• Unit: 7010V1
• Ofqual Reference Y/504/9076
• CMI SYLLABUS | LEVEL 7 COACHING AND MENTORING v07
This unit is about identifying, developing and implementing change strategies to meet organisational objectives, using a range of management models, tools and techniques.
Understand how to apply solutions to organisational change
Understand how to develop a change strategy using implementation models
Understand how to analyse an organisational response to change
Be able to evaluate the impact of change strategies
Understand how to apply solutions to organisational change
AC 1.1 Identify a range of organisational change, models or frameworks
AC 1.2 Apply a range of creative problem solving techniques to address change challenges
AC 1.3 Identify and justify change solutions that link to organisational strategic plans
AC 1.1 Identify a range of organisational change, models or frameworks
Command Verb-
Identify: Ascertain the origin, nature or definitive characteristics of something. You could introduce your work on this unit by establishing your understanding of why change takes place (you could refer to Handy) and outline how change impacts upon organisational behaviour.
It might help to refer to your own organisation or a previous workplace and identify example situations where change has occurred, or to use this unit as an opportunity to work through the implementation of an organisational change.
AC 1.1 Identify a range of organisational change, models or frameworks
You could then relate your experience to some of the models and process frameworks and models outlined below and identify how these could apply within your own experience:
● The balanced scorecard
● The big picture
● Business Process reengineering
● EFQM Excellence model
● Kaizen Blitz
● ISO 9001 Quality system
● Six Sigma
AC 1.2 Apply a range of creative problem solving techniques to address change challenges
Command Verb- Apply Put into operation or use. Use relevant skills/knowledge/ understanding appropriate to context
In this section you could apply several creative problem solving techniques to change challenges in your organisation.
● Lateral thinking (Edward De Bono)
● Mind mapping (Tony Buzan)
● Brainstorming (Alex Osborn)
These might include:
● Rich pictures (Peter Checkland)
● Focus groups
● Away days
● Innovations laboratories
AC 1.2 Apply a range of creative problem solving techniques to address change challenges
Alternatively you could refer to Kirton’s approaches to problem-solving and relate your organisation to innovator - orientated creativity or adaptor-orientated creativity.
Consider alternative organisations or workplaces and how creative problem solving is managed within different contexts.
AC 1.3 Identify and justify change solutions that link to organisational strategic plans
Command Verb –
Identify: Ascertain the origin, nature or definitive characteristics of something.
Justify: Provide a rationale for actions and/or decisions. Your rationale should be underpinned by research, academic theory, data analysis or experience.
AC 1.3 Identify and justify change solutions that link to organisational strategic plans
Having looked at models which instigate change, and applied creative problem solving techniques, you should be in a position to identify and justify change solutions.
These firstly need to be matched against organisational aims and objectives and checked for alignment.
The use of workplace examples would add value to your answer.
Understand how to develop a change strategy using implementation models
AC 2.1 Evaluate a range of change implementation models
AC 2.2 Identify the criteria to select a change implementation model that supports organisational change
Command Verb - Evaluate:
Consider the strengths and weaknesses, arguments for and against and/or similarities and differences.
The writer should then judge the evidence from the different perspectives and make a valid conclusion or reasoned judgement.
Apply current research or theories to support the evaluation when applicable.
AC 2.1 Evaluate a range of change implementation models
In this section you could evaluate a number of the change implementation models outlined.
You need to demonstrate that you understand the pros and cons of the different approaches and how they might suit a range of change situations.
AC 2.1 Evaluate a range of change implementation models
The use of a tabular format might assist in the presentation of your answer.
• Lewin’s Unfreeze, change and unfreeze model, and Force field analysis
• Beckhard and Harris’s staged process of change model
• Beckhard, Harris and Pritchard’s The change equation
• Kotter’s Eight-stage process
• Balogun and Hope Hailey – The change kaleidoscope
• Johnson and Scholes – The cultural web
AC 2.2 Identify the criteria to select a change implementation model that supports organisational change
Suggestions for criteria to consider may involve thinking about some of the questions below.
This list is not exhaustive – but will enable you to start to think about these models in a meaningful way.
• Does the change implementation model enable me to follow a systematic approach?
• Are all stages clearly outlined?
• Does the change implementation model allow me to factor in the strategic vision clearly?
AC 2.2 Identify the criteria to select a change implementation model that supports organisational change
• Does the model enable me to consider potential resistance to change?
• Does the model allow me to consider potential periods of uncertainty?
• Does this model enable me to identify the cultural impact of change?
• Does the model allow me to consider the impact on individuals within the organisation?
• Does the model value the importance of communication of change?
how to analyse an organisational response to change
AC 3.1 Demonstrate the use of analytical tools to monitor the progress and the effect of change
AC 3.2 Assess monitoring and measurement techniques to change within an organisation
AC 3.3 Analyse strategies to minimise adverse effects of change
AC 3.1 Demonstrate the use of analytical tools to monitor the progress and the effect of change
Command Verb -Demonstrate –To show or make something clear ,to show how something works
All change programmes need to be carefully constructed so that their success can be monitored throughout all stages of the process –at the beginning, the middle and the end.
The Balanced Scorecard criteria can be used in line with organisational culture and values as analytical tools in monitoring the progress and effect of a project.
AC 3.1 Demonstrate the use of analytical tools to monitor the progress and the effect of change
Nelson and Aaron’s Stages of Commitment and the Kubler-Ross Change Curve are other useful tools you might consider.
Your response in this section needs to show that you have applied more than one analytical tool, and have looked at both hard (quantitative measures) and soft techniques (qualitative measures).
AC 3.2 Assess monitoring and measurement techniques to change within an organisation
Command Verb – Assess: Provide a reasoned judgment or rationale of the standard, quality, value or importance of something, informed by relevant facts/rationale.
Having used some of the analytical techniques in 3.1, you are now asked to assess their usefulness.
AC 3.2 Assess monitoring and measurement techniques to change within an organisation
Your assessment should acknowledge both positive and negative aspects of the tools and techniques, and could show consideration of questions like:
• Was monitoring carried out over a period of time – or just at the end?
• Was the focus on the “people” component?
• Was hard factual data used as a means to judge how well the project was performing? Or was it a mixture of both hard and soft measures?
AC 3.2 Analyse strategies to minimise adverse effects of change
Command Verb -Analyse: Break the subject or complex situation(s) into separate parts and examine each part in detail; identify the main issues and show how the main ideas are related to practice and why they are important. Reference to current research or theory may support the analysis.
You could consider change initiatives that have taken place within your organisation and analyse strategies that could have minimised any adverse effects on a range of stakeholders.
AC 3.2 Analyse strategies to minimise adverse effects of change
What worked well?
What didn’t work well?
You need to consider causes of resistance or barriers to change in your experience?
Force Field analysis could help here.
Consider a range of strategies that could have enhanced the experience, for example –effective communication about the reason behind the project, connecting with employees from the outset of the project or dealing with resistance in an upfront and positive way.
Be able to evaluate the impact of change strategies
AC 4.1 Identify the processes to review the impact of the change
AC 4.2 Analyse the results of the impact review
AC 4.3 Present the findings of the impact review
AC 4.1 Identify the processes to review the impact of the change
Command -Identify: Ascertain the origin, nature or definitive characteristics of something.
In this section you need to be able to evaluate the impact of a change programme in stages.
Even within the same organisation, opposing views may exist on how a change programme’s success was interpreted – this ambiguity can be reduced by using appropriate processes.
AC 4.1 Identify the processes to review the impact of the change
You can link this back to one of the models that you referred to at the outset – such as Kotter’s model or Beckhard and Harris’s change model.
You could refer to the American Evaluation Association who identified two main levels for evaluation: strategic evaluation and operational evaluation
Command Verb - Analyse: Break the subject or complex situation(s) into separate parts and examine each part in detail; identify the main issues and show how the main ideas are related to practice and why they are important. Reference to current research or theory may support the analysis.
Consider how results have been analysed within your own experience of a change initiative.
Results from the impact review will come from different sourceshard measures to rate success include: on-time achievement of stages in the plan, growth in revenue, increased number of inquiries, reduced processing time, for example. Benchmark data may provide useful information.
In addition you may need to access soft data through staff surveys or 360 degree feedback techniques. Soft measures to rate success are likely to include the people aspect and will concern –motivation levels, morale and behaviours –that can be assessed through surveys or formal discussions.
Presenting findings from the impact review will be determined by the nature of the project and its level of impact on the organisational strategy.
You could refer to your own experience of how feedback about the change project in your example was delivered and consider the effectiveness of the communication to different audiences in instilling enthusiasm and understanding about the project.
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• "In order to maximise their success, organisations today need to adapt to a turbulent environment ... Managing change is not easy (Burnes, 2009)."
• Planned change management allows managers and practitioners to incorporate specific tasks and events into each stage of the change process. The concept explores how to face highly dynamic and complex environments and how to make the most of an organisational change.
• Change management is the systematic approach to adjusting and transitioning organisational processes, procedures, strategies, attitudes, functions or technologies from their existing state to one that is considered superior (Burnes, 2009; Cameron and Green, 2009).
• "There needs to be a change agent (or group of change agents) who possess the "skill and power to stimulate, facilitate, and coordinate the change effort" (Lunenburg, 2010)."
• Irrespective of the magnitude of a change that takes place within an organisation, there needs to be a change agent. Learn about the roles and attributes that change agents can adopt and consider the case study evidence and practical application steps provided.
• Change agents are people (individuals or groups) that not only initiate but also manage change within organisations. They can be internal to an organisation such as managers or employees, or external such as consultants who are tasked with overseeing change management (Tschirky, 2011).
• "Practitioners need to be aware of the importance of power politics within organizations as a determinant of the speed, direction and character of change (Dawson, 1994)."
• The concept provides a description of the emergent change process, the type of change that is not in an organisation's agenda - it simply manifests in our social systems when the underlying components have achieved a new order that give way to new behaviours.
• Emergent Change Definition
• Emergent change is based on the assumption that change is a continuous, open-ended and unpredictable process of aligning and realigning an organisation to its changing environment (Burnes, 2009).
• "Change ... requires creating a new system, which in turn always demands leadership (Kotter, 1995)."
• The concept explains why successful and sustainable organisational improvements depend on effective change leaders who know how to create and disseminate a vision, overcome resistance to change and manage conflict. The concept provides examples that illustrate how change leadership has been successfully used in the industry.
• Change leadership is the ability to influence and enthuse others through personal advocacy, vision and drive, and to access resources to build a solid platform for change (Higgs and Rowland, 2000). Leadership is often viewed as key to successful change (American Management Association, 1994).
• "Practitioners need to be aware of the importance of power politics within organizations as a determinant of the speed, direction and character of change (Dawson, 1994)."
• The concept provides a description of the emergent change process, the type of change that is not in an organisation's agenda - it simply manifests in our social systems when the underlying components have achieved a new order that give way to new behaviours.
• Emergent change is based on the assumption that change is a continuous, open-ended and unpredictable process of aligning and realigning an organisation to its changing environment (Burnes, 2009).
• "The processual perspective on change views organisational change as a complex and dynamic process, and not something that can be treated as a series of linear events (Dawson, 1996)."
• The processual approach highlights the importance of context in examining unfolding processes of change. Rather than follow concrete steps to make change happen, leaders are encouraged to focus on two main principles underlying the theory.
• The processual approach states that change is continuous and without a finite end point. Change is also a "messy" process that is shaped by an organisation's history, culture, and internal politics. As such, the processual theory does not prescribe a list of steps to manage change (Pettigrew, 1985).
"Lewin saw change as a group activity, as it is group norms and processes that need to be modified if change is to be successful (Cummings & Huse, 1989)."
Lewin’s phases of change model has made an important contribution to the study of organisations and management. Strengths and weaknesses of the theory are considered within a business context and practical implementation guidance is provided.
• Kurt Lewin's phases of change model describes a "planned approach" to organisational change management that progresses through three stages. Thus, it is commonly referred to as the three-step model: unfreeze, change, freeze (or refreeze) (Lewin, 1947).
• "[Transformational changes] severely jolt organisations and push them to question their business strategy (Cummings & Worley, 2009)."
