 Abstract: This week we conducted an overview of the vast subject of Organizational Change. We reviewed the six main categories of change theories: biological, teleological, political, life cycle, social cognition and cultural. We considered how our own experiences and preferred organizational frames influence our predilection for these theories. We reviewed Berquist’s archetypes of the cultures of higher education institutions: collegial, managerial, developmental and negotiation. We compared planned change to adaptive change and discussed the circumstances in which each would be most appropriate. We discussed the stages of organizational change, using Lewin’s “force-field model” of unfreezing, changing, and re-freezing, and discussed the importance of challenging mental models and brain barriers in the unfreezing process.
Perhaps most importantly, we discussed the role of the leader in organizational change. We discussed the importance of the leader clearly and consistently communicating the urgency for change, providing updates on its status, and acknowledging its successes and failures. We discussed Hickman’s writings on shared power and the critical role of collaboration in successfully completing a change initiative, recognizing that a leader’s knowledge, authority, and influence are often limited by circumstances. We seemed to come to the consensus that one of the most important prerequisites for a leader to initiate successful change is to cultivate personal trust and respect among his or her team members.
Recognizing the large number of theories and resources that exist related to organizational change and its application to higher education, the notes below provide a snapshot – a summary of the readings, class discussion, and additional resources for consideration.
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=Cameron: Organizational Adaptation & Higher Education=
Prompted by the report from the National Commission on Excellence in Education in 1984, Cameron wrote this article for The Journal of Higher Education as a way to educate leaders in higher education on matters of instituting organizational change in a liberal arts college setting. Recommendations from the commission called for change at all educational levels and “renew the nation’s commitment to schools and colleges of high quality throughout the length and breadth of our land.” (p. 273). Cameron’s purpose is to “give the reader a framework within which to comprehend adaptation in educational organizations.” (p. 273).
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Section 1: Approaches to Organizational Adaptation. (p. 274-279)This section starts by describing the difference between planned organizational change and adaptive change. Planned change is generally an individual process by which attitudes and behaviors are addressed. Adaptive change refers to the organization as a whole - responding to external forces and conditions that require an organization to change, or risk failure. Implementing an external change can break an organization if their approach is not well thought out. Think of how technology has changed the way students are educated in the 21st Century - at the time Cameron wrote this article, a desktop computer was a luxury - primarily used for word processing. Some college campuses had computer labs for student use. Email was still several years away, as was the world-wide web. Think about the idea of higher education without technology in the 21st Century. Is there a college or university that has not adapted?
Categories of Approaches to Organizational Adaptation: The continuum below is one way to conceptualize the four main adaptive approaches and their effects. One end of the continuum assumes that management has little to no influence on the outcome, and the other end assumes that management has complete control over the situation and can guarantee an appropriate outcome.
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- Population Ecology Approach (p. 275): Refers to changes in a “niche” or a specialization within the organization. Types of change in this approach include the size of the project or group, the amount of resources, or the shape (purpose is now obsolete), which is dependent on the environment. “Survival of the fittest” is appropriate here - the niche that is the most compatible with the whole (organization) will likely adapt quickly to change.
- Life Cycles Approach (p.275 - 276): Refers to the stages of development (creativity & entrepreneurship, collectivity, formalization & control, and elaboration of structure) and the problems that must be overcome before progressing to the next stage. There is some managerial influence - they can speed up, slow down, or even stop the stages of development, and management can decide whether or not to recycle after the final stage is achieved.
- Strategic Choice Approach: (p. 277): Relies mostly on managers to recognize and influence or modify the environment to adapt to change. Depending on the foresight of the manager, an organization may be on the bleeding edge of change (prospector or “first in”), the cutting edge of change (analyzer - wait for some evidence of success before diving in), the stable edge of change (defender - looking for stability), or the dull edge of change (reactor - implement only when proven that a new approach is a matter of survival).
- Symbolic Action Approach: (p. 278): Requires significant managerial control to adapt to change because the approach is tied to a social definition of the organization. A manager must carefully manipulate the language, ritual and symbolic behavior to develop a social consensus before any change can be made.
Section 2: The Nature of Postindustrial Environments. (pg. 279-280) Before any of the four adaptive approaches above can be considered, it is necessary to understand the external influences on the organization that currently exist, and do some forecasting into potential environmental factors that may impact future decisions. Cameron states that institutions of the future will be subject to a knowledge or information explosion and will need to be more “loosely coupled” in structure to manage the increased complexities in a turbulent environment. So, there is no “right” approach to adaptive change in the four listed above - it will depend on the circumstance and the influence or lack of influence of leadership over environmental matters. Note once again that this article was written in 1984. Hindsight is a beautiful thing - do you think he was correct, 25 years later?
