Importance of Communication and Self-Awareness in Organizational Change

Module 5 DQ 2
What is your reaction to change in your personal history? What personal tools do you implement to help yourself navigate change?
WEEK FIVE LECTURE NOTES
Introduction
Throughout the literature regarding effective leadership of change initiatives, communication plays a clear and central role in success.
Employees, customers, and all other appropriate audiences in the market environment require effective communication in understand the direction and nature of the planned change. The more confidence employees, customers, and related stakeholders in the environment experience with regard to the impending change, the easier it will be for leadership to establish a new psychological contract with each audience.
The guiding coalition has a special role in building this confidence and establishing this new contract with employees and customers. During the design phase, the development of a list of early successes to pursue can be built into the change philosophies and plans. Securing these early wins can help to ensure that confidence in the direction of the change and related plans are understood for their contribution toward these successes. These early successes can play a role in helping to transition employees and customers into a new contract with the organization.
The Guiding Coalition
An organization that is undergoing a change initiation has much to consider relative to its psychological contract with employees. The role of the guiding coalition is to give the change in psychological contract with employees its due consideration. Without sound plans in place to consider existing employees, any change may result in a disruption to the organization caused by the loss of key workers who are critical to organizational success.
Rousseau (1996) identifies several ways in which contracts with employees should be considered as the change initiatives are designed. First, make changes in the psychological contract with employees so that the change builds on an existing contract. In this way, employees see the old and the new together and can bridge their relationship to the change initiative based on prior understandings. A second alternative is to create radical shifts in the employee's psychological contract, inducing new mindsets that replace the old ones. Many times these shifts imply paradigm changes that employees find difficult to accept. For example, while empowering employees is often worthwhile, it is accompanied by the burden of convincing first line supervisors that they must relinquish their power. If a person has worked up from the ranks into a supervisory position and largely defined themselves in an authority role, it can be exceptionally difficult, if not impossible, to convince that person to give up this authority to those at lower levels.
Whether the guiding coalition chooses a change process that builds on old understandings between management and employees, or whether the employees are asked to step up to a radical shift in their prior understandings with management, consideration of the stages of transformation are likely to be similar. Stress and disruption are likely to be felt by employees who are experiencing a need to change. As the guiding coalition begins communication strategies to galvanize the organization to a new psychological contract, employees will begin to question how these new changes will affect their work role and commitment to the organization.
As the guiding coalition continues its preparation for the change, there is an opportunity to involve employees in discussions. Rousseau indicates that it may be best to send these employees out to benchmark best-in-class firms. Another option is to send employees to visit customers who are likely to communicate the need for change. In this way, employees hear first-hand the sense of urgency for change and can begin to connect how these changes will impact them. This arrangement allows knowledge workers who are present in all positions to react to the information in an open and honest way, letting them integrate the implications for the new strategies of change.
Rousseau suggests that employees be asked to "sign on" to the new strategies. In this way, the guiding coalition asks employees for their participation in the new plans.
Knowledge workers demand this type of involvement and see it as a respectful acknowledgement of their contributions to the success of the organization. This type of technique will go a long way at helping top performers bridge the gap between the old and the new ways of working.
Negotiation
Active and on-going negotiation with the employee population will help create more flexibility in the utilization of people and create the conditions of respect and commitment. Employees who are not treated with the respect they deserve for their contributions to the efforts of the system, will not stay. Additionally, many organizational circumstances include Sherlock Holmes' dog-that-did-not-bark employees. To illustrate, many employees who resist change often tend to remain silent in voicing opposition. Reactions can range from subtle negativism, to covertly trying to sabotage change efforts. To add emphasis to the point, some employees not only what to leave the organization, they should not stay. Deciding who leaves and who stays can be a daunting task for managers. The guiding principle should be to retain only the most talented and committed employees. Those who do not fit into this category will generally be a liability in moving forward. While some may argue that it is unfair to dismiss people in these circumstances, the contrary is true. It is unfair to those who are committed and able, those who are investors, and those who are willing to work to make the organization a success, if the organization decides to retain people who will pull in the other direction. It is also unfair to the employees themselves, since they will be deluded into thinking there is a place for them in the new environment, when in fact, there is not. They are, in fact, deluded into entering into a new psychological contract under false pretense.
As Rousseau indicates, acting with good faith and considering each other's interests are very important aspects of an effective change management experience.
Creating conduits for listening in two-way conversation will create understanding between management and employees. This understanding will reduce fear and resistance to desired change initiatives.
Young and Post (1993) indicate that matching words and actions during periods of significant change is critical to overall success. Sharing good news and bad news and knowing one's customers, clients, and audience is critical to effective planning for good results and ultimate achievement of goals.