• The concept presents empirical evidence on the evolving role of transformational change and case study evidence of such changes within organisations.
• Transformational change occurs in response to, or in anticipation of, major changes in an organisation’s environment or technology.
• These changes often are associated with significant revision of the firm’s business strategy, which in turn may require modifying internal structures and processes as well as its corporate culture to support the new direction (Cummings and Worley, 2009).
Organisational change is a constant in many organisations, driven by a number of different forces including customers, markets and technology. Yet research shows that most change initiatives fail to get their intended outcomes and may even limit an organisation’s potential and its people.
The effects of not managing change effectively can be devastating and long lasting, so it’s important that people professionals understand the issues and equip themselves with techniques to support change management initiatives.
• The ability to manage change effectively is a key skill for managers in a society where rapid change has become the norm and new technologies are continually being introduced.
• However, research shows that many, if not most, change efforts fail to achieve their objectives, at least to some extent.
• Paying close attention to the process of implementation will pay dividends in terms of your ability to achieve objectives and achieve and sustain organisational success.
• Change management can be a slow, painful and expensive process. An informed and thoughtful approach will be needed to address both ‘hard’ logistical issues and ‘softer’ people issues.
• Many people find change difficult and may resist or try to hinder the process. A combination of patience and firmness will help managers to handle change programmes effectively, especially where they are seeking to change attitudes and behaviour.
• The detailed schedule for implementing change will vary according to both the type of organisation and the nature and scope of the changes that are planned.
• There are, however, common issues that should be considered and general principles that should be followed when introducing change regardless of the specific context.
• Many different models are used for managing change and managers may wish to find out about the ideas of writers such as John Kotter, Rosabeth Moss Kanter; Kurt Lewin and Bernard Burnes and identify a model which they feel will work well in their particular situation.
• Managing change involves accomplishing a transition from position A to position B and handling any problems which come up during the process.
• The process of change within organisations usually results from interactions between four major elements:
• equipment (technology);
• processes (working procedures);
• organisation structure;
• and people.
Change to any one of these will inevitably lead to changes to the others, as organisations are complex inter-related systems.
There are many drivers of organisational change.
These include:
• Growth opportunities, especially new markets.
• Economic downturns and challenging trading conditions.
• Shifts in strategic objectives.
• Technological developments.
• Competitive pressures, including new entrants, mergers and acquisitions.
• Customer or supplier pressure, particularly shifting markets.
• Learning new organisation behaviours and skills.
• Government legislation/initiatives.
• Transitional change ( Replace what’s there )process , merger
• Developmental change ( improve what’s there )
• Transformational change ( from one state to another
) culture ect
The COVID-19 pandemic has created a situation of rapid change and disruption for organisations in 2024: changing their focus, expanding or contracting their activities and rethinking their platforms, products, and services.
This change was significant in terms of its near universal impact, but other drivers of change also create uncertainty, for example the period following the UK’s decision to leave the EU
In the wake of the pandemic, financial pressures, corporate scandals and greater public scrutiny, organisations are developing a more balanced view of their stakeholders, and taking account of a greater range of considerations (beyond financial) in making decisions.
Meanwhile, technology is driving new forms of employment relationship and fundamentally changing the way businesses operate.
• In this context, organisations need to introduce and manage change to achieve organisational objectives, maintaining the commitment of their people, both during and after implementation.
• Often, at the same time, they must also ensure that business continues as usual.
• So it’s vital to consider carefully the way any change is managed, and those doing it are properly supported. While each change situation is unique, there’re still some common themes that will help give the change process the best chance of success.
• People are at the centre of many of the changes in the workplace. People professionals and HR functions are among those best placed to drive effective change.
• They have a role and responsibility to ensure that organisation development, (re)design, due process, employee voice and clear communications are appropriately and effectively addressed as part of the change process.
• Business professionals have a particular role to play in ensuring the long-term sustainability of a change, through effective design and delivery of learning initiatives.
• It’s key for all people professionals to understand and work within the network of change activities across different departments, enabling them to anticipate, design, and shape organisational change in a joined-up way.
• Change management matters not least because change is taking place at an accelerating pace and there’s evidence change initiatives often fail.
• The complexities and difficulties of delivering change are well established, with failure rates frequently cited as high as 70%.
• Failure to introduce effective change can have a high impact: loss of market position, removal of senior management, loss of stakeholder credibility, loss of key employees, and reduction in employee engagement and motivation.
• Organisational forms are themselves evolving.
• Increasing competitive challenges and the need to be responsive to changing environments are resulting in new organisational models. Traditional models following functional or matrix lines are being supplemented by models that rely on project teams, networks and virtual structures.
• The COVID-19 crisis has seen many organisations rapidly shift their model of how and where work gets done. Change management responses will also have to be adaptive.
In theory, some of these newer models, for example virtual and project-based structures, allow increased flexibility to respond to change.
However, they are not always introduced uniformly, and in practice often bring other issues that affect change management, for example ability to share knowledge and to operate efficiently.
They may also impact communication or employee commitment, which themselves have implications for change effectiveness.
People can feel isolated or lose some of the identity or routine that they’d become accustomed to.
• Individual change initiatives are not always done as part of a wider coherent change plan. For example, a change that considers a new structure, but fails to establish the need to introduce new systems or processes to support such a structure, is less likely to succeed.
• Lack of effective project management and programme management disciplines can lead to slipped timings, achieving desired outcomes and ensuring that the projects do deliver as planned. Insufficient relevant training, for example in project management, change management and leadership skills, can all impact negatively on the effectiveness of any change initiative.
Organisational issues
Poor communication can be linked to achieving effective change in various ways. For example, imposed change can lead to greater employee resistance or misaligned expectations.
Change initiatives can also be over-managed, with too much energy spent on project management and too little on enacting change.
Finally, lack of effective leadership is an inhibitor of effective change.
• Individual and group resistance to change
• Resistance to change can be defined as an individual or group engaging in acts to block or disrupt an attempt to introduce change.
• Resistance is not necessarily negative, as it may be a clear signal that the change initiative requires rethinking or reframing
• Resistance itself can take many different forms from subtle undermining of change initiatives and withholding of information to active resistance, such as through strikes.
There are two broad types of resistance:
• Resistance to the content of change. For example to a specific change in technology, or to the introduction of a particular reward system.
• Resistance to the process of change. This concerns the way a change is introduced rather than the object of change in itself.
• For example, management re-structure of jobs without prior consultation of affected employees.
• Reasons for resistance include: loss of control, shock of the new, uncertainty, inconvenience, threat to status and competence fears. It's important not to assume that resistance is negative, and to try to diagnose the cause of employee resistance as this will help determine the focus of effort in trying to address the issue.
• Research by the CIPD suggests that ‘resistance to change’ may in fact be a deep rooted threat response, designed to keep us safe.
Professor Jens Krause (2008) indicated the four main types of personalities when it comes to change as:
1 Initiators Wants to initiate change because the status quo does not serve them
2 Adapters Adapt once they see the change working for initiators
3 Followers Will follow the other two types once they believe it is the right thing to do 4 Resistors Will resist change because they don’t want to change or can’t change
• Loss of control or authority
• Change has been imposed
• Lack of understanding about the change
• Fundamentally disagreeing with the proposed change
• Uncertainty about what the change means or how it will be achieved
• Fear about losing something they value
• Worry about being able to cope with the change
• Change-fatigue where constant change has been occurring
• Lack of trust and confidence in the managers leading the change
• Having to move to a new team or get to know new colleagues
It’s clear that change is complex and there isn’t a single solution to managing it.
However, a number of key areas of focus emerge. The CIPD transformational change research, in collaboration with the University of Bath, identifies ten techniques, across three themes, which can be applied to a variety of change management scenarios to enhance the effectiveness of change programmes. However, whilst these areas should always be considered, the pace of change sometimes dictates the need for a more rapid response.
In these situations, the areas below that touch on communication and voice are, arguably, the most important to ensure the best possible result in difficult circumstances.
• Leaders and designers of change need to be able to ‘read’ their context; to evaluate it to identify aspects that hinder change.
• They then need to design change programmes which first put in place initiatives to rewrite or rewire their context in a way that overcomes obstacles to enable the desired change.
• For transformation to succeed, designers of change need to align strategic and cultural aspirations.
• Using new strategic goals of the organisation as a starting point, they must identify a new supportive and goal-consistent culture in terms of beliefs and behaviours.
• If open discussion and debate is encouraged in the top team this enables more proactive, opportunistic change to happen, as leaders become more open to breaking with the past and moving away from old business models as they become irrelevant.
Ambiguity and purposeful instability
Transformation can be facilitated if a change vision is ambitious yet also presented in ambiguous terms, with the deliberate intention to encourage individuals to actively question and attempt to make sense of their situation.
Narratives, storytelling and conversations
Narratives and stories can be used as communication devices to make the content and implications of new strategies easier to understand, enhancing individuals’ ability to translate change into meaningful actions for themselves. Organisation development work provides useful structure and guidance for conversations, and considers the role of self too as an important part of the change process.
Physical representations, metaphors and play
Use of objects, metaphors, symbols and pictures - maybe as part of playful design as an alternative to traditional and often rather dry change workshops - helps to engage individuals and to enable them to translate change rhetoric into meaningful change- related actions.
Relational leadership
• Rather than implementing change through authority and control, in new forms of leadership transformational change is achieved through negotiations and social interactions with organisational members.
Building trust
• High levels of trust will deliver the enabling conditions in which significant change can thrive. Change leaders need to emphasise their trustworthiness by demonstrating their competence to design change intelligently, and their benevolence and integrity in the way they attend to the needs of the business, employees and the wider community. HR and L&D systems and processes designed and administered in a fair way, help foster trustworthiness in the organisation.
Voice, dialogue and rethinking resistance
• In more democratic workplaces, the actions of employees who raise concerns about change should not be labelled as resistance, but instead reframed and reinterpreted in terms of legitimacy of employee voice.
Emotion, energy and momentum
• Change is often an emotional process and so emotional awareness by those leading and designing change is required to anticipate and plan for reactions. Those managing the change must also maintain levels of energy and momentum throughout the change process.
• The CIPD’s transformational change research, with the University of Bath, explores HR and L&D’s role in managing change though four case study organisations.
• The research demonstrates that people professionals have a significant role to play in any change management process. They often act as ‘stage directors of change’ playing a critical role behind the scenes – appreciated by all, but not front of stage. The report provides various recommendations that people professionals should consider if they are to be successful expert initiators and facilitators of transformational change:
• Be willing to work as the ‘hidden hand’ of change, highly relevant to its success. Work in partnership with the CEO/business leader and their executive team and as ‘back stage’ support for their ‘front stage’ activity.
• Facilitate translation of the overall vision through mass communication, use of relevant techniques, and changes to interactions and entrenched systems.
• Create change advocates, remove obstacles, act on measurement and ensure leader visibility.
• Understanding how to effectively enable change is a ’core’ knowledge area for all people professionals.
• But they may experience a conflict of interest between the business and employees, when leading and managing change.
• The ability to apply situational judgement and demonstrate moral integrity is what will enable them to be trusted advisors, and help the organisation create long-term sustainability.
• Since Managers are responsible for making decisions that affect workers’ lives, it’s important that practitioners have confidence to uphold professional standards when faced with difficult situations.
• Before you begin to embark on a programme of change, you must have a clear strategy based on the objectives and outline plans which have already been set. The details of the implementation will depend on the desired outcomes and on the approach to be taken, whether this is to be top-down, bottom-up, or a mix of both.
• Decide also whether to introduce change by division, by department, or organisation-wide. Bear in mind that a ‘big bang’ approach is not normally advisable as most organisations only have a finite capacity to cope with change.
• When deciding which approach to take, it is also important to think about where the key influencers are and how communication channels will work.
• A programme of change is unlikely to be the only corporate initiative underway at any given point in time. Ensure that the strategy and goals behind the programme are consistent with those of other organisational initiatives, and that all are pointing in the same direction.
• Make sure that employees receive consistent messages about the organisation's core values and beliefs in relation to all the initiatives.
• Every change programme needs a start date.
• Also, aim to set a finite time span for the implementation, regardless of whether it is being introduced incrementally or simultaneously across all divisions.
