Organisational Development & Change
Hoofdstuk 1. Introduction - The difficulty
of perceiving change
● 1.1. Introduction
- Because of non-realistic assumptions most brilliant ideas never get into practice. - Organisational
change can be compared to a slot machine; ‘a penny can take many different paths, so you don't know
what you will get in the end. - Recipients are equally influenced by the lateral interaction processes in
their day-to-day work. This means that top managers can not foretell the impact of interventions they
initiate. - We need to reconceive the way we approach change in organisations. - Organisational change
needs a person's personal change too - Changing is like learning- guided by practices rather than
knowledge only.
● Organisational change= - An individual behaviour attribute - Only through collaborative interactional
processes
● Organisational development and change ODC= ‘Processes in which people surfaxe and challenge
their own assumptions by exchanging and sharing their opinions, experiences and perspectives.’
● Systems thinking= a discipline for seeing social wholes. It's a framework for seeing relationships rather
than things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static snapshots. This requires 4 things:
1) A double loop learning process; (wil zeggen dat ook de operationele normen voortdurend ter discussie
staan en bijgesteld worden) 2) All people need to be involved; (wil zeggen dat men met een intentie om te
veranderen zich actief moet betrekken in het leerproces) 3) See the whole picture by people themselves;
(men moet zelf ook het gehele plaatje zien in plaats van alleen de losse onderdelen tijdens het proces) 4)
Systemic awareness is required; (Men moet beseffen dat hij/zij zich bevindt in een systeem, waarin
interactie met mensen plaatsvindt om doelen te bereiken)
● 1.2. Three business cases
- This paragraph shows us examples of three cases where people tried to create change, but in the final
analysis.. nothing has changed. This is probably because much of this has to do with peoples different
assumptions that shape the way they see things and partly makes them blind in the process of change.
,● First example; the case of the Labour Union division ‘A lot of sense but no impact’
- Problem: The problem of the union was that members of the company
decreased in the last tree years. - Solution: The solution was (in the thoughts of the managers and
employees)
that they should be more accountable in delivering services, recruiting members and realising strategic
targets. - Outcome: The outcome was that there was a difference in perceiving the
solution for this problem between employees and managers. From the view of the managers the
behaviours of the leaders were described as resistance. While from a leaders view the leaders described
their behaviour as part of ‘ownership’ behaviour. This created: >First: Self-fulfilling prophecy; the
behaviours of all involved, that of union leaders and managers alike, came down to resisting each others
suggestions. >Second: What someone sees as an effect may be a cause for others and vice versa. > Third:
Human perceptions play a much more pivotal role than we may believe > Fourth/Conclusion: The
challenge may be more about how people perceive change and change their perceptions than about
actually changing their behaviour.
● Second example; the case of the business university ‘A catch-22, all wondering around’
- Problem: The business university had just survived severe cutbacks in which
half of the staff lost their jobs. But in the following months the remaining employees did not seem to
manage their daily challenges and opportunities after the restructuring. - Solution:The CEO hired an
external specialist who started with interviews,
collaborative dialogues etc and tried to implement an advice based on the outcomes of what the
employees were thinking. - Outcome: Everyone was involved as much as possible and knew about the
problem and the solutions, but because of the different perceptions there emerged an contradiction. In
these kind of ambiguous contexts we find ourselves in blurry situations not being able to see the
contradiction by ourselves. - Conclusion: The only solution is denied by a colleague's vision about what
has to be done, which is as true and well motivated as that of our own( called a catch-22 situation).
● Third example; the case of the health organization ‘The dance around the symbolic totem pole’
- Problem: A merged health organization with short hierarchical lines with the
location and staff executives. This resulted in a dissatisfaction for the staff executives to work together
with the managers and board directors. - Solution: None
,- Outcome: The executives did not want to share their dissatisfaction in public. They all became silent
about their frustrations but inside them they could blow up about it. So this presents the totem pole
metaphor where everyone kept dancing around, and sometimes inadvertently kicked , leading up to
frustration of all involved, resigning themselves in silence. - Conclusion: This tactic and silent behaviour
prevented implementing
significant changes.
● What the examples all seem to share:
- Inertia; an inability to change as rapidly as the environment - Vicious cycles; the examples display
paradoxical tensions that spur and
trigger vicious cycles. - Things are done more recursively and in cycles.
