Leading and Managing Change:Motivating Change, The Life Cycle of Resistance to Change

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Organization Development MGMT 628

Lesson 23

Leading and Managing Change

After diagnosis reveals the cause of problem or opportunities for development, organization members

begin planning and subsequently leading and implementing the changes necessary to improve organization

effectiveness and performance. A large part of OD is concerned with interventions for improving

organization.

Changes can vary in complexity from the introduction of relatively simple process into a small work group

to transformation the strategies and design features of the whole organization. Although change

management differs across situation, here we discuss tasks that must be performed in managing any kind of

organization change.

Overview of Changes Activities:

The OD literature has directed considerable attention to leading and managing change. Much of the

material is highly prescriptive, advising mangers about how to plan and implement organizational changes.

Traditionally, change management has focused on identifying sources of resistance to change and offering

ways to overcome them. More recent contribution has challenged the focus on resistance and has been

aimed at creating vision and desired future, gaining political support for them, and managing the transition

of the organization toward them.

The diversity of practical advice for managing change can be organized into five major activities, as shown

in figure 33. The activities contribute to effective change management and are listed roughly in the order in

which they typically are performed. Each activity represents a key element in change leadership. The first

activity involves motivating change and includes creating a readiness for change among organization

member and helping them address resistance to change. Leadership must create an environment in which

people accept the need for change and commit physical and psychological energy to it. Motivation is a

critical issue in starting change because ample evidence indicates that people and organization seek to

preserve the status quo and are willing to change only when there is compelling reason to do so. The

second activity is concerned with creating a vision and is closely aligned with leadership activities. The

vision provides a purpose and reason for change and describes the desired future state. Together, they

provide the "why" and "what" of planned change. The third activity involves developing political support

for change. Organizations are composed of powerful individuals and groups that can either block or

promote change. The fourth activity is concerned with managing the transition from the current state to

the desired future state. It involves creating a plan for managing the change activities as well as planning

special management structure for operating the organization during the transition. The fifth activity

involves sustaining momentum for change so that it will be carried to completion. This includes providing

resources for implementation the changes, building a support system for change agent, developing new

competencies and skills, and reinforcing the new behaviors needed to implement the changes.

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Figure 33. Activity Contributing to Effective Change Management

Each of the activities shown in Figure 33 is important for managing change. Although little research has

been conducted on their relative contributions, organization leaders must give careful attention to each

activity when planning and implementing organizational change. Unless individuals are motivated and

committed to change, unfreezing the status quo will be extremely difficult. In the absence of vision, change

is likely to be disorganized and diffuse. Without the support of powerful individuals and groups, change

may be blocked and possibly sabotaged. Unless the transition process is managed carefully, the organization

will have difficulty functioning while it moves from the current state to the future state. Without efforts to

sustain momentum for change, the organization will have problems carrying the changes through to

completion. Thus, all five activities must be managed effectively to realize success.

Let's now discuss more fully each of these change activities, directing attention to how the activities

contribute to planning and implementing organizational change.

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Motivating Change:

Organizational change involves moving from the known to the unknown. Because the future is uncertain

and may adversely affect people's competencies, worth and coping abilities, organization members generally

do not support change unless compelling reason convince them to do so. Similarly, organizations tend to

be heavily invested in the status quo, and they resist changing it in the face of uncertain future benefits.

Consequently, a key issue in planning for action is how to motivate commitment to organizational change.

As shown in figure 33, this requires attention to two related tasks: creating readiness for change and

overcoming resistance to change.

Creating Readiness for Change:

One of the more fundamental axioms of OD is that people's readiness for change depends on creating a

felt need for change. This involves making people so dissatisfied with the status quo that they are motivated

to try new work process, technology, or ways of behaving. Creating such dissatisfaction can be difficult, as

any one knows who has tried to lose weight, stop smoking, or change some other habitual behavior.

Generally, people and organizations need to experience deep levels of hurt before they will seriously

undertake meaningful change. For example IBM, GM and Sears experienced threats to their very survival

before they undertook significant change program. The following three methods can help generate

sufficient dissatisfaction to produce change:

Sensitize organizations to pressure for change. Innumerable pressures for change operate both

externally and internally to organizations. As mentioned earlier, modern organizations face

unprecedented environmental pressures to change themselves, including heavy foreign

competition, rapidly changing technology, and the draw of global markets. Internally pressures to

change include new leadership, poor product quality, high production costs and excessive

employee absenteeism and turnover. Before these pressures can serve as triggers for change,

however, organizations must be sensitive to them. The pressure must pass beyond an

organization's threshold of awareness if managers are to respond to them. Many organizations,

such as Kodak, Apple, Polaroid and Jenny Craig, set their threshold of awareness too high and

neglected pressure for changes until those pressures reached disastrous levels. Organizations can

make themselves more sensitive to pressure for change by encouraging leaders to surround

themselves with devil's advocate; by cultivating external network that comprise people or

organizations with different perspective and views; by visiting other organizations to gain exposure

to new ideas and methods; and by using external standards of performance, such as competitions'

progress or benchmarks, rather than the organization's own past standards of performance.

