Summary Organization Development

WHAT DOES NOT WORK

 Focusing exclusively on building a “rational” business case, getting top management approval, and racing

ahead while mostly ignoring all the feelings that are blocking change

 Ignoring a lack of urgency and jumping immediately to creating a vision and strategy

 Believing that without a crisis or burning platform you can go nowhere

 Thinking that you can do little if you’re not the head person.

2. Build the Guiding Team:

A single individual who feels great urgency usually pulls in the first people.

Individuals are selected to have the right combination of capabilities within the team:

 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 (needed to create the short-term wins)

 The leadership skills associated with vision, communication, and motivation

The team (3-5 people) is created by pulling people in and occasionally pushing people out.

As change progresses throughout large organizations, additional groups are formed at lower levels

 From guiding team to guiding coalition

WHAT DOES NOT WORK

 Guiding change with weak task forces, single individuals, complex governance structures, or fragmented top

teams

 Not confronting the situation when momentum and entrenched power centers undermine the creation of the

right group

 Trying to leave out or work around the head of the unit to be changed because he or she is “hopeless”

3. Developing a Vision & Strategy:

An effective vision

 Imaginable: Conveys a picture of what the future will look like

 Desirable: Appeals to the long-term interests of employees, customers, stakeholders.

 Feasible: Comprises realistic, attainable goals

 Focused: Is clear enough to provide guidance in decision making

 Flexible: Is it general enough to allow individual initiative & alternative responses in light of changing condition.

Communicable: Is easy to communicate, can be successfully explained within 5 minutes.

Developing strategies for achieving that vision

WHAT DOES NOT WORK

 Assuming that linear or logical plans and budgets alone adequately guide behavior when you’re trying to leap

into the future

 Overly analytic, financially based vision exercises

 Visions of slashing costs, which can be emotionally depressing and anxiety creating

4. Communicating the Change Vision:

Leading change is usually impossible unless large numbers of people are willing to help

How? Organizational newsletters, Quarterly management meetings…

Use every possible channel, especially those that are being wasted on non-essential information

Key elements in communicating the vision:

 Simplicity. All jargon & technobabble must be eliminated.

 Metaphor, Analogy & Example. A verbal picture is worth a thousand words.

 Multiple Forums. Big meetings & small, memos, newspapers, formal and informal meetings….

 Repetition. Ideas sink in only after they have been heard many times

 Leadership by Example. Behavior by important people that is inconsistent with the vision overwhelms other

forms of communication.

 Explanation of Seeming Inconsistency. Unaddressed inconsistencies undermine the credibility of all

communications.

 Give & Take. Two way communication is always more powerful and one way communication.

WHAT DOES NOT WORK

 Undercommunicating, which happens all the time

 Speaking as though you are only transferring information

 Accidentally fostering cynicism by not walking the talk

5. Empowering Broad-Based Action

 Getting rid of obstacles

 Changing systems or structures that undermine the change vision (see next slide)

 Finding individuals with change experience who can bolster people’s self-confidence with we-won-you-can-too

anecdotes (skills)

 

Recognition and reward systems that inspire, promote optimism, and build self-confidence Feedback that

can help people make better vision-related decisions

WHAT DOES NOT WORK

 Ignoring bosses who seriously disempower their subordinates

 Solving the boss problem by taking away their power (making them mad and scared) and giving it to their

subordinates

 Trying to remove all the barriers at once

 Giving in to your own pessimism and fears

6. Generating Short-Term Wins

Planning for visible performance improvements

 Real transformation takes times… efforts risk losing momentum if there are no short-term goals to meet and

celebrate

 Most people will not go on the long march unless they see compelling evidence within 12 to 24 months that



the journey is producing expected results Increase in quality indicators and in market share

 Helps keep the urgency level up

Recognizing and rewarding employees involved in the improvement

Generating short-term wins that…

 come fast

 are as visible as possible to as many people as possible

 penetrate emotional defenses by being unambiguous

 are meaningful to others

 speak to powerful players whose support you need and do not yet have

 can be achieved cheaply and easily, even if they seem small compared with the grand vision