● 1.3. Difficulty of perceiving change
● Kurt Lewin's conception for realising change is one of the most cited models for ODC:
> based on an unfreeze-movement-refreeze > a theoretically/ metaphorically 3 steps model from the
1940’s > based on Newton's First Law of Motion; which states everybody perseveres in its state of being
at rest or of moving uniformly straightforward, except in so far as it is compelled to change its state by
forces impressed upon it. > But this linear way of looking at change does not capture the process of
change. So we need another way of looking at change that captures ambivalence and circular movements
people engage in, when they supposed to change their ways. ‘So we look at....’
● Time, Energy & Perception:
- Time; there is no change without progress in time - Energy; there is no change without any kind of
movement - Perception; There is no change without common information processing
● The perception of change (Henri Bergson): ‘We look, think and talk about change, but we do not see
and act like it.’ Change= ‘An abstract theoretical construct and in more philosophical sense, it has
something to do with time, energy and perception.
● Discipline and practice are necessary to be able to perceive the dynamic movements between
individuals and units within an organisation. Yet the same movements can also be observed on a micro
level.
● Because we as people think in linear cause-effect ways, this shapes our perceptions and solutions to
problems in the daily life. The key is to learn to intervene in other
, people’s matters, with some awareness of the limiting effects of our own assumptions.
● 1.4. Perceiving complex contents
- We perceive change as something that is happening, arising from the
circumstances that we are a part of in giving rise to and having to cope with ourselves. - Therefore we
believe that we need a paradigm that challenges the ubiquitous
use of oversimplified, linear approaches to humans and pre-planned change programmes. - We need
something that restores the importance of human emotion to a
rightful place alongside rationality and which takes an holistic approach to organisational change. - We
also look for a paradigm because we confuse control with order. - Paradigm= an explanation of aspects of
a territory. Its a set of assumptions
which functions as a map in which we not only navigate ourselves but we also determine the way we see
the world with it. - Having a ‘map/paradigm’ gives a sort of false security which comforts and
assures people that they live in a stable, predictable and therefore manageable world. - This means that
emerging change is not per se an unsteady state of
uncontrolled disorder but can also be seen as a steady state of unintended order.
● How change programmes do ‘work’:
- They work in so far as they are fine tuned and adjusted by actors in particular
contexts. That is insofar as they are further changed on an ongoing process. - What we need is a paradigm
that sees interaction, context and learning as the
main vehicles for change. An example of such an paradigm(Cynefin):
Hoofdstuk 1. Introduction - The difficulty
of perceiving change
● 1.1. Introduction
- Because of non-realistic assumptions most brilliant ideas never get into practice. - Organisational
change can be compared to a slot machine; ‘a penny can take many different paths, so you don't know
what you will get in the end. - Recipients are equally influenced by the lateral interaction processes in
their day-to-day work. This means that top managers can not foretell the impact of interventions they
initiate. - We need to reconceive the way we approach change in organisations. - Organisational change
needs a person's personal change too - Changing is like learning- guided by practices rather than
knowledge only.
● Organisational change= - An individual behaviour attribute - Only through collaborative interactional
processes
● Organisational development and change ODC= ‘Processes in which people surfaxe and challenge
their own assumptions by exchanging and sharing their opinions, experiences and perspectives.’
● Systems thinking= a discipline for seeing social wholes. It's a framework for seeing relationships rather
than things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static snapshots. This requires 4 things:
1) A double loop learning process; (wil zeggen dat ook de operationele normen voortdurend ter discussie
staan en bijgesteld worden) 2) All people need to be involved; (wil zeggen dat men met een intentie om te
veranderen zich actief moet betrekken in het leerproces) 3) See the whole picture by people themselves;
(men moet zelf ook het gehele plaatje zien in plaats van alleen de losse onderdelen tijdens het proces) 4)
Systemic awareness is required; (Men moet beseffen dat hij/zij zich bevindt in een systeem, waarin
interactie met mensen plaatsvindt om doelen te bereiken)
● 1.2. Three business cases
- This paragraph shows us examples of three cases where people tried to create change, but in the final
analysis.. nothing has changed. This is probably because much of this has to do with peoples different
assumptions that shape the way they see things and partly makes them blind in the process of change.
,● First example; the case of the Labour Union division ‘A lot of sense but no impact’
- Problem: The problem of the union was that members of the company
decreased in the last tree years. - Solution: The solution was (in the thoughts of the managers and
employees)
that they should be more accountable in delivering services, recruiting members and realising strategic
targets. - Outcome: The outcome was that there was a difference in perceiving the
solution for this problem between employees and managers. From the view of the managers the
behaviours of the leaders were described as resistance. While from a leaders view the leaders described
their behaviour as part of ‘ownership’ behaviour. This created: >First: Self-fulfilling prophecy; the
behaviours of all involved, that of union leaders and managers alike, came down to resisting each others
suggestions. >Second: What someone sees as an effect may be a cause for others and vice versa. > Third:
Human perceptions play a much more pivotal role than we may believe > Fourth/Conclusion: The
challenge may be more about how people perceive change and change their perceptions than about
actually changing their behaviour.