Reveal discrepancies between current and desired states. In this approach to generating a

felt need for change, information about the organization's current functioning is gathered and

compared with desired states of operation. (See "Creating a Vision" later for more information

about desired future states.) These desired states may include organizational goals and standards,

as well as general vision of a more desirable future state. Significant discrepancies between actual

and ideal states can motivate organization members to initiate corrective changes, particularly

when members are committed to achieving those ideals. A major goal of diagnosis, as described

earlier, is to provide members with feedback about current organizational functioning so that the

information can be compared with goals or with desired function states. Such feedback can

energize action to improve the organization.

Convey credible positive expectation for the change. Organization members invariably have

expectations about the result of organizational changes. The contemporary approach to planned

change described earlier suggest that these expectations can play an important role in generating

motivation for change. The expectations can serve as a fulfilling prophecy, leading members to

invest energy in changes program that they expect will succeed. When members expect success,

they are likely to develop greater commitment to the change process and to direct more energy

into the constructive behaviors needed to implement it. The key to achieving these positive

effects is to communicate realistic, positive expectation about the organizational changes.

Organization members also can be taught about the benefit of positive expectations and be

encouraged to set credible positive expectations for the change program.

Overcoming Resistance to Change:

Change can generate deep resistance in people and in organization, thus making it difficulty, if not possible,

to implement organizational improvement. At a personal level, change can arouse considerable anxiety

about letting go of the known and moving to an uncertain future. People may be unsure whether their

existing skills and contribution will be valued in the future, or have significant questions about whether they

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can learn to function effectively and to achieve benefits in the new situation. At the organization level,

resistance to change can come from three sources. Technical resistance comes from the habit of following

common producers and the consideration of sunk costs invested in the status quo. Political resistance can

arise when organization changes threaten powerful stakeholders, such as top executive or staff personal, or

call into question the past decisions of leaders. Organization change often implies a different allocation of

already scare resources, such as capital, training budgets and good people. Finally cultural resistance takes

the form of systems and procedures that reinforce the status quo, promoting conformity to existing values,

norms, and assumptions about how things should operate.

There are at least three major strategies for dealing with resistance to change.

Empathy and support. A first step in overcoming resistance is to learn how people are

experiencing change. This strategy can identify people who are having trouble accepting the

changes, the nature of their resistance, and possible ways to overcome it, but it requires a great deal

of empathy and support. It demands willingness to suspend judgment and to see the situation from

another's perspective, a process called active listening. When people feel that those people who are

responsible for managing change are genuinely interested in their feelings and perception, they are

likely to be less defensive and more willing to share their concern and fears. This more open

relationship not only provides useful information about resistance but also helps establish the basis

for the kind of joint problem solving needed to overcome barriers to change.

Communication. People resist change when they are uncertain about its consequences. Lack of

adequate information fuels rumors and gossip and adds to the anxiety generally associated with

change. Effective communication about changes and their likely result can reduce this speculation

and allay unfounded fears. It can help members realistically prepare for change.

However, communication is also one of the most frustrating aspects of managing change.

Organization members constantly receive data about people, changes and politics. Managers and

OD practitioners must think seriously about how to break through this stream of information.

One strategy is to make change information salient by communicating through a new different

channel. If most information is delivered through memos and emails, the change information can

be sent through meeting and presentations. Another method that can be effective during large-

scale change is to substitute change information for normal operating information deliberately.

This sends a message that changing one's activities is a critical part of a member's job.

Participation and involvement. One of the oldest and most effective strategies for overcoming

resistance is to involve organization members directly in planning and implementing change.

Participation can lead both to designing high quality changes and to overcoming resistance to

implementing them. Members can provide a diversity of information and ideas, which can

contribute to making the innovations effective and appropriate to the situation. They also can

identify pitfalls and barriers to implementation. Involvement in planning the changes increases the

likelihood that members' interest and needs will be accounted for during the intervention.

Consequently, participants will be committed to implementing the changes because doing so will

suit their interests and meet their needs. Moreover, for people having strong needs for

involvement, the act of participation itself can be motivating, leading to greater effort to make the

changes work.