Identifying short term wins that result from change activities is a good way of cementing employees to the overall change plan, gaining their commitment and building their confidence in the idea that the organization is headed in a profitable direction. Communication surrounding short-term wins will drive the confidence of employees, while reducing resistance to the change. Communication of the strengths of the change process in wins also undermines the toehold that cynics and self-serving resisters have with employees. Thus, identification of improvements make it near impossible for change resisters to continue to block change in the face of successes.
Consolidating Wins
Leadership must plan how it will move people into a new contract. The utilization of short-term wins will go a long way in settling the organization into a new rhythm of success. The guiding coalition should consider these change techniques early in the change process to facilitate both implementation and integration of the change for the culture of the organization.
As an organization becomes more aware of its marketplace needs, it begins to understand the market potential available. It amasses and organizes appropriately to meet the market, capturing that full potential. As such, an effective organization, one that is engaged with its market, avoids equilibrium or the characteristics of an organization at rest. Rather, it assumes the characteristics of a self-organizing system, one full of life and one interacting with its environment.
Rather than a fear of change, the results are an acceptance of change. Employees experience a successful change event that creates the conditions of more change. Short-term wins awaken the organization to its full capacity, creating a can-do, winning attitude. Success creates the confidence needed to capture more of the potential of the market. This sense of confidence creates the conditions where the organization takes on new and bigger change projects, creating an interaction with the market to take advantage of the full revenue potential available.
In this environment, more help arrives, as individuals with an appetite for success are drawn to the organization. Senior management must remain focused on establishing clarity of the change targets. When the organization shares leadership, more of the hierarchy is engaged in the change initiative. Employees can provide more clarity for the change initiatives, as they are closer to the work. A deep understanding of the work derives more focus, as well as, how to adjust for more efficiency and effectiveness.
Systems Thinking
Meg Wheatley (1999) discusses organizations as self-renewing systems. As a self-renewing system, an organization interacts with its environment, avoiding stasis or the condition of equilibrium (an organization atrest).As a result of interaction with the environment, the organization has access to new information, or in the terminology used by Kotter (1996), the organization can stay close to the needs and services required by the customer it serves. Through openness to the environment, the organization can take in new information and make decisions about that information. Over time, the organization will create a firmer identity for itself both within the organization, and in its marketplace.
This type of systems thinking is necessary in today's fast, global market environment. Discontinuous change will occur, but the company can make efforts to stay close to the market, the customer, and competitive action in the form of research and development, introduction of new products and/or services, or strategic counter-competitive moves.
Alternative business structures are born in understanding the needs of the marketplace. Joachim (2000) comments in the article "GE's move to the Internet" that understanding alternative marketing techniques can create huge benefits for the organization. Once an organization begins a change initiative, new business opportunities will emerge. By staying close to the market and by paying special attention to the needs of its customers, an organization can capitalize on new business ventures.
The type of change does not mean "a rearranging of the chairs on the Titanic," meaning a rearrangement of existing structures, products, and services on a sinking ship. Rather, self-organizing change suggests that an organization and the marketplace demonstrate a kind of interdependence. Organizations serve customers who in turn serve other customers. Understanding the needs of the market and the ability to serve the needs of customers creates a kind of interdependence that must be understood. Once this interdependence is understood, it can lead to new and effective market interventions, such as those described by Joachim.
Conclusion
A successful change effort will likely lead to more change. Capitalizing on successful change, the organization can implement and challenge the organization with additional change initiatives. Stepping back from the issue, however, one must note that in many circumstances, one of the most difficult decisions for managers is answering the question, "how much change in enough?" This question is a hard-nosed business strategy question with no room for shallow organizational bromides (e.g., "we thrive on change"). The issue is the delicate balance between embracing change on one hand and recognizing that change works at cross-purposes to organizational stability.
In order to handle more change, more help is needed from the organization. This additional help can take the form of new capabilities as new people are hired. Additional help can also mean involvement of multiple layers in the organization's hierarchy to help facilitate the change initiative.
As the organization develops more capacity for change, redundancies and inefficiencies can be eliminated through additional change initiatives. These additional changes will streamline the economic engine of the organization for superior and accelerated results.
References
Joachim, D. (2000). GE's move to the Internet. In T. D. Jick and M. A. Peiperl, Managing change: Cases and concepts (pp. 497-502). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Kotter, J. P. (1996). Leading change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Rousseau, D. M. (1996). Changing the deal while keeping the people. In T. D. Jick and M.A. Peiperl, Managing change: Cases and concepts (pp. 241-251). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Wheatley, M. (1999). Change, stability, and renewal: The paradoxes of self-organizing systems. In T. D. Jick and M. A. Peiperl, Managing change: Cases and concepts (pp. 474-483). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Young, M., and Post, J. E. (1993). Managing to communicate, communicating to manage: How leading companies communicate with employees. In T. D. Jick and M.A. Peiperl, Managing change: Cases and concepts (pp. 346-359). New York: McGraw-Hill.