● Second example; the case of the business university ‘A catch-22, all wondering around’
- Problem: The business university had just survived severe cutbacks in which
half of the staff lost their jobs. But in the following months the remaining employees did not seem to
manage their daily challenges and opportunities after the restructuring. - Solution:The CEO hired an
external specialist who started with interviews,
collaborative dialogues etc and tried to implement an advice based on the outcomes of what the
employees were thinking. - Outcome: Everyone was involved as much as possible and knew about the
problem and the solutions, but because of the different perceptions there emerged an contradiction. In
these kind of ambiguous contexts we find ourselves in blurry situations not being able to see the
contradiction by ourselves. - Conclusion: The only solution is denied by a colleague's vision about what
has to be done, which is as true and well motivated as that of our own( called a catch-22 situation).
● Third example; the case of the health organization ‘The dance around the symbolic totem pole’
- Problem: A merged health organization with short hierarchical lines with the
location and staff executives. This resulted in a dissatisfaction for the staff executives to work together
with the managers and board directors. - Solution: None
,- Outcome: The executives did not want to share their dissatisfaction in public. They all became silent
about their frustrations but inside them they could blow up about it. So this presents the totem pole
metaphor where everyone kept dancing around, and sometimes inadvertently kicked , leading up to
frustration of all involved, resigning themselves in silence. - Conclusion: This tactic and silent behaviour
prevented implementing
significant changes.
● What the examples all seem to share:
- Inertia; an inability to change as rapidly as the environment - Vicious cycles; the examples display
paradoxical tensions that spur and
trigger vicious cycles. - Things are done more recursively and in cycles.
● 1.3. Difficulty of perceiving change
● Kurt Lewin's conception for realising change is one of the most cited models for ODC:
> based on an unfreeze-movement-refreeze > a theoretically/ metaphorically 3 steps model from the
1940’s > based on Newton's First Law of Motion; which states everybody perseveres in its state of being
at rest or of moving uniformly straightforward, except in so far as it is compelled to change its state by
forces impressed upon it. > But this linear way of looking at change does not capture the process of
change. So we need another way of looking at change that captures ambivalence and circular movements
people engage in, when they supposed to change their ways. ‘So we look at....’
● Time, Energy & Perception:
- Time; there is no change without progress in time - Energy; there is no change without any kind of
movement - Perception; There is no change without common information processing
● The perception of change (Henri Bergson): ‘We look, think and talk about change, but we do not see
and act like it.’ Change= ‘An abstract theoretical construct and in more philosophical sense, it has
something to do with time, energy and perception.
● Discipline and practice are necessary to be able to perceive the dynamic movements between
individuals and units within an organisation. Yet the same movements can also be observed on a micro
level.
● Because we as people think in linear cause-effect ways, this shapes our perceptions and solutions to
problems in the daily life. The key is to learn to intervene in other
, people’s matters, with some awareness of the limiting effects of our own assumptions.
● 1.4. Perceiving complex contents
- We perceive change as something that is happening, arising from the
circumstances that we are a part of in giving rise to and having to cope with ourselves. - Therefore we
believe that we need a paradigm that challenges the ubiquitous
use of oversimplified, linear approaches to humans and pre-planned change programmes. - We need
something that restores the importance of human emotion to a
rightful place alongside rationality and which takes an holistic approach to organisational change. - We
also look for a paradigm because we confuse control with order. - Paradigm= an explanation of aspects of
a territory. Its a set of assumptions
which functions as a map in which we not only navigate ourselves but we also determine the way we see
the world with it. - Having a ‘map/paradigm’ gives a sort of false security which comforts and
assures people that they live in a stable, predictable and therefore manageable world. - This means that
emerging change is not per se an unsteady state of
uncontrolled disorder but can also be seen as a steady state of unintended order.
● How change programmes do ‘work’:
- They work in so far as they are fine tuned and adjusted by actors in particular
contexts. That is insofar as they are further changed on an ongoing process. - What we need is a paradigm
that sees interaction, context and learning as the
main vehicles for change. An example of such an paradigm(Cynefin):