The Life Cycle of Resistance to Change:

Organization programs such as downsizing, reengineering and total quality management involve

innovations and changes that will probably encounter some degree of resistance. This resistance will be

evident in individuals and groups in such forms as controversy, hostility, and conflict, either overt or

covert. The response to change tends to move through a life cycle.

Phase 1

In the first phase, there are only a few people who see the need for change and take reform seriously, As a

fringe element of the organization, they may be openly criticized, ridiculed, and persecuted by whatever

methods the organization has at its disposal and thinks appropriate to handle dissidents and force them to

conform to established organizational norms. The resistance looks massive. At this point the change

program may die, or it may continue to grow. Large organizations seem to have more difficulty bringing

about change than smaller organizations. One of IBM's business partners has said, for example, that trying

to get action from IBM is like swimming through "giant pools of peanut butter."

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Phase 2

As the movement for change begins to grow the forces for and against it become identifiable. The change

is discussed, and is more thoroughly understood by more of the organizations members. Greater

understanding may lessen the perceived threat of the change. In time, the novelty and strangeness of the

change tends to disappear.

Phase 3

In this phase there is a direct conflict and showdown between the forces for and against the change. This

phase will probably mean life or death to the change effort, because the exponents of the change often

underestimate the strength of their opponents. Those in organization who see change as good and needed

often find it difficult to believe how far the opposition will go to put a stop to the change.

Phase 4

If the supporters of the change are in power after the decisive battles, they will see the remaining resistance

as stubborn and a nuisance. There is still a possibility that the resisters will mobilize enough support to shift

the balance of power. Wisdom is necessary in dealing with overt opposition and also with the sizable

element that are not openly opposed to the change but also not convinced of its benefits.

Phase 5

In the last phase, the resisters to the change are as few and as alienated as the advocates were in the first

phase. Although the description of the five phases may give the impression that a battle is being waged

between those trying to bring about change and those resisting the change (and sometimes this is the

situation), the actual conflict is usually more subtle and may only surface in small verbal disagreements,

questions, reluctance, and so forth.

To better understand the phases, see the Five Phases of Resistance to Change in Action.

Regardless of how much resistance there is to the organizations change program, the change will to some

extent evolve through the five phases described above.

Depending on the change program, however, some of the phases may be brief, omitted, or repeated. If the

last phase is not solidified, the change process will move into first phase again. General Electric's retired

CEO, John F. Welch, has written:

People always ask, "Is the change over? Can we stop now? " You've got to tell them, "No, it's just begun."

They must come to understand that it is never ending. Leaders must create an atmosphere where people

understand that change is continuing process, not an event.

The Five Phases of Resistance to Change

Phase 1

In the 1970s the environmental movement began to grow. The First Earth Day was held in 1970.

Widespread interest in environmental concerns subsided during the 1980s. Some political officials

neglected environmental concerns, and environmentalists were often portrayed as extremists and radicals

(even antidevelopment). The forces for change were small, but pressure for change persisted through court

actions, elected officials, and group actions.

Phase 2

Environmental supporters and opponents became more identifiable in the 1980s. Secretary of the Interior

James Watt was perhaps the most vocal and visible opponent of environmental concerns and served as a

"lightening rod" for pro-environmental forces like the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society. As time

passed, educational efforts by environmental groups increasingly delivered their message. The public now

has information and scientific data that enabled it to understand the problem.

Phase 3

The Clean Air Act passed by Congress in 1990 represented the culmination of years of confrontation

between pro- and anti-environmental forces. The bill was passed several months after national and

worldwide Earth Day events. Corporations criticized for contributing to environmental problems took out

large newspaper and television ads to explain how they were reducing pollution and cleaning up the

environment. The "greening" of corporations became very popular.

Phase 4

One example is the confrontation between Greenpeace (an environmental group) and Shell Oil. The

Greenpeace group had been campaigning for weeks to block the Royal Dutch/Shell group from disposing

of the towering Brent Spar oil-storage rig by sinking it deep in the Atlantic Ocean. As a small helicopter

sought to land Greenpeace protesters on the rig's deck, Shell blasted high-powered water canons to fend

off the aircraft. This was all captured on film and shown on TV around the world. Four days after the

incident, Shell executives made a humiliating about-face; they agreed to comply with Greenpeace requests

and dispose of the Brent Spar on land. The incident, like the Exxon Valdez oil spill, shows how high-

profile cases can ignite worldwide public interest.

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Phase 5

Much of the world now sees environmentally responsible behavior as a necessity. Near-zero automobile

emissions are moving closer to a reality. Recycling has become a natural part of everyday life for many

people. But new ways to be environmentally responsible are still being sought.

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