• The timetable must be stretching enough to convey urgency, but attainable enough to be motivating and realistic.
Draw up detailed implementation plans with each divisional or departmental head in line with both the strategy and timetable which have been agreed.
The team responsible for the changes can act as a source of advice and consultancy when necessary, but line managers should be empowered to determine how to implement the change in their areas of responsibility, in accordance with its overall goals.
For senior management, decide how progress will be monitored and whether stage reviews are necessary.
• The change champion team will not necessarily include top management, but will benefit from a board level champion.
• The team should include the key people involved in designing and delivering the change, as well as those affected by it.
• This team has a key role to play in benefits realisation management –defining and disseminating the benefits of the changes and communicating them effectively in their own parts of the organisation.
5. Establish good programme management practices
• Treat change in the same way as you would handle any project or programme.
• Consider using a recognised project or programme management tool or methodology, such as ‘Managing Successful Programmes’. Keep objectives in mind, set milestones and monitor progress in order to keep the programme on schedule and on budget.
• Don’t assume that change will necessarily be wholly successful or painless. Undertake a risk analysis and make any necessary contingency plans. It is imperative to flag up potential problems as early as possible.
• Also keep track of the costs associated with implementing change and ensure that a contingency budget is in place. Establish ground rules for the programme team, particularly with regard to information sharing,decision-making and reporting.
The importance of good communications to the success of change programmes cannot be underestimated.
Good communications should be based on careful stakeholder analysis in order to ensure the right messages get to the right stakeholders through the best channels. Identify your stakeholders, map them carefully, and then communicate with each stakeholder group in a manner that will encourage their positive engagement with the aims of the programme.
Do all you can to ensure that employees at every level of the organisation understand the reasons for change and know what will be happening, when it will be happening and what is expected of them. Often, it is uncertainty rather than change that really worries employees. Provide as much information as possible and quash inaccurate rumors as soon as they arise.
Don’t assume that everything is clear to everyone after a single message. Communication should be ongoing. Provide opportunities for employees to seek clarification, where necessary and give regular updates and progress reports. Make sure to report on early wins and celebrate successes.
• All change is stressful and it can be especially stressful if it is imposed without consultation or adequate communication.
• This can have a detrimental effect on how well change is adopted and sustained in the longerterm.
• There are, of course, instances when change has to be imposed to address an issue such as a financial crisis, but mechanisms can be introduced to facilitate the process.
• Fear of the unknown rather than change itself is often a major stress factor but its impact can be reduced by being as open as possible about the consequences of change.
• Individual employees must feel they can take ownership of the change programme as it evolves. This is much easier when they can personalise it and relate it to their own work and team.
• Ensure that line managers are able to present the corporate case for change in terms which every individual in the company can relate to.
• Consider what change will mean for each individual in terms of: status (job title, budget responsibility); habits (changes to working time, new colleagues); beliefs and attitudes (move to a customer focus); and behaviour (new working practices).
• Changes to working practices will need input from the HR department at the planning stage and may require specific change activity or union consultation, for example.
• Change usually brings about conflict of one kind or another, simply because people have different views and react to stressful situations in different ways.
• Try to bring conflict to the surface rather than allow it to fester; tackle it by examining and analysing it with those involved and seeking ways to resolve the issues.
• Conflict can often be put to positive use. For example, open discussion and clarification can lead to the resolution of difficulties and the introduction of improvements.
• When conflict cannot be resolved through explanation and discussion, you will have to negotiate and persuade. This means avoiding getting into any entrenched positions yourself, and working out how to influence others if they dig their heels in too deeply.
• It also means finding ways to reach agreement on the best way forward without major loss of face for either side, while at the same time, being mindful not to prejudice the underlying change initiative.
10. Motivate your employees
• Sustained change requires very high levels of motivation and this will be difficult without strong relationships of trust and respect across the organisation.
• Recognise that employees need to feel valued, to have their efforts and achievements recognised, and to be developed and challenged.
• Be aware that different people are motivated by different types of reward.
• View the change programme as a learning process.
• Give attention to developing both technical and interpersonal skills at all levels within the organisation and integrate this into corporate training and development programmes.
• Specific training to enable change, such as providing an induction into new systems and technologies may also be needed.
• Change also provides an opportunity to develop learning capability and build a culture of learning into the organisation.
• Creating goals and plans that everyone can subscribe to will enable everyone to benefit.
• Turn learning into something that people want to buy into, rather than a chore – help people to feel the 'buzz' of discovery and involvement in new developments. Set an example by updating the skills of top management.
• Incremental change is often a long process, consisting of very small and often imperceptible changes in behaviour and attitudes.
• Accept that change may be a stop/start process. Watch out signs that initial enthusiasm is flagging and the pace of change is slowing to an unacceptable rate. Plan for this and develop strategies to create a sense of purpose and urgency and give fresh impetus.
• To gear the organisation up for renewed efforts after setbacks, seek innovative ways to remind staff of the overall case for change and to reinforce its value to them.
• A set of quick wins and visible success points is a useful framework for achieving this. Leading indicators of potential benefits are also helpful in maintaining interest and demonstrating progress.
• Think about how to address problems which have prevented progress in the past.
• Ask yourself what and who is preventing progress, and who can help to unblock the situation. You analysis of stakeholder groups, and of their varying interests and perspectives, (as mentioned in point 6 above,) should help you to gain an understanding of the forces in play.
• Aim to break the code of silence that engenders organisational protectionism and maintains the status quo.
• Monitor and evaluate the results of the change programme against the goals and milestones established in the original plan.
• Are these goals still appropriate or do they need to be revised in the light of experience?
• Existing performance measures may not be compatible with the changes being introduced and may hinder change unless they are revised.
• Check that all the measures used are consistent with organisational vision and goals, and if not, redesign them.
• Be honest in your assessment of progress. If there is a real divergence between the planned goals and reality, admit this and take corrective action without delay. Be open about failure and involve employees in setting new targets or devising new measures.
• In some circumstances it may be necessary to engage an internal or external change agent as they will have the skills and abilities needed to facilitate a difficult process of change.
• Organisations that are otherwise good at what they do may nonetheless find it difficult to manage change effectively.
Managers should avoid:
• Trying to implement change without top management sponsorship and commitment
• Going ahead without involving employees at every stage of design and implementation
• Failing to anticipate resistance or prepare for it
• Forgetting to take into account implementation costs,
• Getting lost in the detail and losing sight of the vision
• Failing to publicise successes to build up momentum and support.
• One of a Managers fundamental roles is organising and coordinating the workforce to deliver value and success.
• Systems and processes are part of this, but on their own are not enough for an organisation to make real progress.
• Taking diversity and inclusion as an example, research indicates that an organisation which fails to value difference, or enables some groups but not others to progress, is unlikely to see positive change, despite having policies in place.
• Workplace norms, values and behaviours, traditions, perspectives and beliefs of individuals are also crucial. It’s these shared characteristics among people within the same organisation that create it’s organisational culture.
Organisational culture and cultural change
• There are many academic definitions of organisational culture, including Balogun and Johnson’s ‘the way we do things around here’ and Schein’s ‘the pattern of shared basic assumption - invented, discovered or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration - that has worked well enough to be considered valid and therefore to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relationship to those problems’.
• Denison’s definition is ‘the underlying values, beliefs and principles that serve as the foundation for an organization’s management system as well as the set of management practices and behaviours that both exemplify and reinforce those basic principles’.
• Culture matters because it offers a way for employees to understand their organisation, to voice their views, and to develop connections and common purpose.
• It’s also important to continually assess that culture, as the organisation’s purpose and values will affect the standard of its customer service and influence the engagement and retention of its people.
• There’s speculation that culture affects organisational performance, and some organisations have put great effort into changing their culture and structure to improve this.
• However, while managing organisational culture is increasingly seen as a necessary part of governance and management practice, research evidence on the link between organisational culture and performance is weak.
• More research is needed to further establish links between organisational culture and positive outcomes, such as organisational performance, as well as to define reliable measures of organisational culture.
Is organisational culture different to organisational climate?
Academic research isn't consistent on the difference between an organisation's culture and climate. However, there are some useful distinctions to make.
Research found that culture is about how decisions are made, from the top or in a distributed way, about the way things are done in an organisation.
For example, whether an organisation encourages its people to conform or to take risks, or whether it supervises or liberates its employees. Although cultures are rarely so polarised, these examples give a sense of the choices an organisation makes when establishing ‘what we’re all about’.
An organisational ‘climate’, on the other hand, is widely defined as the meaning people attach to certain features of the work setting. It’s the feeling or atmosphere people have in an organisation, either day-to-day or more generally.
The way an individual understands their workplace guides their behaviour. Creating an organisational climate of inclusion, for example, requires employees to attach meaning to their experience of work.
Only when there’s a shared belief that all employees are respected, valued and allowed to be themselves, will an organisation have a truly inclusive climate. So organisational climate can be described as the perceptions and meanings people give to the culture in which they work.
Clearly, culture and climate are linked and mutually influence each other which helps to explain why the two are often (wrongly) used interchangeably.
• Given that there’s no universal definition of organisational culture, there’s also no unified set of measures for it either. However, there are some key theoretical frameworks developed to understand an organisation’s culture and tools used by consultants to support organisations in assessing or changing their culture.
Denison Culture Index
Denison defines four different traits of organisational culture which can be measured:
1. Mission Has the organisation a clearly articulated strategic direction and goal, as well as measures of success/key performance indicators.
2. Employee involvement. Does the organisation rely on employees to make decisions by empowering them and developing them, as well as enabling team working.
3. Internal consistency. Has the organisation got a set of values that are consistent and to which they visibly adhere.
4. Adaptability. Does the organisation focus on learning from competitors and customers, and how open is it to change.
• The Denison index includes a mix of organisational and psychological constructs, which are measured through a diagnostic survey. It’s a common methodology used for measuring culture.
Another framework commonly used by people professionals is the Competing Values Framework (CVF). It was devised in the 1980s and distilled through research down to 16 measures that describe business concepts such as training and development, planning and goal setting, evaluation and external entities, and readiness.
The measures, termed the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI), were devised to help change the CVF, which originally focused on organisational effectiveness, into an organisational culture measurement framework.
However, this measurement system includes other concepts, such as structure, leadership, practices and strategy, and ambiguity across the different measures means that defining a single dominant culture is difficult.
Organizational Culture Inventory
• The Organizational Culture Inventory (OCI) consists of 10 themes and 120 questions, described as ’styles‘ that are used to describe two key concepts: a concern for people, and an emphasis on tasks.
• These are categorised into three culture clusters: constructive, passive/defensive and aggressive/defensive. Each cluster has sub-themes or norms.
• The OCI was originally designed with behavioural norms in mind, and not with other measures such as organisational effectiveness.
• As such it’s considered by academics to be a more sophisticated, purer measure of organisational culture.
• Culture change has been described as ‘movement from the current known state to a potentially unknown state’.
• Organisation development practitioners have a crucial role in managing organisational culture, and specifically facilitating cultural change.
• An effective approach to managing change is vital because evidence indicates that few change initiatives are successful.
• This failure can have a great impact on an organisation, both in their market position and the engagement and retention of employees.
• The possibility of failure is always present when an organisation undertakes cultural change.
• A review by the Cochrane Collaboration found that high quality evidence on the effectiveness of strategies to change organisational culture is lacking.
• A major issue is that evidence fails to identify an agreed or clear definition of organisational culture, nor reliable methods of measuring it.
• There is a real need for evaluations of culture change initiatives to guide practice in making more effective investment decisions.
• Murphy gives a short list followed by practical solutions in his article Culture change pitfalls and how to avoid them:
• Avoid creating fanfare around culture change: Announcing change at an event is more likely to concern employees, who fear the chaos it will cause, rather than excite them. Instead, take a more low-key approach and make small changes, such as appealing to the emotional element of change by enlisting change champions.
• Schein advocates thinking about culture change systematically, given that it may evolve from a small but effective change in behaviour. Through spending time talking about the need for change, its challenges and possibilities in small groups, employees will feel more confident engaging in the conversation.
