The art of intervening。

Prof. dr. Léon de Caluwé

This chapter is published in:

Adams, Susan and Alberto Zanzi (editors, 2011): Preparing better consultants: The Role of Academia. Information Age publishing. Volume 14 in Research on Management Consulting series.

1. Introduction

This article explores intervening and interventions, and how interventions fit within a change strategy. I first discuss interventions as activities for change. Multiple coherent interventions constitute an intervention plan. To help the reader design a well-considered intervention plan, I will present several interventions, distinguishing interventions aimed at individuals, groups, organizations, and also at organization networks. Interventions are subsequently ordered according to different change strategies and analyzed in terms of their operativeingredients. I also consider four basic paradigms concerning change and intervening, and invite the reader to ponder his or her own dominant view in this regard. That insight can help you make deliberate choices for specific interventions within a change process, and the many examples discussed will offer further insight into intervention options. This text thus offers broad insight into the world of intervention and all that is available, helping you make well-informed choices as to which interventions are best suited to a specific situation and a specific change objective.

2. Intervention and intervention plan

The word ‘intervention’ can be used to refer to diverse matters. For example, it can be used to describe the utterance of a single sentence: someone says something to somebody else, and the speaker will call this an intervention. But it is also used for events on a much larger scale: a modification of national legislation with regard to job dismissals is also referred to as an intervention.

2.1 Interventions

This article is about interventions as activities for change.The description that I favor is as follows: an intervention is one or a series of planned change activities that aim to help enhance the effectiveness of an organization. They are deliberate activities undertaken by one or more change agents in order to achieve certain results (Cummings & Worley, 2009; De Caluwé & Vermaak, 2004; French & Bell, 1999).

The various terms used in this description can be elucidated as follows:

-it can involve a single activity or a series of activities. For instance: a certain training program for a particular group is an intervention. Or it may consist of several training programs for different target groups. Or the program can consist of an intake procedure, a course and a follow-up. Or there are peer supervision sessions alongside the training program;

-planned, refers to the wish of the change agent to exert influence in a certain desired direction. Although we know well enough that we cannot predict or guarantee all outcomes, we do of course wish to applythose interventions that will achieve something;

-effectiveness refers to the intended results of the interventions. Some interventions deliver just a tiny contribution. Sometimes, the intended effect is a heightened awareness, which is difficult to achieve and difficult to establish.It can also be about becoming aware of something or learning to stop doing something. These are all examples of intended effects;

-The description contains the word help because an intervention can either be more or less directly steering, or supportive. For example: communication about the training program is supportive of the program, while the program itself is the direct intervention.

2.2 Interventions as part of a change strategy

A change process consists of a number of phases or steps. It starts with a diagnosis: What is the matter?; What is happening?; Where is it happening? The diagnosis helps form a clear picture of what is going on.

The next step is to identify the core of the issue. This may concern the sore spot: What are people losing sleep over? What is causing pain? But it can also be about the germs of change: where do we find the opportunities, the energy, the forces that can bring about change? The goal is to order the diagnostic information, to map the links and relations between that information, and to formulate the essence of the matter.

After that it’s time to determine the change strategy: what are the principles that we wish to apply to our approach? What is the overall philosophy? What process do we wish to initiate? The change strategy is a deliberate choice for certain levers in the change process.

Part of the intervention plan is making choices to achieve a successful implementation. Which interventions are suitable for the change strategy? In what sequence should they be implemented? Where do they conflict with each other, and where do they reinforce each other? In short: how do we develop an approach in which the change strategy is converted into something that can be done and can be organized? If this is not done, the isolated interventionsare likely to lose their effectiveness. Or, it may emerge that the change process rests on just a few shoulders, while it should be shouldered by several pioneers. Or, that the results remain limited to just a few persons. It is important for these reasons to permanently bear in mind the coherence between the various interventions.

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Figure 1. Phases in a change process

2.3 Intervention plan

What exactly does an intervention plan entail? It is a focused, balanced, communicable and relevant plan for activities to achieve intended outcomes(De Caluwé & Vermaak, 2004 a).

That it isfocusedmeans that the interventions reinforce each other to penetrate ‘deeply’ enough into the organization, as envisioned in the change strategy. The point is to have small or larger interventions mesh together synergetically, so that they consolidate and create a snowball effect. A series of small pushes while rolling will cause a snowball to grow. This could include a communal learning programas main intervention, flanked by options for peer supervision or coaching. The operative principle here is a learning process in which the interventions enhance each other.