Section 3: Adaptability and the Janusian Institution. (p. 281 - 284)
“Janusian” is a term named after the Roman god Janus, who is depicted as a two-faced man looking into the future and back into the past. He is often associated with doorways, beginnings, and transitions. “Janusain thinking”, as coined by Albert Rothenberg, recognizes the ability to conceive and use two or more antithetical or opposite thoughts simultaneously - which he associates with creativity. Creativity is an essential prerequisite in adaptive decision making, according to Cameron. Institutions of higher education will be continuously faced with complex problems with equally complex and contrary solutions. A “janusian” thought process by individuals and organizations will be crucial to the adaptive process.
Eckel & Kezar: The Effect of Institutional Culture on Change
The Effect of Institutional Culture on Change Strategies in Higher Education: Universal principles or culturally responsive concepts?
- Few empirical studies examine how institutional culture affects change processes and strategies
- Two pertinent questions related to the change process are 1)are change processes thwarted by violating cultural norms or enhancing culturally sensitive strategies.
- Berquist and Tierney offer two theories to explore the relationship of culture and change.
- Six main categories of change theory exist including: biological, teleological, political, life cycle, social cognition and cultural.
- Biological is unplanned changed and teleological is planned change; most prevalent
- Political models have been criticized for inability to provide solutions for participants facilitating or reacting to the change process.
- Cultural and social cognitive theories are touted for their ability to show ambiguity, context based nature and human aspects of the change process
- Culture has shifted from being used as a descriptive device to becoming linked with improvement.
- Berquist has institutional archetypes of cultures and different change strategies would be needed for the 4 different academic culture archetypes.Tierney framework has six categories: environment, mission, socialization, information, strategy and leadership. By examining these key elements, one gets a clearer picture of institutional culture.Berquist archetypes provide a ready framework for institutions unfamiliar with cultural analysis; the framework established patterns to identify.
- Collegial culture arises from the disciplines of the faculty
- Managerial culture focuses on goals and purposes of the institution and values efficiency, effective supervisory skills and fiscal responsibility
- Developmental culture based on the personal and professional growth of all members in the collegiate environment
- Negotiation culture values the establishment of equitable and egalitarian policies and power.
- Comprehensive change is studied in this article. It is defined as change that is pervasive, affecting numerous offices and units across the institution
- Framework for studying change involves five core strategies (Kezar & Eckel)Summary of the relationships (From Article)
- Senior administrative support
- Collaborative leadership
- Robust design- desirable and flexible picture of the future
- Staff development
- Visible actions
- This paper studies six institutions participating in the ACE project on leadership and institutional transformation; They were sampled with purposeful sampling
- Three institutions are studied: a research institution, a doctoral institution and a community college
- Informal Trusting University (ITU) is a public doctoral university in the Midwest
- Both organizational culture and change strategies reflect the developmental culture in Berquist’s typology; strong teaching culture
- Very facilitative and collaborative
- Tierney’s institutional culture is informal and trusting.
- Responsible and Self-Reflective Community College (RSCC)
- At ITU, which has a developmental culture, the senior administration stayed in the background, providing resources but limited direction.
- Outside a southern metropolitan area
- Wants to shift from teaching centered to learning centered
- Managerial culture (Berquist Framework)
- Strong commitment to student learning; “responsible”
- Strongly introspective
- Autonomous Insecure University (AIU)Each institution’s use of the authors’ five core change strategies is reviewed.
- Private Research University
- Urban area in Eastern seaboard
- Wants to recraft its general education program
- Collegial culture
- Very autonomous
- Senior Administrative Support – Senior administrators facilitate change through resources and structures.
- At RSCC, which has a managerial culture, the senior administration played a highly visible role, driving campus transformation and facilitating communication.
- At AIU, which has a collegial culture, senior administration designed the overall change process, but allowed faculty to have the key decision-making responsibilities at the individual colleges.
- Collaborative Leadership – Top leadership requires collaboration for the implementation of change.
- At ITU, decisions were made by departments, faculty, and existing cross-departmental groups.
- At RSCC, new systems and channels of communication had to be developed to encourage involvement at multiple levels.
- At AIU, cross-functional taskforces were developed to allow for input from multiple colleges.