• Murphy gives a short list followed by practical solutions in his article Culture change pitfalls and how to avoid them:
• Convey the need for change to the wider organisation: Individuals in a small team take careful and time-consuming consideration before deciding to initiate change, which of course results in them rationalising and justifying this decision. However, this makes it hard for them to empathise with those who do not have the privilege of knowing what they do, and are hearing this news for the first time. To overcome this, use stories that allow employees to connect with the need for change. Allowing members of the wider organisation to understand this should allow them to see the benefits of change, rather than the negatives of an upheaval.
• Grasp the informal organisation and networks of employees: Failure to take advantage of these groups can be detrimental to the progress of culture change. Like change champions, ensuring that leaders of networks and employee resource groups are involved in the implementation of culture change is key.
• In How do you change an organizational culture? Denning considers tactics leaders have historically used to bring about successful cultural change, and the difficulties they have faced. He suggests several Dos and Don’ts for leaders which fit well with those above.
• Do come with a clear vision of your direction for the organisation and promote this throughout the workforce through storytelling.
• Do identify key stakeholders of the new vision and encourage the wider organisation to be continually responsive to the needs and desires of those stakeholders.
• Do define the role of managers as enabling their team and drawing on the full capabilities of talented staff.
• Don’t begin by immediately reorganising. Instead, clarify the vision and ensure there are management roles and systems that support this vision.
• Don’t parachute in a new team of managers. Working with the existing managers, and those who share your vision, will be much more conducive to creating shared values among the organisation.
• These points make it clear that for everyone in an organisation to buy into culture change, leaders must better understand how to marry business needs with the human experience of change at work.
• In order to correctly identify opportunities and monitor threats, the company must begin with a thorough understanding of the marketing environment in which the firm operates.
• The marketing environment consists of all the actors and forces outside marketing that affect the marketing management's ability to develop and maintain successful relationships with its target customers.
• Though these factors and forces may vary depending on the specific company and industrial group, they can generally be divided into broad micro environmental and macro environmental components.
The micro environment consists of five components.
1)The organisation’s internal environment—its several departments and management levels—as it affects marketing management's decision making.
2) Marketing channel firms that co-operate to create value: the suppliers and marketing intermediaries (middlemen, physical distribution firms, marketingservice agencies, financial intermediaries).
3) The five types of markets in which the organisation can sell: the consumer, producer, reseller, government, and international markets.
4)The fourth component consists of the competitors facing the organisation.
5) People that have an actual or potential interest in or impact on the organization’s ability to achieve its objectives: financial, media, government, citizen action, and local, general, and internal publics
•
• The company and all of the other actors operate in a larger macro environment of forces that shape opportunities and pose threats to the company. There are six major forces (outlined below)in the company’s macro environment.
• There are six major forces (outlined below) in the company’s macro environment.
• Demographic
• Economic
• Natural
• Technological
• Political
• Cultural
• Choosing a team
• Crafting the vision
• Connecting organisation-wide change
• Consulting stakeholders
• Communicating
• Coping with change
• Capturing learning
(source CIPD)
Kurt
Lewin's Force Field Model is an important contribution to the theory of change management - the part of strategic management that tries to ensure that a business responds to the environment in which it operates.
• Developed by John Kotter, the Kotter 8 step change model focuses more on the people experiencing large organisational changes rather than the changes themselves and this can be used in adapting your business to the current climate.
• Created by Jeffery Hiatt, the ADKAR change management model is a method which focuses on the individuals behind the change which is a set of goals to reach and with each goal making up a letter of the acronym. By focusing on achieving the following five goals, the ADKAR model can be used to effectively plan out change on both an individual and organisational level.
• "Research on organisations has made use of the DABDA model, especially in terms of organisational change (Rausch, 2008)."
• The DABDA emotional cycle although originally focused on terminally ill patients, it has been extended to other areas where people perceive they are negatively impacted by change. Considering case evidence, success factors and implementation steps managers can help employees through the change-grief model more quickly.
• DABDA Syndrome Definition
• The Kübler-Ross model, commonly known as DABDA or the 5 stages of grief, was first introduced by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her book, On Death and Dying published in 1969. She formulated a model of how people cope with dying based on research and interviews with more than 500 dying patients. She proposed 5 stages of grief - Denial, Anger, Bargain, Depression and Acceptance. These stages are neither meant to be complete nor chronological (Kübler-Ross, 1969).
Kubler- Ross proposed that there was a general response cycle to all change
Kubler-Ross, Elizabeth (1969) On Death and Dying
• Tune into the environment
• Stimulating breakthrough ideas
• Communicate inspiring visions
• Getting buy-in
• Nurturing the workforce
• Persisting and persevering
• Make everyone a hero
• Show up – if you don’t show up, nothing happens. Be there. Trust that your presence matters and can make a difference.
• Speak up – Use your voice. Say what needs to be said. Ask the questions that need to be asked. Shape the agenda. Re-frame issues and give new perspectives.
• Look up – Have a higher vision, bring values to the team. Know what you stand for. Elevate people out of the weeds and to a bigger picture of why our work is important.
• Team up – Everything goes better with partners. Don’t try to do it alone. Build a sense of partnership.
• Never give up – Persist until done. Everything looks like a failure in the middle. It will take longer than you imagine, keep going anyway. Be flexible in your approach, but inflexible in your persistence.
• Lift others up – Share success, share credit and give back once you have a success.
Cass R. Sunstien and Richard H.
The Hersey-Blanchard model suggests that the following leadership styles are the most appropriate for these maturity levels: Low Maturity (M1)— Telling (S1) Medium Maturity (M2)—Selling (S2) Medium Maturity (M3)—Participating (S3)
• The five tracks to organizational success constitute a completely integrated program. Each track is implemented as a collaborative, participative effort among managers, consultants, and members.
Track Description
Culture Track The culture track consists of a five step process: (1) surfacing actual norms, (2) articulating what is needed for success today, (3) establishing new norms, (4) identifying culture-gaps, and (5) closing culture-gaps. The culture track first exposes the old culture and then, if necessary, creates a new adaptive culture.
Skills Track The skills track is needed because employees usually have not kept up with the holographic world in which they live and its dynamic, complex problems. They often have not developed the skills conceptual, analytical, administrative, social, and interpersonal to manage complexity. The skills track also offers a systematic method for uncovering the underlying assumptions that drive all decisions into action.
Team Track As the culture and skills tracks are encouraging new behaviors, skills, and assumptions, the next effort lies in directly transferring these learnings into the mainstream of organizational life. Specifically, the team track does three things: (1) keeps dysfunctional behavior in check so negativity will not disrupt cooperative team efforts, (2) brings the new learnings into the day-to-day activities of each work group, and (3) enables cooperative decisions to take place across work group boundaries, as in multiple team efforts.
StrategyStructure Track
The strategy-structure track is conducted in an eight step process: (1) making strategic choices, (2) listing objectives to be achieved and tasks to be performed, (3) analyzing objective/task relationships, (4) calculating inefficiencies that stem from an out-of-date structure, (5) diagnosing structural problems, (6) designing a new structure, (7) implementing the new structure, and (8) evaluating the new structure.
Reward Track Once the organization is moving in the right direction with the right structure and resources, the reward system track completes the program by making sure that rewards vary directly with performance. The formal system is designed via a seven step process: (1) designing special task forces to study the problem, (2) reviewing the types of reward systems, (3) establishing several alternative reward systems, (4) debating the assumptions behind the alternative reward systems, (5) designing the new reward system, (6) implementing the new reward system, and (7) evaluating the new reward system.
• The McKinsey 7-S model is one that can be applied to almost any organizational or team effectiveness issue. If something within your organization or team isn't working, chances are there is inconsistency between some of the elements identified by this classic model. Once these inconsistencies are revealed, you can work to align the internal elements to make sure they are all contributing to the shared goals and values.
• The process of analysing where you are right now in terms of these elements is worthwhile in and of itself. But by taking this analysis to the next level and determining the ultimate state for each of the factors, you can really move your organization or team forward.
Ensuring That All Parts of Your Organization Work in Harmony
• How do you go about analysing how well your organization is positioned to achieve its intended objective?
• Some approaches look at internal factors, others look at external ones, some combine these perspectives, and others look for congruence between various aspects of the organization being studied
• While some models of organizational effectiveness go in and out of fashion, one that has persisted is the McKinsey 7-S framework. Developed in the early 1980s by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman, two consultants working at the McKinsey & Company consulting firm, the basic premise of the model is that there are seven internal aspects of an organization that need to be aligned if it is to be successful.
• The McKinsey 7-S model involves seven interdependent factors which are categorized as either "hard" or "soft" elements:
• "Hard" elements are easier to define or identify and management can directly influence them: these are strategy statements; organization charts and reporting lines; and formal processes and IT systems.
• "Soft" elements, on the other hand, can be more difficult to describe, and are less tangible and more influenced by culture. However, these soft elements are as important as the hard elements if the organization is going to be successful.
• It can be used in a wide variety of situations such as improve the performance of a company, examine the likely effects of future changes within a company, align departments and processes during a merger or acquisition and determine how best to implement a proposed strategy.
• There is an interdependency of the elements and indicates how a change in one affects all the others.
• Strategy: the plan devised to maintain and build competitive advantage over the competition.
• Structure: the way the organization is structured and who reports to whom.
• Systems: the daily activities and procedures that staff members engage in to get the job done.
• Shared Values: called "superordinate goals" when the model was first developed, these are the core values of the company that are evidenced in the corporate culture and the general work ethic.
• Style: the style of leadership adopted.
• Staff: the employees and their general capabilities.
• Skills: the actual skills and competencies of the employees working for the company.
The Congruence Model was developed in the early 1980s by organizational theorists David A. Nadler and Michael L. Tushman.
It's a tool for identifying the root causes of performance issues. It can also be used as a starting point for identifying how you might fix them.
It's based on the principle that a team or organization can only succeed when the work, the people who do it, the organizational structure, and the culture all "fit" together – or, in other words, when they are "congruent"
Where there is incongruence, or a poor fit, between these four critical elements, problems will arise.
You can have the latest technology and processes, but decision making will be slow and problematic if the organizational culture is bureaucratic.
Work refers to the tasks carried out by employees. It’s important that the result of these tasks are aimed at the company objectives. It should be apparent which skills or knowledge are required for tasks and company activities, and these should be present to a sufficient degree within the organisation.
People are an important part of the organisation and the congruence within it, and form an important part of the Nadler-Tushman Congruence Model.
A company aimed at innovation is looking for pioneering, fast-thinking people. A sales company is mostly focused on finding sales talent. It should be known of employees which skills and knowledge they possess, whether they have experience, and what education they have followed. It should also be known how they would like to be individually rewarded and compensated for their work. For motivated staff, it’s also important that they should be able to develop potential within themselves.
Although aligning the work from the first of the four elements is important, aligning the organisational structure is even more important. Structure is the third component of the Nadler-Tushman Congruence Model. It creates consistency between what an organisation wants and what it does. A company that responds to new market developments needs a flexible corporate structure that is able to quickly adjust to the changing market. A company chain with outlets in various regions would benefit more from a hierarchical structure with regional managers.
The corporate culture consists of values and norms, behavioural patterns and rules, both written and unwritten. The corporate culture also has great influence on the way it supports and stimulates the corporate results. Sometimes, an organisation’s culture needs to change before the organisation is able to adjust to a new business focus. A relaxed, informal corporate culture may work well for a startup, but will need to become somewhat more mechanical upon growth. There are also organisations where the focus is on employees and their well-being. This happens in altruistic organisations
• The Congruence Model is also a useful tool for thinking through how changes you make within a team or organization will impact upon other areas.
To apply the Congruence Model, look at each component and then analyse how they relate to one another.
1. Analyse Each Element
2. Analyse the Relationships Between the Elements
3. Build and Sustain Congruence
It doesn’t tell you how to fix those problems.
It doesn't recommend a "best" culture or "best" structure, nor any specific action plans or problem-solving techniques. You'll need individual tools to help you here. Task Allocation, for example, can help you to pair the right people with the right work. And Organization
Design is an effective approach for aligning work and structure.
Emphasises the importance of achieving "fit" between the elements, and of organizing them in a way that supports your strategy.
Focuses mostly on the internal environment – it's often important to consider what's happening outside the team or organization. (Tools such as PEST Analysis and PMESII-PT can be useful here.)