Balancedmeans that the plan incorporates all components of planned change that play a role in organizational change. It is a step-by-step plan, but it also takes account of the actors, communication and sense-making, of transfer, supervision and reflection.

Communicablemeans that the plan is a smart simplification of what is about to happen. The plan must be explicable to others in a few core concepts and principles, so that those involved can understand it and can fulfill their role. In this way, all expectations are managed and the intentions clarified.

Metaphors, one-liners, drawings and schemes can be useful tools in this communication.

Relevancemeans that you can reasonably rest assured that the intended results will be achieved; that you may assume that the efforts and interventions will prove sufficient; and that the final result will be worth the effort.

An intervention plan is a composite of interventions, alongside each other and succeeding each other. Interventions are the activities that need to be performed to accomplish organizational change.

Figure 2. Elements of every intervention

Building blocks of interventions

Every intervention ideally consists of six building blocks, namely: the history, outcomes, roles, phases, communication and evaluation. I shall briefly explicate these building blocks.

The history refers to the interventions or events that preceded the intervention. It is the context within which the intervention is to take place. It is also the reason for the intervention. No intervention ever appears out of the blue.

Theoutcomes concern what we wish to achieve. What are the intended effects? What do we perhaps wish to achieve directly, and for what do we aim to create the right conditions?

Roles are about who does the coordinating or the steering; or, conversely, who will be sacrificed. And who are the spectators in the stands?

Phases refer to the ordering of the process in steps or part-processes. What comes first, and what follows later?

Communicationand sense-making. People will talk about the intervention, they send and receive information. How do you inform people? How do you get them involved? How can they make sense of the world around?

And finally: how will weevaluate? How do we steer the process? What adjustments should we make? What lessons do we learn?

These six building blocks are part of every intervention. They need to be thought through for each intervention, also since they can vary per intervention. They form something of a checklist: when devising an intervention, you need to think through these six building blocks.

Figure 3. Intervention plan with seven interventions

How can onecategorize interventions? The nature and types of interventions are virtually infinite. There are various overviews available. Each change agent moreover has a list stored on his own mental hard drive. The added value of such overviews is that it can prompt new ideas and point you towards unexplored possibilities. It is therefore every change manager’s professional duty to be familiar with a broad range of interventions, so that they remain aware of approaches that are better than the ones they are competent to perform. This article categorizes interventions in terms of three dimensions. This categorization may help expand your perspective on interventions and help you choose deliberately for specific interventions.

The first dimension is the one targeted by the intervention: the object of the intervention. This involves a discussion of interventions in terms of individuals, groups, organizations and collaboration between organizations.

The second dimension concerns the operative principles of the interventions. Here I refer to the colors of change: yellow, blue, red, green and white.

I finally present a category based on underlying patterns of thought, or paradigms.

But first let’s look at the intervention category constituted by the object of the intervention.

3.Interventions aimed at individuals, groups and organizations

Interventions can be aimed at an individual. The aim can be to influence or to change a single human being. To name a few examples of such interventions::

-having dinner with your enemy, or appointing an assistant to serve as jester

-making a personal plan or committing to something

-pursuing a career; two-sided communication

-coaching or mirroring someone

-steering yourself and giving meaning to your own life.

There are several specific group interventions aimed at improving how groups and teams operate. These interventions can be used particularly if new groups and departments have been formed, or if departments or groups wish to improve their performance.

These interventions are geared to influencing or changing a group of people. Again, to list a few examples:

-In diagnostic department discussions, members of a group start collecting, analyzing and evaluating data concerning the department’s performance. Based on this diagnosis, plans are developed to improve how the department or group functions.

-The performance mirror is a specific procedure to obtain information about how a department performs, by asking clients or other departments to hold up a mirror to the department, reflecting the way it operates, the products it creates, and its collaboration with others.

-The task analysis technique aims to clarify the expectations that people have regarding the performance of tasks. Groups operate better if the members know of each other how they understand the task, what priorities they set, and what expectations they have of one another.

-Analyzing and discussing the roles fulfilled by people in a team; this concerns roles and patterns of behavior that people enact based on habits and on notions of how they ought to act. Through social activities or by explicating team roles and patterns of cooperation, cooperationprocesses can be improved.

-Building a tightly-knit group can be pursued through group training, team development or peer supervision, with people evaluating each other and providing feedback on their contribution to the team or the department. Trainings can result in improved performance if the training is appropriate to the training and education needs experienced by individuals and groups, and if the training is linked to one’s own work situation.