- Robust Design – Successful change requires a flexible vision that does not close itself off to emerging opportunities.
- ITU was able to maintain a robust design due to its decentralized change process, a series of uncoordinated, yet linked efforts.
- RSCC struggled with staying simultaneously visionary and flexible, but succeeded by developing campus dialogues and other opportunities for feedback.
- AIU incorporated flexibility in change implementation at the departmental level and emphasized external pressures such as competition with peer institutions to encourage participation.
- Visible Actions – People need to see evidence the hard work of change leads to progress.
- ITU awarded professional development grants and changed the hiring policies and practices related to the goals for institutional change.
- RSCC set goals for increased student retention.
- AIU obtained grant funding for their change initiative and allocated these resources to faculty.
- Staff Development – Change requires building new capacities within faculty and staff.
- At ITU, training focused on individuals’ professional development.
- At RSCC, outside consultants were brought in to conduct training.
- At AIU, faculty and staff were sent to conferences and peer institutions for training.
- Study Conclusions
- Change strategies are not universal principles - reviewing the strategies used to conduct change through the lens of the organization’s culture provides critical insight into their success or failure.
- However, changes on campus cannot be explained by archetypes alone; the distinct nature of the organization’s culture must be taken into account.
- Archetypes considered in concert with the distinctive organizational culture may be instructive in determining how best to conduct change processes.
- Change strategies are more likely to be successful if they culturally coherent or aligned with the culture.
- Change agents should attempt to take the perspective of “cultural outsiders” and assess where their own institution falls within the four cultural archetypes.
- Further research is needed regarding organizational culture and its influence on change within higher education.
Hickman: Organizational Change Practices
 The change practices utilized by organizations encompass collective/collaborative approaches, strategic planning and goal setting, stages of praxis, and ethical practices. Folded into these organizational change practices are environmental scanning, scenario planning, as well as scenario environment.
Collective/Collaborative Approaches (pp. 79 -83 )
- Comprised of three aspects – 1. Institutionalized- leadership and change practices; 2. Organizational learning; 3. Empowerment/shared power.
- Institutionalized- leadership and change practices – Involves shared leadership. In order to contribute to long-term success, coherence and agility.
- Greater success is achieved through leading by extensive collaborative efforts than a small minority taking up the charge for change.
- Organizational learning-Entails developing an atmosphere whereby organizational members are encouraged to actively participate in innovation, experimentation, and the cultivation of fresh approaches to address problems. Through the usage of external environment performance data, the organization can reframe how to meet challenges, threats, and resolve problems.
- Donald Schon (1971) was an early scholar who acknowledged organizational learning. He embraced this process as he saw its ability to foster collective change. Later, Senge (1990) popularized organizational learning and denoted 5 Elements to create a learning organizations: 1) Personal mastery; 2) Mental models; 3) Shared vision; 4) Team learning; 5) Systems thinking.
- Leaders play an integral role in fostering this process leading to a true learning culture. Three key characteristics for a leader to cultivate a learning culture are participation/involvement of members at every level; openness/tolerance to diverse ideas; psychological safety by creating space for risk taking along with building trust/support.
- Empowerment/shared power –Requires the delegation/distribution of leadership, authority, and decision-making power typically weilded by senior executives to organizational members/teams. The willingness and readiness to position members as coleaders enables them to be equipped with the needed resources, knowledge and skills yielding good choices.
- Leaders must have a clear vision, goals, be willing to develop others, and lead by example.Strategic Planning & Goal Setting (pp. 83 – 85)
- Though this process generates from the top, member responsibility is woven throughout at varying levels.
- Due to its extensive nature, it is essential to employ scenario planning. This entails taking information obtained gained from continuous-scanning to create and chart potential scenarios.
- Strategic planning = Updating the mission, vision, and goals. An updated mission and vision aid in establishing the underpinnings for planning an organization’s future. It must provide clear intentional direction, be realistic, and credible as well as capable to adjust to external changes affecting services offered and stakeholders.
- The leadership team gleans information regarding external environmental trends through “environmental scans” to determine strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT).Stages of Praxis (pp. 85 – 92)
- Early in the research, Lewin (1951) designed the Force-Field Model: Three Stages of Change. The stages are: 1. Unfreezing; 2. Changing; 3. Refreezing.
- Unfreezing - Old approach to implementation is no longer functional. This can be due to current/impending crisis/threats/new prospects. This can foster needed impetus, however, fear and resistance can arise.