• Jay Galbraith developed his "Star Model " framework for analysing organizations in the 1960s. The Star Model is the foundation on which a company bases its design choices. The framework consists of a series of design policies that are controllable by management and can influence employee behaviour. The policies are the tools with which management must become skilled in order to shape the decisions and behaviours of their organizations effectively.
• In the Star Model , design policies fall into five categories. The first is strategy, which determines direction. The second is structure, which determines the location of decision-making power. Processes have to do with the flow of information; they are the means of responding to information technologies. Rewards provide motivation and incentives for desired behaviour. And finally, the selection and development of the right people — in alignment with the other policies — allow the organization to operate at maximum efficiency.
• The Star Model shows the levers that managers can control, and as a result, can affect employee behaviour. By choosing the desired behaviour, managers can influence the organization's performance as well as its culture.
Galbraith
Star Model
An organization's strategy is defined by its vision, mission, and values as well as its goals and objectives. Strategy sets out the direction of the organization. It comes first in the Star Model because it establishes useful criteria for making trade-offs and choosing among alternative options in the remaining four elements or organizational design.
• Structure
• An organization's structure determines the type and number of job specialties needed as well as decides the number of departments and people in each department. It dictates the placement and movement of power and authority, and is the basis for forming departments. Organizational structures can be highly centralized or decentralized.
Strategy drives the business model. If you want to grow by 20% in new market segments then it should be reflected in your business model in terms of new Customer Segments, Channels, or Key Activities.
• The characteristics of the business model determine the optimal organizational structure for its execution. Ask yourself, "What
type of human capital will the model require? What activities will those people need to perform? How should the structure be formed to accommodate those needs?"
Organizational processes are defined by the flow of information and decisions. Those flows can happen vertically or horizontally. Vertical processes deal with allocating funds and talent via budgeting and planning. Horizontal processes are designed around workflow and are carried out through lateral relationships between departments. Each business model demands different processes. Lean, highly automated processes should be inherent to a low-cost business model. Rigorous quality control processes might be required if your business model involves selling high value machines.
• People
• An organization's human resource policies govern recruitment, promotion, rotation, training and development. Those policies are designed to produce the talent and build the capabilities necessary to execute the strategic direction of the organization. They must be in harmony with the other design areas.
• Certain business models call for people with particular skills and mindsets. Some business models rely on entrepreneurial mechanisms for regularly bringing new products and services to market. In such cases human resource policies should be designed to attract and retain proactive, dependable, free-thinkers.
Reward systems align the goals of employees with the goals of the organization. The system must use appropriate incentives to motivate workers to do the right things to fulfil the strategic direction of the organization. The reward system must be congruent with the other design areas to influence strategic direction.
Different business models require different reward systems. If your business model depends heavily on customer satisfaction then your reward system should reflect that commitment. If your model requires a direct sales force to acquire new customers then your reward system should be highly performance oriented.
• Focuses on strategic, intentional and usually large-scale change
• Entails following a variety of steps; the exact steps vary depending upon the model used
• Belief that achieving organizational change is possible through a coordinated and planned approach
• Claims to be appropriate for all types of change
Ten commandements (Kanter, Stein and Jick 1992)
Ten Keys (Pendlebury, Grouard, and Meston 1998)
12 Action Steps (Nadler 1998) 1998 Transformation Trajectory (Taffinfer 1998)
Nine-Phase Change Process Model (Anderson & Anderson 2001) 2001
12 Step Framework (Mento, Jones and Dirndorfer 2002)
Step-by-Step Change Model (Kirkpatrick 2001) 2002
Integrated Model (Leppitt 2006)
RAND’s Six Steps (Light 2005)
The sequences of steps
The number of steps
The timing of steps
The resourcing of steps
The involvement in each step
Managing multiple steps
Revisiting different steps
“Are all steps needed for particular changes?”
Cyclical or linear
• There is a debate between proponents of OD and proponents of change management:
• OD is criticized for giving attention only to human development, and not to technology, operations, and strategy
• Change management is criticized for
• having a focus on the concerns of management rather than on those of the organization as a whole
• being the product of management consultancy firms
• Contingency approaches challenge the view that there is “one best way”
• The style of change or the path of change will vary, depending upon the circumstances, including:
• the scale of the change
• the receptivity to change of organizational members
• the style of change management
• the time period
• the performance of the organization
• Huy’s Contingency Approach categorizes change into 4 ideal types:
• The commanding intervention
• Short-term and rapid
• senior executives
• Downsizing, outsourcing, divesting
• The engineering intervention
• Medium-term and relatively fast
• Analysts
• Changing work design and operational systems
• The teaching intervention
• Long-term and gradual
• Consultants
• Work practices and behaviours
• The socializing intervention
• Long-term and gradual
• Participative experiential learning, self-monitoring
• Democratic organizational practices
• Contingency approaches remain less common than change management approaches.
Suggested reasons include:
• Achieving “fit” may be difficult due to differing perceptions of the conditions in which the fit is sought
• Contingency approaches require greater analysis and decisions by managers; the prescriptiveness of change management models may be attractive to managers
• Contingency approaches focus on leadership style rather than a specific set of actions
• The use of different change styles at different times may raises questions in the minds of staff as to the credibility of senior management.
• There is a question about “what” is contingent to managing change
It sees change as a continuous process rather than a series of linear events within a given period of time
It sees the outcome of change as occurring through a complex interplay of different interest groups, goals, and politics.
This approach alerts the change manager to the range of influences which they will confront and the way in which these will lead to only certain change outcomes being achieved
This approach is often used to provide a detailed analysis and understanding of change retrospectively.
• Diagnosing Resistance
• Parochial Self-interest
• Misunderstanding and lack of trust
• Different Assessments
• Low tolerance for change
• Dealing with Resistance
• Education & Communication
• Participation & Involvement
• Facilitation & Support
• Negotiation & Agreement
• Manipulation & Co-optation
• Explicit & Implicit Coercion
Schlesinger
1979)
Approach
Education & communication
Participation & Involvement
Facilitation & support
Negotiation & agreement
Manipulation & co-optation
Explicit & implicit coercion
Commonly used in situations
Where there is a lack of information or inaccurate information and analysis
Where the initiators do not have all the information they need to design the change, and where others have considerable power to resist.
Where people are resisting because of adjustment problems
Where someone or some group will clearly lose out in a change, and where that group has considerable power to resist
Where other tactics will not work , or are to expensive
Where speed is essential and the change initiators possess considerable power
Advantages
Once persuaded , people will often help with the implementation of the change
People who participate will be committed to implementing change , and any relevant information they have will be integrated into the change plan
No other approach works as well with adjustment problems
Sometimes it is a relatively easy way to avoid major resistance
It can be relatively quick and inexpensive solution to resistance problems
It is speedy, and can overcome any kind of resistance
Disadvantages
Can be very time consuming , lots of people are involved
Can be very time consuming , participators may design an inappropriate change
Can be time consuming, expensive and still fail
Can be expensive in cases if it alerts others to negotiate for compliance. Blackmail
Can lead to future problems , people feel manipulated
Can be risky, people feeling anger, resentment
• "There is now increasing emphasis on qualitative benchmarking, in addition to traditional, quantitative metrics (Broderick et al., 2010)."
• The concept will help organisations to measure current performance levels and identify opportunities for improvement. It explains how to identify strengths, weaknesses and success factors in benchmarking.
• Benchmarking is a continuous and systematic process for evaluating the products, services and work processes of organisations that are recognised as representing best practice for the purpose of organisational improvement (Spendolini, 1992).
• "Brainstorming is the process of free thinking and generating ideas without being bound by restraints such as "is this a good or bad idea?" (Slater and Cory, 2003)."
• Brainstorming is one of the best-known techniques available for creative problem-solving.
• This concept describes the technique and explores its benefits and weaknesses. It goes on to set out procedures for organising effective brainstorming sessions and offers some examples of brainstorming drawn from past experiences of renowned organisations.
• Brainstorming Definition
• Brainstorming is a technique by which a group attempts to find a solution(s) to a specific problem by amassing ideas spontaneously (Osborn, 1953). It is a highly effective technique for maximising group creative potential, not only to generate ideas but also to determine which ideas are most likely to succeed in a specific area of interest (Baumgartner, 2007).
• "... decision making is the most important part of administration and the outcome of decisions depend on the process that is used in making decisions [...] bounded rationality is simply a process model that corresponds with the real world practical decision-making process (Kalantari, 2010)."
• The concept provides a review of the practical decisionmaking process and explores the model’s strengths, limitations and implications by comparing it to the rational behaviour model.
• Bounded Rationality Model of Decision-Making Definition
• There are two primary models or theories for decisionmaking: the Rational model and the Bounded rationality model. In the former, a decision-maker attempts to optimise the decision by selecting the best possible alternative. In the latter, rationality of individuals is limited by the information they have, cognitive limitations and time constraints (Kalantari, 2011).
"Business innovation is the creation of new value and wealth for stakeholders to increase economic prospects (Lorente et al., 1999; Miller, 1995)."
The concept explores innovation and how it can create and capture value for organisations. It will provide professionals with a basic understanding business innovation.
Business Innovation Definition
Business innovation is the creation of substantial new value for customers and the company by creatively changing one or more dimensions of the business system (Sawhney et al., 2006).
In other words, business innovation is the creation and adoption of something new that generates business value. This includes new products, services, or processes, such as integrated supply chain solutions (Sawhney et al., 2006).
"A business model helps managers to explore complex choices, using a set of assumptions to represent alternative future operative environments (Tennent and Friend, 2011) "
This concept is intended as a 'hands-on' practical discussion of how business modelling is used to explore a range of business decisions and to identify the essential elements that drive business.
Business models are "primary tools for the financial analysis of nearly all major business decisions" (Tennent and Friend, 2011:7).
• "Your organisation's success hinges in large part on how well it carries out its business processesactivities that turn inputs such as knowledge and raw materials into products and services that create value for customers (HBR, 2010)."
• Business process improvement (BPI) can enhance internal organisational efficiency and change the way organisations function. The concept provides an overview of BPI and describes the process and tasks used to support an organisational objective.
• Business Process Improvement (BPI) is a method of improving the way a discrete set of business activities is organised and managed (Hammer and Champy, 1994). Business processes refer to the "logical organisation of people, materials, energy, equipment, and procedures into work activities designed to produce a specified end result" (Davenport and Short, 1990). BPI can be achieved by changing the state of elements of a business process (Griesberger et al., 2011).
• "The literature on re-engineering employs the term processes. Sometimes it is a synonym for activities. Sometimes it refers to activities or sets of activities that cut across organisational units (Porter, 1991)"
• The concept describes how to leverage best practices in business process reengineering while avoiding common pitfalls. It also reviews the latest technological and market perspectives.
Business Process Re-engineering Definition
• Business process re-engineering (BPR) is the "fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes aimed at achieving radical improvements in essential contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service and speed" (Hammer and Champy, 1993).
• CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
• "The things we fear most in organizations – fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances – are the primary source of creativity (Margaret J. Wheatley)"
• Continuous improvement strategy has been mostly applied in the field of quality improvement. The concept reviews initiatives that enhance operational performance and reports on research in the area highlighting key success factors, capabilities and business evidence.
• The term continuous improvement (CI) is derived from the Japanese management concept Kaizen. It is a process of constantly introducing small incremental changes in a business in order to improve quality and/or efficiency. Bhuiyan and Baghel (2005) define CI more generally as a culture of sustained improvement targeting the elimination of waste in all systems and processes of an organisation. It involves collective working to make improvements without necessarily making huge capital investments (Bhuiyan and Baghel, 2005).
• "The prevailing approaches to CSR are so disconnected from business as to obscure many of the greatest opportunities for companies to benefit society (Porter and Kramer, 2006)."
• This concept explores the different ways in which CSR is defined and provides an account of success factors and business evidence.
• Corporate Social Responsibility Definition
• Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at large (World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 1999).
• "In pursuing the goal of improving decision making, many different types of computerised DSS have been built to help decision teams and individual decision makers (Arnott and Pervan, 2008)."
• The concept explains the usefulness of decision support systems for organisational problem solving. It describes the types of decision support systems available, their advantages and limitations, as well as real case studies of firms using DSS across different industries and sectors.