-An appreciative inquiry can be conducted whenever the group or team achieves an excellent performance, also to see what lessons can be learnt for future performance.

Organizations are always home to multiple groups and parties with different tasks, interests, expectations and backgrounds. There are also interventions that specifically aim to improve the cooperation between groups. To name two examples:

-Image breaking (‘iconoclasm’)is particularly suitable if groups hold stereotypical and negative images of each other and communication is virtually impossible. This intervention seeks to deflate the images that the groups have of each other. The groups each draw up a list of their thoughts, attitudes, feelings and perceptions of the other group, and a second list with their predictions as to what the other group will say about them. At a plenary meeting, the different group images are exchanged. People may ask questions, but discussions and providing explanations are prohibited. The two groups then separate again, and are asked to ponder why the other group sees them as they do, and what they have discovered about themselves and about the other group. After the groups exchange their diagnoses in a second plenary meeting, all sorts of erroneous perceptions and misunderstandings will evaporate, and the cooperative climate improves accordingly.

-Tensions between groups can also be solved through negotiation and problem-solving with the help of a third independent party, for instance a mediator. To be successful, both parties must be motivated to solve the problems, must both accept the third person as mediator, and should not differ too much in terms of their position of power. Third-party interventions are actually aimed at realizing structured negotiations, with the independent mediator devoting much time and energy to exploring possible resolutions to the conflict.

The third category of interventions concerns organizations. Such interventions are of course aimed at changing the organization in its totality. Many examples can be given, but I shall list just five:

-a strategic alliance or strategy to achieve market dominance

-redesigning or reviewing work processes

-enhancing mobility and aligning tasks to people’s talents

-quality circles or an open planning

-quest conferences, rituals and mysticism.

Finally, there is a category of interventions aimed at improving how organizations work together. Increasingly, organizations are collaborating through networks. This ranges from supply networks, to collaboration between logistics firms, to organizations active in youth and safety programs.

-A frequently used intervention to create collaboration between organizations is to draw up collaboration agreements, to establish a joint venture or to build alliances between enterprises. Alliances are often formed with a view to joint market strategies, international cooperation, improving distribution and operational management and collaborative product innovation. The alliances in the airline industry and the production of the Senseo coffeemaker by Philips and Douwe Egberts are notable examples.

-Chain collaboration and working in networks are often intended to solve coordination issues between organizations. To stimulate collaboration in chains and networks, process management is a viable intervention that starts with mapping all relationship patterns and networks. The next step is to build trust by becoming acquainted with each other’s viewpoints, experiences and bottlenecks. This is then followed by seeking new forms of collaboration in which the organizations concerned can maintain their own identity, while at the same time expand their external influence.

Change strategies and intervention plans practically always seek a mix of interventions at all these levels in the organization. After all, to change something in the organization especially requires an effort to change certain individuals. Or, you may have determined that certain groups fail to work together as a team; you can then apply team-specific interventions to develop the skills required to work as a team.

4. Interventions categorized in terms of operative principles

We can distinguish five basic approaches to change processes (see De Caluwé & Vermaak, 2004a & 2004b).

These five approaches have each been assigned a color. I use these colors to categorize interventions. With reference to each color, we will now discuss the associated conditions for success, operative principles and the effects of applying specific interventions. Each color explanation is followed by examples of interventions in the color concerned (see De Caluwé & Vermaak, 2004a; Beer & Nohria, 2000)

4.1 Yellow-print thinking

Yellow-print thinkers consider a change successful if it results in general support for an important decision. It would be even better if we all agree and thus reach consensus. A good deal or wise decision has been made, there is no more opposition, and all resistance fades away.

The operative principles are: the will to win or to dominate, or the fear of losing. It helps enormously if there is some threat or a great sense of urgency: this really gets people going and open to change. Get people to feel a bit anxious, and they will come out into the open.

This approach is especially effective in changing power relationships or achieving a new balance of power. However, it can also politicize relationships and prompt irrational behavior.

A change agent that intervenes in this color will typically believe that there first has to be a report outlining the main changes and especially the necessity of those changes. This report is drawn up by a number of people inside and outside the organization. Next, a steering group needs to be composed on the basis of equality with representatives of various groups within the organization, to formulate a shared vision as an answer to the problems identified. In any case this working group must contain key figures or opinion leaders, for if they do not support the change process, nothing at all can get done. It is also important to secure the Works Council’s commitment, at an early stage. The decision-making process must be conducted with due care, though the final decisions are of course made by the executive staff.