- Changing – Comes about through purposeful seeking options and the selection of potential approaches to preserve member commitment. This is achieved by the leader employing numerous vehicles to effectively communicate the new vision/mission to sustain buy-in, creating space for sense-making and feedback/collaborative dialogue, instituting legitimacy, acknowledging goal achievement. This fosters an empowering environment where “short-term wins” can be achieved. This leads to increased credibility and bigger changes.
- Refreezing- Must be right (fitting) time and place. Culture is the most difficult element to change. Best way is via allocation of rewards and through stories.
- Different phases require different forms of leadership.
- Kotter (1996) later developed Eight Stages of Change. In aligning with Lewin's (1951) model, it is viewed in the following manner Stage 1 - Unfreezing = 1. Establishing a sense of urgency; Stage 2 - Change = 2. Creating the guiding coalition; 3. Developing a vision and strategy; 4. Communicating the change vision; 5. Empowering road-based action; 6. Consolidating gains and producing more change; 7. Generating short-term wins; Stage 3 - Refreeze = 8. Anchoring new change in the culture.
Video: Overcoming Resistance to Change --- Isn't Obvious? reveals why change is at times blocked or hampered. It provides some suggestions on making this process more acceptable by organizational members.
Scenario Building (p. 92)
- Schwartz (1996) stated this process entails more than guessing. It is useful for teleological change since it is planned and helps prepare organizations for uncertain environments.
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) (p.92)
- Cooperrider and Srivastva (1987), focuses on positive aspects of an organization. à Positive Principle. Members create own future!
E-Practices (pp. 94-96)
- Members must rely on each other to perform the work just as they would with face-to-fact (FTF) communication.
- Virtual teams must also pay greater attention to communication through a variety of mediums such as e-mail, personal telephone calls and shared databases.
Ethical Practices (pp. 94 – 97)
- Ethical Practices = taking into account the impact of their actions in relation to others. Authenticity entails honesty. Leaders can share power and create authenticity. This creates urgency, which builds trust, and ultimately confidence!
Applications & Reflections (pp. 99 – 118)
This video is a discussion between the difference between technical and adaptive challenges. This is given from the perspective of religious missionary work.
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Class Notes
Agenda
- (10 minutes) Housekeeping—no class next week, due group cases
- (45 minutes) Change mini-lecture
- (30 minutes) Discussion Questions
- (15 minutes) BREAK
- (50 minutes) Case Study—Badger State
- Housekeeping—no class next week, group case studies due!
- Get copies for international study executive summary; enough for group members 6 people
- Neal Holly will be our facilitator on April 26th: Skype with Ed Smith - Research Analyst with the Institute for Higher Education Policy.
- Pam - may have a "Twitter" feed during her presentation next week.
Change Mini-Lecture (with pauses for consideration): PowerPoint on Blackboard
Organizational Adaptation and Change
Big Ideas Mental Maps - Black and Gregersen (2002) Conceiving, Believing and Achieving - a good read (in our copious spare time!).
Brain Barriers
- Failure to see
- Failure to hear
- Failure to finish
- Resistance develops among followers
- Failure of strategic plans
- Leaders can also be resistantQuickly sketch our key elements you think are necessary for a good graduate education?
Strong alumni relationships
Passionate teachers
Good content
Strong advising and guidance
Collaboration between professor and student
Appropriate and high level curriculum
- What did you assume?
- Certain priorities are assumed
- Learning is important
- How it might need to change to be useful to you.
- How does your mental map influence behavior?
- Consumer
- Can shift as progress through the program
- What happens when this is challenged?
- Reflective process develops along the way
- Learning opportunityFrom theory to practice.
When you’re confused about how you’re doing as a leader, find out how the people you are leading are doing.
Practice what you preach.
If you want others to change, you need to demonstrate your own willingness and ability to change.
Pause
Do you have a good sense of your own leadership orientation and preferences?
What happens when you are confronted with a situation that does not align with your preferences?
What kind of leader do you like to work for?
Upsetting personal routines engages us in everyday learning.
To unfreeze individuals, you must first paint a picture of why change is needed. Think of Lewin’s force field model.
The role of the leader is to define reality.
Sensemaking begins with the leader and is transmitted and filtered by followers.
Performance Dashboard:
- Identify key elements to measure
- Establish how key elements will be measured.
- Establish how often the measures will be taken.
- Establish a baseline of performance.
- Establish target performance levels.Kotter and Cohen believe that the single biggest challenge in the change process is changing people’s behavior. (2002) The heart of change.