• Decision Support Systems Definition
• Decision Support Systems (DSS) are interactive computer-based systems that enable people to use IT communications, data, documents, knowledge and models to solve problems and make decisions. DSS are intended to improve and speed-up the processes by which people make and communicate decisions. However, they are designed to be auxiliary systems instead of replacing skilled decision makers (Power, 2002).
• "Decision trees can assist executives in making strategic decisions (Buckley and Dudley, 1999). "
• The concept describes one of the most used decisionmaking models, a decision tree, which explores all possible decisions and their consequences and allows for comparison of such alternatives in one single pane.
• Decision Trees Definition
• A decision tree is an analytical tool for partitioning a dataset based on the relationships between a group of independent variables and a dependent variable (Coles and Rowley, 1995). It is a pictorial representation of the flow of events in a logical and time-sequenced manner so that the decision-maker can consider the probabilities of each outcome (Marsh, 1993). In other words, it is a decision support tool that uses a tree-like graph or model of decisions and their possible consequences, such as chance event outcomes, resource costs, and utility.
"“The Deming circle is a quality control program. It is a plan for management. Four steps: Design it, make it, sell it, [and] then test it in service. Repeat the four steps, over and over …” (W. Edwards
Deming quoted by The United States General Accounting Office, 1981)."
This concept describes a Plan-Do-Check-Act wheel management model suggested by Deming. The model is used by companies to provide a systematic approach to achieving continuous improvement.
The Deming Wheel is an iterative model developed by W. Edwards Deming composed of four functional elements: plan, do, study, and act. It is a looping model based on the principles of continuous process improvement (Fong et al., 1998).
The Deming or PDCA Cycle (also known as PDSA Cycle), is a continuous quality improvement model consisting out of a logical sequence of four repetitive steps for continuous improvement and learning: Plan, Do, Study (Check) and Act. The PDSA cycle (or PDCA) is also known as the Deming Cycle, the Deming wheel of continuous improvement spiral.
• "Innovation management is the successful introduction of something new: it is the embodiment and synthesis of knowledge in original, relevant, valued new products, processes, or services (Luecke and Katz, 2003)."
• The concept determines the critical factors of innovation management. It reviews the managerial practices of successful innovators and summarises the strengths and limitations of innovative approaches.
• Innovation Management Definition
• Innovation management is the active organisation, control and execution of processes, activities, and policies that lead to the "creation of substantial new value for customers and the firm by creatively changing one or more dimensions of the business system" (Sawhney et al., 2006).
• "Kaizen is a management strategy that focuses on constant, process-oriented improvement (Imai, 1986)."
• Kaizen is a Japanese word typically translated as 'continuous improvement'. The term refers to the strategy of making small improvements on a continuous basis. The concept will help managers and practitioners to better understand how to benefit from applying Kaizen in their organisations.
• Kaizen, as a philosophy, is defined as the spirit of improvement based on the spirit of cooperation and commitment; equally relevant in personal, home, social and working life (Brunet, 2000). The specific application of Kaizen to the workplace means continuing (and relatively inexpensive) improvement involving everyone: top management, managers and workers alike (Imai, 1986).
• "Monte Carlo simulation requires inputting random data into a model to measure the impact of uncertainty on the outcome of a project (Hindle, 2008)."
• Monte Carlo methods are often used to calculate the value of companies, to evaluate investments in projects at a business unit or corporate level, or to evaluate financial derivatives. The concept reviews the basics of the model and explores how and why it is used in organisations.
• Monte Carlo Simulation Definition
• Monte Carlo simulation is essentially “a random number generator useful for forecasting, estimation, and risk analysis. A simulation calculates numerous scenarios of a model by repeatedly picking values from the probability distribution for the uncertain variables and using those values for the event – events such as totals, net profit, or gross expenses” (Mun, 2006:2).
• "Mentoring is a complex relationship and factors including interpersonal skills, level of commitment to the mentoring relationship and organisational influences can all impact on the effectiveness of the mentoring relationship (Woolnough and Davidson, 2007)."
• The concept explains the value of introducing formal mentoring schemes within organisations. It also explains the typical characteristics of a formally-structured mentoring programme, together with the most common implementation steps and objectives which are normally agreed by the mentor and their protégé.
• Mentoring is the professional, one-to-one relationship between a less experienced individual (protégé) and a more experienced person (mentor) which typically aims to advance the personal and professional growth of the former (Wanberg et al., 2006; Woolnough and Davidson, 2007).
• "True paradigm shifts represent drastic, sometimes uncomfortable change. It is not surprising, therefore, that these events can be met with resistance as organisational leaders step outside their comfort zones (Pink, 2005)."
• Paradigms are generally defined as a framework that has unwritten rules and that directs actions. A paradigm shift occurs when one paradigm loses its influence and another takes over. The concept defines paradigm and paradigm shift and explains how it can relate to company strategies and industry cycles.
• Paradigm and Paradigm Shifting Definition
• Although the term 'paradigm' has been around for a long time, wide acceptance and usage of the concept is mainly fuelled by Kuhn’s (1962) seminal work ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions’. Kuhn defined scientific paradigms as "accepted examples of actual scientific practice that include laws, theory, application and instrumentation that provide models from which particular coherent traditions of scientific research springs’’. Baker (1992) defined a paradigm as "a set of rules and regulations that establishes or defines boundaries and tells you how to behave inside those boundaries".
• There are five components to the framework for structured problem solving.
• Understand the problem. This is the most important step in assessing the extent of the problem. By identifying the symptoms, root causes, impacts, and significance, you paint a picture on relevance and why the company should care. Without the understanding, it is difficult to assess how much effort the company should devote to solve the problem.
• Determine the solution requirements. The requirements establish the criteria for the solution. Subject to the availability of resources, the depth of a solution varies the level of automation and how eloquent it performs the task. The segregation of the must-haves and nice-to-haves provide choices when determining where to invest the capital.
• Articulate options. The options must satisfy the core requirements and address the most significant concerns. Keep an open mind in developing the options. Consult the customers, partners, and subject matter experts for an objective and impartial view on how things could be done better.
• There are five components to the framework for structured problem solving.
• Evaluate options. In order to do a proper evaluation of the options, there needs to be a welldefined list of assessment criteria. This list comprises all the factors that would be considered in comparing the options. These factors include capital investment, effort, return on investment, timeliness, and others that tie to the solution requirements. Often, weights are assigned to reach the relative importance.
• Select a solution. The final choice of a solution is made when the proper evaluation is complete. It is important to note that both the quantitative and the qualitative analyses need to be considered. Regulatory requirements that must be met would take priority. The decision maker needs to consider all the pertinent information and select a solution best suited for the problem.
• A structured problem-solving approach places the focus on facts, issues, and solutions. This minimizes the tendency to play politics and coercion for support. It also promotes consistency when comparing alternatives in across the company.
• "The key to quality circles is the willingness of the employees to volunteer to become involved in the technique (Brahm and Kleiner, 1996: 33)."
• This concept introduces managers and business owners to a riskfree way to engage employees in the process of decision-making and shift organisations toward a more participative culture.
• Quality Circles Definition
• Quality circles are small groups of employees who meet frequently to help resolve company quality problems and provide recommendations to management (Kerzner, 2009: 878).
"Scenarios are thorough and probable views of how business environments might extend in to the future (Ringland, 2002)."
The concept describes what business scenarios are and how to build a stepby-step process when developing a strategic plan. You will also learn what factors are critical for the success of scenario planning and the advantages and disadvantages of this approach.
Scenario Planning Definition
Scenario planning is a technique of strategic planning that relies on tools and technologies for managing the uncertainties of the future. It involves developing different plausible representations of an organisation’s future, based on assumptions about the forces driving the market and including different uncertainties (Kotler and Keller, 2011).
• "A large number of scenarios and outcomes … are impossible to comprehend and evaluate without the help of a computer simulation model (Harrington and Tumay, 2000)."
• Simulation is normally used to assess the current, or predict the future, performance of a business process. The concept is designed to help practitioners and business owners discover new ways to improve their business processes through the use of mathematical, statistical and other analytical methods.
• Simulation Definition
• Simulation typically uses statistical and computer modelling to investigate the performance of a business process either for a new situation or to improve an existing set of processes. By modelling different process scenarios and outcomes, companies can minimise the traditional risks associated with change management initiatives without having to make changes in a 'live' business environment where performance could adversely be affected (Harrington and Tumay, 2000).
"Strategy should reflect a distinctive value chain that configures all key business processes and operations (operations, HRM, marketing, service delivery, etc.) in a unique way that is difficult for competitors to imitate (Porter, 2001)."
This concept reviews the formal and rational processes that can help organisations achieve the strategic positioning of their products and brands. It also addresses the success factors and implementation recommendations.
Strategic positioning is concerned with the way in which a business as a whole distinguishes itself in a valuable way from its competitors and delivers value to specific customer segments (Wickham, 2001: 230).
• "Organisations can be described as a collection of departments or functions that align together to cope with uncertainty (Hickson et al., 1971)."
• Power and politics are understood as fundamental and important factors in managing strategic contingencies. Relevant practical case evidence and implication advice provided helps leaders to minimise the potential impact caused by a risk factor, threat or emergency.
• Strategic Contingency Definition
• A contingency is "a requirement of the activities of one subunit which is affected by the activities of another subunit. What makes such a contingency strategic is that the more contingencies are controlled by a subunit, the greater is its power within the organisation.
• For example, an engineering subunit has power because it quickly absorbs uncertainty by repairing breakdowns that interfere with the different workflows for each of several organisational outputs" (Hickson et al., 1971).
"Strategic planning concerns how an organisation makes sense of where it is going, and the path it will adopt to get there (Kaplan and Beinhocker, 2003)"
This concept reviews the process of strategic planning and shows how companies can implement strategies to enhance company and product competitiveness. It also offers a summary of the benefits of the process and examples of its application.
Strategic Planning Definition
Strategic planning is a disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions and actions aimed at shaping the nature and direction of an organisation’s activities (Bryson, 1988; Rudd et al., 2008).
• "The adage ‘you can’t manage what you can’t measure’ is especially true of project management. The most common measures are time, cost, and quality (Atkinson, 1999).“
• Project management is the planning, monitoring and control of all aspects of a project and the motivation of all those involved in it to achieve the project objectives on time and to the specified cost, quality and performance (BSI, 1996).
"Essentially, a good understanding of stakeholder management enables a firm to compete effectively by building and prioritising key relationships (Co and Barro, 2009; Friedman and Miles, 2002)."
The purpose of the concept is to explore the ideas and experiences in developing and applying stakeholder analysis. The concept sets out the benefits of stakeholder analysis and provides indicative guidelines and recommendations for its implementation.
Stakeholder analysis refers to the methodological process of identifying the different types of individuals and groups who have an interest in or impact on an organisation. Stakeholder management is the processes and strategies deployed by the organisationto manage stakeholder expectations and power levels, as well as conflicts of interest (Co and Barro, 2009; Lynch, 2006).
Total quality management (TQM) is an ongoing process of detecting and reducing or eliminating errors. It is used to manufacture to streamline supply chain management, improve customer service, and ensure that employees are trained.
The focus is to improve the quality of an organization's outputs, including goods and services, through continual improvement of internal practices.
Total quality management aims to hold all parties involved in the production process accountable for the overall quality of the final product or service
"Successful strategy execution has two basic rules: understand the management cycle that links strategy and operations, and know what tools to apply at each stage of the cycle (Kaplan and Norton, 2008)."
This concept offers a practical guide to using the Balanced Scorecard and is designed to assist executives to benefit from this strategic management technique.
The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a strategic management technique for communicating and evaluating the achievement of the mission and strategy of the organisation using both financial and nonfinancial measures (Drury, 2004).
• The Balanced Scorecard (or balance score card) is a strategic performance measurement model which is developed by Robert Kaplan and David Norton. Its objective is to translate an organization’s mission and vision into actual (operational) actions (strategic planning).
• A balanced scorecard is a strategic management performance metric used to identify and improve various internal business functions and their resulting external outcomes. Balanced scorecards are used to measure and provide feedback to organizations.
• Advantages Of The Balanced Scorecard
• It gives structure to your strategy.