WHAT DOES NOT WORK

 Launching fifty projects all at once

 Providing the first win too slowly

 Stretching the truth

7. Reinforce the change

Until change sinks in deeply into a company’s culture, which can require years, new approaches are fragile and

subject to regression

 Using increased credibility to change systems, structures and policies that don’t fit

 Hiring, promoting, and developing employees who can implement the vision

 Reinvigorate process with new projects and themes

WHAT DOES NOT WORK

 Developing a rigid four-year plan

 Convincing yourself that you’re done when you aren’t

 Convincing yourself that you can get the job done without confronting some of the more embedded

bureaucratic and political behaviors ü Working so hard you physically and emotionally collapse

8. institutionalizing New Approaches in the Culture

 Using the employees’ new orientation to compellingly show recruits what the organization really cares about

 Using the promotions process to place people who act according to the new norms into influential and visible



positions May involve turnover

 Telling vivid stories over and over about the new organization, what it does, and why it succeeds

 Articulating the connections between the new behaviors and organizational progress/success

WHAT DOES NOT WORK

 Relying on a boss or a compensation scheme, or anything but culture, to hold a big change in place

 Trying to change culture as the first step in the transformation process

IMPEDIMENTS TO CHANGE

 

Individual absenteeism, turnover, inertia

Individual change curve

 Uncertainty/insecurity

 Fear of losing status, unemployment

 Perceived threat to the professional identity

 Economic reason (firm specific experience, salary, demotion…)

 Selective perception

 Employees perceive only information consistent with their schemas (how the change is

going to affect me?)

 Low self-efficacy

 Habit

 Routines, heuristics

Group

 Group norms

 Change disrupts group norms and the expectations members have of one another

 Group cohesiveness

 Group members are slow in recognizing opportunities to change and adapt

 Resist attempts by others to change what the group does or its members

 Protect group interests at the expense of other groups

 Groupthink/escalation of commitment

Organizational

 Power and conflict

 Differences in functional orientation

 Mechanistic structure

 tall hierarchies, centralized decision making, standardization of behavior through rules and procedures –

mechanistic structure

 flat, decentralized, mutual adjustment – organic structure

 Organizational culture

Dealing with resistance to change 9. INDIVIDUALS IN ORGANIZATION

PERSONALITY

Personality is the pattern of relatively enduring ways that a person feels, thinks, and behaves.

Personality is partially determined by nature, or biological heritage, the other 50 percent reflects the influence of

nurture, or life experiences.

 Develops over a person’s lifetime (but defined during childhood)

 Generally stable in the context of work

 Accounts for observable regularities in people’s attitudes and behaviors

 Can influence career choice, job satisfaction, stress, leadership, and even performance

Attraction-Selection-Attrition (ASA) Model 

Personality determines the nature of whole organizations the attraction-selection-attrition (ASA) framework.

Schneider proposes that the “personality” of a whole organization is a product of the personalities of its employees.

He suggests that:

 Individuals with similar personalities tend to be attracted to an organization (attraction) and hired by it (selection)

and individuals with other types of personalities tend to leave the organization (attrition)

The Big Five Model of Personality

A model for describing personality, through a set of dimensions (traits) that are specific components of personality that

describe the particular tendencies a person has to feel, think, and act

Each of the traits represents a continuum along which a certain aspect or dimension of personality can be placed

1. Extraversion (Positive Affectivity)

Personality trait that predisposes individuals to experience positive emotional states and feel good about themselves

and the world around them.

Extraverts—people high on the extraversion scale—tend to be sociable, affectionate, and friendly as

Introverts—people low on the extraversion scale—are less likely to experience positive emotional states and have

fewer social interactions with others.

2. Neuroticism (Negative Affectivity)

Personality trait that reflects people’s tendency to experience negative emotional states, feel distressed, and generally

view themselves and the world around them negatively.

Neuroticism is a trait that all normal, psychologically healthy individuals possess to a certain degree. Individuals high

on neuroticism may also exert a needed “sobering” influence during group decision making by playing devil’s advocate

and pointing out the negative aspects of a proposed decision.

3. Agreeableness

Personality trait that captures the distinction between individuals who get along well with other people and those who

do not.

Agreeable individuals generally are easy to get along with and are team players

Low on a