Core pattern associated with successful change:
See (offer compelling data that grabs attention)
Feel (foster and environment where there is buy
Eight steps of change
- Increase urgency
- Use effective methods for making people realize that change is necessary
- Build a guiding team
- Make sure people on this team believe in and are dedicated to the project
- Demonstrate teamwork
- Have appropriate skills, leadership, background
- Get the vision right
- Make sure there is clear direction
- Create sensible goals and a solid strategy
- Communicate for Buy-In
- Share ideas to get as many people involved as possible
- Clarify so the confusion is minimal
- Understand where employees and co-workers are coming from
- Empower action
- Remove all barriers that may impede the change
- Encourage productivity and simulation of ideas
- Don’t let up
- Keep momentum high and constantly reinforce the plan to keep it fresh in the mind.
- Make Change Stick
- Create and continually enforce the new organizational culture until it is known.
Pause
Consider a change initiative in which you have participated
- Were the goals communicated?
- Was there buy-in
- Making a personal connection is effective
- Vision and strategy must be visible.
- What steps in the change process were missing?
- Seeing the need for change but not moved
- Little follow throughType of Change
First-order change
- Incremental
- Single-loopSecond order-change
- Modification of underlying frameworks
- Double-loopRole of leaders
- Sensemaking-defining reality
- Planning/ Unfreezing
- Grassroots Leadership
- Plant seeds
- Informal leadersPause
Knowing what you know now:
- How would you initiate change?
- Communication and buy-in
- Make them believe came up with idea; develop collaboration
- Build relationships and trust
- What can you do from your current position?How might you assess change initiatives?
Discussion Questions on the readings:
Small groups discussed one of the assigned four readings with the summary writer from the team notes. The groups discussed various questions ranging from the difference between adaptation and change, applying a different lens to the change process, how to share power, how long to wait for a hero in a time of crisis, the role of ethics in change, and the relevant time period of the readings and whether they are germane today.
Case Study: Badger State - Where's the Money?
SUMMARY:
A state mandate has called for a 10% reduction in funding to Badger State University. BSU serves over 22,000 students and offers a variety of degree programs for masters and doctoral students. Fifty years ago, the School of Education was the leading producer of graduates, but that number has dramatically declined and has been replaced by Business and Engineering. How can BSU cut costs?
èThe “political frame” is the best lens to view this situation.
èThe School of Education seems to be the most obvious problem.
èProblematic that all Schools (Education, Business, Engineering) need to cut resources equally when Business and Engineering are increasing and Education is decreasing. Performance based funding? – Should money go to those who are doing well?
èHow are the partnerships in the community and with businesses in the area?
Extending the Conversation:
A great article on the forces creating the need for change in higher education from this week's Chronicle of Higher Education: [1]]
One of the definitive guides to managing the emotions associated with organizational change:
[[2]
Gil Rendle offers 6 principles for leading adaptive work:
[[3]]
Journal of Organizational Change Management – Published by Emerald Group Publishing based out of Bradford, England was first published in 1988. Its goal is to provide alternative philosophies for organizational change and development. Subject to a double-blind review, it seeks to publish papers suggesting a detailed analysis as well as dialogue centered on the philosophies and practices underpinning successful organizational change. Areas cover include: Adapting strategic planning to the need for change, leadership research, responsibility for change implementation and follow-through, the psychology of change and its effect on the workforce, and determining if TQM will work in your organization.
Some sample article titles: Servant leadership and commitment to change, the mediating role of justice and optimism; Revising the past (while thinking in the future perfect tense);The futurity of decisions as a facilitator of organizational creativity and change; Discourse and organizational change
The subject of "Leading Change" brought up 589,000,000 results on Google. Here are a few of the more popular images that diagram the steps needed for
change to be most effective:
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Abstract: This week we conducted an overview of the vast subject of Organizational Change. We reviewed the six main categories of change theories: biological, teleological, political, life cycle, social cognition and cultural. We considered how our own experiences and preferred organizational frames influence our predilection for these theories. We reviewed Berquist’s archetypes of the cultures of higher education institutions: collegial, managerial, developmental and negotiation. We compared planned change to adaptive change and discussed the circumstances in which each would be most appropriate. We discussed the stages of organizational change, using Lewin’s “force-field model” of unfreezing, changing, and re-freezing, and discussed the importance of challenging mental models and brain barriers in the unfreezing process. 
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| class="imageCaption" | The Change Leaders Roadmap
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| class="imageCaption" | Ed Batista's Change Model
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