• It makes it easy to communicate your strategy.
• It aligns your departments and divisions.
• It helps your employees see how their individual goals link to the organizational strategy.
• It keeps your strategy front and center of your reporting process.
Strategy Perspective Goals Measures
Financial
Shareholder satisfaction
Customer
Customer satisfaction
Internal
Future
High quality people & processes
ROC, EVA, Cash, Sales growth, Cost reduction
Retention Development Acquisition Cycle time, Quality, Cash conversion, Service levels
NPD, Employee
Learning & growth development, Adaptability
• "PESTEL is an important tool used for market and environmental analysis and to support strategic decision making (Narayanan and Fahey, 2001)."
• As a company looks to leverage its capabilities and expand, it is imperative that it considers a PESTEL analysis to accompany the SWOT analysis. This concept explains the fundamentals of the techniques and explores its strengths and weaknesses.
• PESTEL Analysis Definition
• The PESTEL framework is an analytical tool used to identify key drivers of change in the strategic environment. PESTEL analysis includes Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental factors, but other variants include PEST, PESTLIED (including International and Demographic factors), STEEPLE (including Ethical factors), and STEEPLED (including Education and Demographic factors) (Johnson et al., 2008).
• The five tracks to organizational success constitute a completely integrated program. Each track is implemented as a collaborative, participative effort among managers, consultants, and members.
Track Description
Culture Track
Skills Track
The culture track consists of a five step process: (1) surfacing actual norms, (2) articulating what is needed for success today, (3) establishing new norms, (4) identifying culturegaps, and (5) closing culture-gaps. The culture track first exposes the old culture and then, if necessary, creates a new adaptive culture.
The skills track is needed because employees usually have not kept up with the holographic world in which they live and its dynamic, complex problems. They often have not developed the skills—conceptual, analytical, administrative, social, and interpersonal—to manage complexity. The skills track also offers a systematic method for uncovering the underlying assumptions that drive all decisions into action.
Team Track As the culture and skills tracks are encouraging new behaviors, skills, and assumptions, the next effort lies in directly tra nsferring these learnings into the mainstream of organizational life. Specifically, the team track does three things: (1) keeps dysfunctional behavior in check so negativity will not disrupt cooperative team efforts, (2) brings the new learnings into the day-to-day activities of each work group, and (3) enables cooperative decisions to take place across work group boundaries, as in multiple team efforts.
Strategy-Structure Track
Reward Track
The strategy-structure track is conducted in an eight step process: (1) making strategic choices, (2) listing objectives to be achieved and tasks to be performed, (3) analyzing objective/task relationships, (4) calculating inefficiencies that stem from an out-of-date structure, (5) diagnosing structural problems, (6) designing a new structure, (7) implementing the new structure, and (8) evaluating the new structure.
Once the organization is moving in the right direction with the right structure and resources, the reward system track completes the program by making sure that rewards vary directly with performance. The formal system is designed via a seven step process: (1) designing special task forces to study the problem, (2) reviewing the types of reward systems, (3) establishing several alternative reward systems, (4) debating the assumptions behind the alternative reward systems, (5) designing the new reward system, (6) implementing the new reward system, and (7) evaluating the new reward system.
The Congruence Model was developed in the early 1980s by organizational theorists David A. Nadler and Michael L. Tushman.
It's a tool for identifying the root causes of performance issues. It can also be used as a starting point for identifying how you might fix them.
It's based on the principle that a team or organization can only succeed when the work, the people who do it, the organizational structure, and the culture all "fit" together – or, in other words, when they are "congruent"
Where there is incongruence, or a poor fit, between these four critical elements, problems will arise.
You can have the latest technology and processes, but decision making will be slow and problematic if the organizational culture is bureaucratic.
Work refers to the tasks carried out by employees. It’s important that the result of these tasks are aimed at the company objectives. It should be apparent which skills or knowledge are required for tasks and company activities, and these should be present to a sufficient degree within the organisation.
People are an important part of the organisation and the congruence within it, and form an important part of the Nadler-Tushman Congruence Model. A company aimed at innovation is looking for pioneering, fast-thinking people. A sales company is mostly focused on finding sales talent. It should be known of employees which skills and knowledge they possess, whether they have experience, and what education they have followed. It should also be known how they would like to be individually rewarded and compensated for their work. For motivated staff, it’s also important that they should be able to develop potential within themselves.
Although aligning the work from the first of the four elements is important, aligning the organisational structure is even more important. Structure is the third component of the NadlerTushman Congruence Model. It creates consistency between what an organisation wants and what it does. A company that responds to new market developments needs a flexible corporate structure that is able to quickly adjust to the changing market. A company chain with outlets in various regions would benefit more from a hierarchical structure with regional managers.
The corporate culture consists of values and norms, behavioural patterns and rules, both written and unwritten. The corporate culture also has great influence on the way it supports and stimulates the corporate results. Sometimes, an organisation’s culture needs to change before the organisation is able to adjust to a new business focus. A relaxed, informal corporate culture may work well for a startup, but will need to become somewhat more mechanical upon growth. There are also organisations where the focus is on employees and their well-being. This happens in altruistic organisations
• The Congruence Model is also a useful tool for thinking through how changes you make within a team or organization will impact upon other areas.
To apply the Congruence Model, look at each component and then analyse how they relate to one another.
1. Analyse Each Element
2. Analyse the Relationships Between the Elements
3. Build and Sustain Congruence
Limitations of the Congruence Model
It doesn’t tell you how to fix those problems.
It doesn't recommend a "best" culture or "best" structure, nor any specific action plans or problem-solving techniques. You'll need individual tools to help you here. Task Allocation, for example, can help you to pair the right people with the right work. And Organization Design is an effective approach for aligning work and structure.
Emphasises the importance of achieving "fit" between the elements, and of organizing them in a way that supports your strategy.
Focuses mostly on the internal environment – it's often important to consider what's happening outside the team or organization. (Tools such as PEST Analysis and PMESII-PT can be useful here.)
• "Six Sigma is considered a disciplined effort that closely examines a company’s repetitive processes for product design, production, suppliers, products and services, and the organisation as a whole (Defeo, 1999)."
• The Six Sigma concept is designed for professionals who are not familiar with it but need to have a basic understanding of what it means and how it can benefit their organisations. You will learn Six Sigma basics, advantages and limitations.
• Six Sigma Definition
• Six Sigma is a method of comparing organisation process performance with critical customer needs, ensuring that business outputs (its products and services) are consistently designed to exact customer requirements. The technique aims to produce products that are virtually defect-free (Antony and Banuelas, 2002; Simmons, 2002).
DMAIC: EXISTING COMPANY DMADV: NEW COMPANY
Define the problem and the project goals
Measure in detail the various aspects of the current process
Analyze data to, among other things, find the root defects in a process
Improve the process
Control how the process is done in the future.
Define the project goals
Measure critical components of the process and the product capabilities
Analyze the data and develop various designs for the process, eventually picking the best one
Design and test details of the process
Verify the design by running simulations and a pilot program, and then handing over the process to the client
Six Sigma actually has its roots in a 19th Century mathematical theory, but found its way into today’s mainstream business world through the efforts of an engineer at Motorola in the 1980s. Now heralded as one of the foremost methodological practices for improving customer satisfaction and improving business processes, Six Sigma has been refined and perfected over the years into what we see today.
No matter what the setting is, 6 sigma aim is to improve business process by removing the causes of the errors that has led to defects in their products or service.
The two major methodologies used within six sigma, both of which are composed of five sections.
A framework developed by Marvin Weisbord, this model is one that can help you to accurately assess the functioning of your organization. One of the advantages of using this specific model is its ability to adapt to just about any business that you happen to be in.
Weisbord suggests you ask yourself a set of questions for each area being examined. The aim of this process is to reveal information you previously were not aware of, and subsequently expose possible areas of weakness. Below we have summarised a few of the key questions Weisbord suggests you ask for each area of investigation.
Acknowledging the main mission and vision of the organisation and asking yourself how well the goals it sets itself and its employees are understood is a good first step. Then assessing how well these goals fit with your organisation’s competencies may reveal why it is not operating at maximum efficiency. The setting of these goals is also important, every employee should not only be aware of them, but also contribute to their design.
Firstly, determine the nature of your organisational design, who reports to who and who does what. This can then be aligned with the processes of the organisation to determine how well they are being supported. More specific questions, about communication pathways for example, can then be asked to determine how efficient these processes are.
This section explores team dynamics, communication and collaboration occurring within the organisation. A lack of communication between different departments is often an invisible cause of many issues.
The incentive mechanism is very important for determining employee performance and can often be a key cause in organisational issues. It is not only important to assess how employees are being rewarded, but also what work is being rewarded. Generous reward systems may exist, yet some employee’s achievements may be consistently ignored. This lack of recognition can lead to resentment and demotivation.
It is the job of the organisation’s leaders to ensure all these elements are running properly, as well as making sure the correct balance is struck between them. They are also responsible for resolving any internal conflict that may be occurring. Weisbord suggests asking who these leaders in the organisation are, how they have got there and how effective they are at the tasks they are responsible for.
Assessing the communication pathways, policies and procedures and planning, budgeting and controlling systems for organisational processes can often reveal areas of inefficiency. Weisbord’s 6 box model is not going to solve all of your organisation’s underlying issues, but it is an excellent tool for starting the process. It is a logical and practical tool for investigating all the key areas of the business for possible weaknesses.
• "The things we fear most in organizations – fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances – are the primary source of creativity (Margaret J. Wheatley)"
• Continuous improvement strategy has been mostly applied in the field of quality improvement. The concept reviews initiatives that enhance operational performance and reports on research in the area highlighting key success factors, capabilities and business evidence.
• Continuous Improvement
• Continuous Improvement Definition
• The term continuous improvement (CI) is derived from the Japanese management concept Kaizen. It is a process of constantly introducing small incremental changes in a business in order to improve quality and/or efficiency. Bhuiyan and Baghel (2005) define CI more generally as a culture of sustained improvement targeting the elimination of waste in all systems and processes of an organisation. It involves collective working to make improvements without necessarily making huge capital investments (Bhuiyan and Baghel, 2005).
• A Kaizen event, or blitz, is a set of specific actions taken with clearly defined goals for improvement. They are small steps; simple, planned actions taken by a group of workers to effect process improvement. A Kaizen event is alternatively called a “blitz” because that term describes its rapid pace to conclusion.
• "Effective people management involves providing an environment where employees can perform at their optimum level (Gross, 2009)."
• OD interventions aim to find out the root cause of problems so that robust, sustainable solutions can be implemented. Application advice, typical success factors and measures provide practical advice on how to succeed with OD projects.
• Organisation Development Definition
• Organisation Development (OD) is a process that is "planned, organisation-wide, and managed from the top". The goal of OD is to increase organisational effectiveness and health through planned interventions in the organisation's processes and structures (Beckhard, 1969). In essence, OD is a "planned system of change. Organisation development is seen as a process that applies behavioural science knowledge and practices to help organisations achieve greater effectiveness" (Cummings & Worley, 2005).
• Business process re-engineering (BPR) is a business management strategy, originally pioneered in the early 1990s, focusing on the analysis and design of workflows and business processes within an organization. BPR aimed to help organisations fundamentally rethink how they do their work in order to improve customer service, cut operational costs, and become world-class competitors.
• BPR seeks to help companies radically restructure their organizations by focusing on the ground-up design of their business processes. According to early BPR proponent Thomas H. Davenport (1990), a business process is a set of logically related tasks performed to achieve a defined business outcome. Re-engineering emphasized a holistic focus on business objectives and how processes related to them, encouraging full-scale recreation of processes rather than iterative optimization of sub-processes.
• Business process reengineering is also known as business process redesign, business transformation, or business process change management.
• "The literature on re-engineering employs the term processes. Sometimes it is a synonym for activities. Sometimes it refers to activities or sets of activities that cut across organisational units (Porter, 1991)"
• The concept describes how to leverage best practices in business process reengineering while avoiding common pitfalls. It also reviews the latest technological and market perspectives.
• Business Process Re-engineering Definition
• Business process re-engineering (BPR) is the "fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes aimed at achieving radical improvements in essential contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service and speed" (Hammer and Champy, 1993).
