerment and bogus empowerment.

Bogus empowerment is the use of minimal frictions to make people feel better about themselves, eliminate conflict, and satisfy their desire to belong (niceness); so that they will freely choose to work towards the goals of the organization and be productive.To empower people authentically, business leaders have to be ready to overthrow some of the aspects of “niceness”.The truth is not always pleasant.It can disrupt the harmony of an organization and introduce conflict.But this conflict can be very healthy. When you really empower people, you don’t just empower them to agree with you.Employees don’t always feel good when they hear the truth and leaders don’t like to deliver bad news…True empowerment also means giving a say in the way employees do their work and other critical aspects of their jobs.What has become abundantly clear in research done on productivity is that workers do a better job when they have a say in the way they do their work, the redesign of their jobs, and the introduction of technology into the workplace.The obvious difference between authentic and bogus empowerment rests on the honesty of the relationship between leaders and followers.Honesty entails a set of specific practical and moral obligations and is a necessary condition for empowerment…When leaders really empower people; they give them the responsibility that comes with that power.But this does not mean that with less power, leaders have less responsibility.For example, transformational leaders don’t have less responsibility for their followers when they transform them; the followers have chosen to take on more and therefore this level of eventual accountability by the leader has also increased.

Change initiatives and the focus of leadership must emphasize this sincerity and honesty for the sake of organizational efficiency and productivity.With this comes the vulnerability of sharing power, decision making, visioning and accountability. Pierce (1991) advises frontline supervisors to act like leaders and become “more participatory and less authoritarian.”One aspect of empowering employees means recognizing them and building on what they have accomplished and clearly communicating to them that, although the organization will be taking a different direction, the current status quo and the focus and future direction of the organization could not have been envisioned, identified and articulated without the past efforts, hard work and accomplishments of those who developed best practices, innovated new ideas and struggled in the past to achieve the current level of excellence. In Lewin’s “Unfreeze” phase, a significant part of this empowerment is including employees in making the decision as to what is and what is not a sense of urgency with the status quo and articulating the reason why the ‘platform is burning’.

In differentiating between bogus and genuine empowerment, Ciulla tells us that organizations should give employees more responsibility but that employees feel betrayed when they discover they have been given less than the leadership’s rhetoric implied. A leader who keeps his or her promises establishes dependability necessary for trust. As a final point, Taylor (1991) believes leaders must consider how to protect individualism even in team settings; especially where recognition, tolerance and diversity are concerned. Applied to many change initiatives, this means being careful in ensuring it creates a ‘holding environment’ where individuals can excel in creating and innovating without being dominated by the collective norms of the group (groupthink) or feeling their thought processes and ideas have to always be consistent with the mainstream.A balance between the individual and team should be sought.

The field of Human Performance Improvement outlines 6 major areas that can either be opportunities or root causecategories relating to organizational efficiency. All of these factors should be considered in any change initiative by leadership:

Improving knowledge – Knowledge and skills related factors that are intrinsic to the performer.

Improving motivation – Motivational factors that are intrinsic to the performer but may be influenced by the work environment.

Improving physical resources – Tangible resource factors that are extrinsic to the performer and can be changed regardless of who will be performing the task.

Improvingstructure and process – Workflow factors that are extrinsic to the performer and can be changed regardless of who will be performing the task.

Improving information – Factors that pertain to the ineffective exchange of data between people or between technology/machines.

Barriers & Resistance To Change

Dr. Ben Bissell and Dr. Kenneth Pritchett have both separately identified different stages that people go through in dealing with change based on the stages of grief outlined by Elizabeth Kublais Ross in 1969. They both believe that the effectiveness of a leader in an organization undergoing a change initiative significantly depends on how well they are able to help employees “move through” these stages of grief. The first stage is shock and/or denial where the employee can’t believe that the change is happening and therefore they are unable to accept or adopt any aspects of the change. The second stage is anger or a flood of emotions relating to the change. All, or most attempts to adopt the change are rejected by the employee in this stage. In the third stage, the employee begins to bargain or see how the change might fit into their work to some degree. They begin small scaled implementations of the change. The fourth stage is depression where they begin to realize the change is coming, that there is nothing they can do to prevent it from happening and they must somehow begin to try and accept this inevitable change. The fifth stage is acceptance. Some of the important aspects of both models from Bissell and Pritchett include the following important points: that all change produces fear; that this fear is normal and necessary and that leaders need to find a way to help employees through the stages with understanding, empathy, acceptance, communication and encouragement; that all of the stages are feelings and that all feelings are acceptable but not all behavior is; that leaders can help employees from going too deep into these feelings as well as delaying full implementation of the change by being honest, by maintaining information and communication flow and through including employees in decisions.