• The EFQM excellence model is a non-prescriptive business excellence framework for organizational management, promoted by the EFQM and designed to help organizations to become more competitive.
• Regardless of sector, size, structure or maturity, organizations need to establish appropriate management systems to be successful. The EFQM excellence model is a tool to help organizations do this by measuring where they are on the path to excellence, helping them understand the gaps, and promoting solutions.
• A number of research studies have investigated the correlation between the adoption of holistic models such as the EFQM excellence model, and improved organizational results. The majority of such studies show a positive link. One of the most comprehensive of these was carried out by Vinod Singhal of the Georgia Institute of Technology and Kevin Hendricks of the College of William and Mary.
• The EFQM model provides a framework allowing organisations to determine their current "level of excellence" and where they need to improve their efforts. The model also helps to ensure that business decisions incorporate the needs of all stakeholders and are aligned with the organisation's objectives.
• The EFQM model acts as a common reference. It provides its users with a set of performance improvement tools in order for them to achieve and sustain business success. The model is regularly reviewed to incorporate new ideas, concepts and learning. The last revision was published in 2013.
• The EFQM model is used to obtain a complete view of the organizational performance and to understand the relations of cause and effects between what organisations do and the results they achieve.
• Components
• The model consists of three components:
• Eight core values or key management principles that drive sustainable success
1. Adding value for customers
2. Creating a sustainable future
3. Developing organisational capability 4. Harnessing creativity and innovation 5. Leading with vision, inspiration and integrity 6. Managing with agility 7. Succeeding through the talent of people 8. Sustaining outstanding results
• Nine criteria, separated into five "enablers" (leadership, people, strategy, partnerships and resources, and processes, products and services) and four "results" (people, customer, society, and business results)[
• RADAR logic, continuous improvement cycle used by EFQM.
• It was originally derived from the PDCA cycle.
• Determine the Results aimed at as part of the strategy
• Plan and develop a set of Approaches to deliver the required results now and in the future
• Deploy the approaches in a systematic way to ensure implementation
• Assess and Refine the deployed approaches based on monitoring and analysis of the results achieved and ongoing learning
Communication
• Setting expectations from the beginning through key stakeholder communications at each step of the learning programme builds trust and understanding of the benefits, again helping to ensure that there is a positive interpretation of the outcome of the project.
• At completion of a Leadership development programme one way to establish success through communication is through the Brinkerhoff Success Case Method, 2003 (SCM) which involves identifying the most and least successful cases through a training programme by collecting qualitative data from surveys, KPIs and performance reports to answer the following questions.
• What is really happening?
• What results, if any, is the program helping to produce?
• What is the value of the results?
• How could the initiative be improved?
Brinkerhoff, 2003.
The CIPD devised a 'RAM' approach which places alignment at the centre of L&D strategy development which helps to focus the analysis on the key business and organisational outcomes in terms of:
Relevance: how strategy will meets opportunities and challenges for the business
Alignment: how the strategy aligns to other strategies in the business , for example HR and finance
Measurement: how the strategy will be evaluated effectively and consistently. (CIPD, 2020
• "In pursuing the goal of improving decision making, many different types of computerised DSS have been built to help decision teams and individual decision makers (Arnott and Pervan, 2008)."
• The concept explains the usefulness of decision support systems for organisational problem solving. It describes the types of decision support systems available, their advantages and limitations, as well as real case studies of firms using DSS across different industries and sectors.
• Decision Support Systems Definition
• Decision Support Systems (DSS) are interactive computer-based systems that enable people to use IT communications, data, documents, knowledge and models to solve problems and make decisions. DSS are intended to improve and speed-up the processes by which people make and communicate decisions. However, they are designed to be auxiliary systems instead of replacing skilled decision makers (Power, 2002).
• "Decision trees can assist executives in making strategic decisions (Buckley and Dudley, 1999). "
• The concept describes one of the most used decisionmaking models, a decision tree, which explores all possible decisions and their consequences and allows for comparison of such alternatives in one single pane.
• Decision Trees Definition
• A decision tree is an analytical tool for partitioning a dataset based on the relationships between a group of independent variables and a dependent variable (Coles and Rowley, 1995). It is a pictorial representation of the flow of events in a logical and time-sequenced manner so that the decision-maker can consider the probabilities of each outcome (Marsh, 1993). In other words, it is a decision support tool that uses a tree-like graph or model of decisions and their possible consequences, such as chance event outcomes, resource costs, and utility.
• Three Important Factors in Decision-making
• When a decision must be made, the desired management style and the degree of participation of team members are influenced by three important factors. The Vroom Yetton Jago Decision Model therefore demands proper thought before answering the series of questions. By considering the three specific factors, better insight is formed about the decision to be made. The following three factors are important in each decision situation:
• The Quality of the Decision
• The quality of the decision to be taken is about how much impact the decision will have and how important it is to find the right solution. The higher the decision’s quality, the more people must be involved in the decision process.
• Involvement and Collaboration
• Involvement and collaboration concerns the question of how important it is that everyone agrees to the decision in a team. Depending on how important this is, the degree of participation must be raised or lowered.
• Time Constraints
• How much time is there to take decision? If there’s little time, a fast autocratic approach might be more desirable, as there’s no time to lose in certain situations. If there’s a lot of time, there are more options to involve more team players in the decision process.
• The way in which these factors influence the situation helps the user to determine what the best leadership style and decision method are.
The way in which these factors influence the situation helps the user to determine what the best leadership style and decision method are.
The Vroom Yetton Jago Decision Model distinguishes between three leadership styles and five different decision processes:
Autocratic I (A1)
• In this decision process, the leader uses the available information to make a decision independently. The opinion of team members or external parties is not consulted in this case. Although the decision itself is not dependent upon the team members, and their opinion doesn’t matter, it is important that the made decision is communicated openly and clearly towards the team.
Autocratic II (A2)
• Here too, the leader independently makes the decision, but the difference with autocratic style 1 is that the leader has a bit more time and gathers information from team members or external parties. The team members don’t know why information is requested from them and don’t think about the situation, alternative or eventual choice.
Consultative I (C1)
• The leader adopts a consulting role and actively takes the lead to have team members individually give their opinion about the situation, the problem and the decision to be made. Here, the team’s involvement is higher than in the autocratic decision-making style. However, the decision is still made by the leader; he can choose to disregard the team’s opinion and input when these haven’t changed his outlook on the situation.
Consultative II (C2)
• Where the leader requests the individual opinions from the team members in the first consulting style, he brings the team
• Decision-making is one of the most crucial challenges for managers. A global survey of CEOs cited by John Adair found that the ‘ability to take decisions’ was rated as the most important of 25 attributes required by senior managers.
• The way in which decisions are made will be influenced by an organisation’s structure, procedures and policies, and more subtly by its culture and politics. It should also depend on the nature of the decision, for example the levels of uncertainty involved, whether a creative or technical approach is needed, and how many people are involved.
• One well-known method for making decisions on specific issues was developed by Charles Kepner and Benjamin Tregoe in their book "The Rational Manager" published in 1965.
• Their research was based on their observations at RAND Corporation of how air force managers made decisions. They realised that while few were able to articulate their decision-making process, those who made better decisions could be seen to follow more logical processes.
• Kepner and Tregoe’s rational model can be an effective technique for determining a course of action and securing commitment to it. It is most suitable where a straightforward and technical approach is needed, rather than where creative thought is desirable.
• The model assumes that you can access all of the information you will need to make the decision. It requires that:
• a single goal and clear options can be defined
• preferences are unambiguous and constant
• there is a high level of certainty about outcomes.
If used in the right circumstances, this model has several advantages over processes based on intuition. The rational model:
• takes a thorough and systematic approach
• aims to be impartial and transparent
• provides evidence and support for how the decision was made
• relies on effective information-gathering, rather than preconceived ideas
• prevents managers from being distracted by their emotional responses
There can, however, be drawbacks, because the method:
• can be very time-consuming and resource-intensive, especially in fast-moving situations
• relies heavily on information which may prove difficult to gather
• requires fairly strict adherence if the outcome is to be a rational decision
• leaves little room for intuition or lessons learned from past experience
• 1. Identification of problem
• 2. Identification of Decision Criteria
• 3. Allocation of weights to criteria
• 4. Development of alternatives
• 5. Analysis of alternatives
• 6. Decide on an alternative
• 7. Implementation of decision
• 8. Evaluation of decision
All alternatives and consequences are known
Preferences are clear
Preferences are constant and stable
Single, welldefined goal is to be achieved
Problem is clear and unambiguous
Final choice will maximize payoff
No time or cost constraints exist
Ladder of Inference (Argyris & Senge, 2006), The Ladder of Inference was first put forward by organizational psychologist Chris Argyris and used by Peter Senge in The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. The Ladder of Inference describes the thinking process that we go through, usually without realizing it, to get from a fact to a decision or action. The thinking stages can be seen as rungs on a ladder
• The Six Thinking Hats is a role-playing model presented by. It serves as a team-based problem solving and brainstorming technique that can be used to explore problems and solutions and uncover ideas and options that might otherwise be overlooked by a homogeneously thinking group.
• De Bono's Six Thinking Hats is a powerful technique for looking at decision making from different points of view. It allows emotion and skepticism to be brought into what might normally be a purely rational process, and it opens up the opportunity for creativity within decision making.
Wicked problems are difficult to define; there is no definitive formulation.
1. Wicked problems are difficult to define; there is no definitive formulation.
4. There is no immediate and ultimate test for solutions.
2. Wicked problems have no stopping rule.
3. Solutions to wicked problems are not true or false, but rather good or bad.
5. Every solution is a “one-shot operation”; there is no opportunity to learn by “trial-anderror”, and attempts may have irreversible effects.
6. These problems do not have an enumerable set of possible and clear solutions.
7. Every wicked problem is essentially unique.
8. Every wicked problem may be a symptom of another problem.
9. The existence of a discrepancy representing a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways.
10. The planner has “no right to be wrong”, i.e., policymakers or planners are liable for the consequences of the solutions they generate, and the public have no tolerance or trust in initiatives that fail.
• "Strategic planning concerns how an organisation makes sense of where it is going, and the path it will adopt to get there (Kaplan and Beinhocker, 2003)"
• This concept reviews the process of strategic planning and shows how companies can implement strategies to enhance company and product competitiveness. It also offers a summary of the benefits of the process and examples of its application.
• Strategic Planning Definition
• Strategic planning is a disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions and actions aimed at shaping the nature and direction of an organisation’s activities (Bryson, 1988; Rudd et al., 2008).
• "Organisations can be described as a collection of departments or functions that align together to cope with uncertainty (Hickson et al., 1971)."
• Power and politics are understood as fundamental and important factors in managing strategic contingencies. Relevant practical case evidence and implication advice provided helps leaders to minimise the potential impact caused by a risk factor, threat or emergency.
• Strategic Contingency Definition
• A contingency is "a requirement of the activities of one subunit which is affected by the activities of another subunit. What makes such a contingency strategic is that the more contingencies are controlled by a subunit, the greater is its power within the organisation. For example, an engineering subunit has power because it quickly absorbs uncertainty by repairing breakdowns that interfere with the different workflows for each of several organisational outputs" (Hickson et al., 1971).
• "The Freedom of Information Act 2000 encompasses information held not only by public organisations, but also by their contractors and suppliers in the private sector (CIPS Knowledge Works, 2009)."
• The Freedom of Information Act 2000 encourages organisations to work in a responsible manner. By adopting a policy of openness, organisations can engender greater public trust and confidence. Implementation steps are presented and strengths and drawbacks of the legislation are discussed.
• Freedom of Information Act 2000 Definition
• The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) is a legislative framework set by the UK Government “to promote transparency and accountability in the public sector and to revolutionise the conduct and behaviour of public sector organisations” (CIPS Knowledge Works, 2009).
"The prevailing approaches to CSR are so disconnected from business as to obscure many of the greatest opportunities for companies to benefit society (Porter and Kramer, 2006)."
This concept explores the different ways in which CSR is defined and provides an account of success factors and business evidence.
Corporate Social Responsibility Definition
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at large (World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 1999).
1. Understand how to apply solutions to organisational change
2. Understand how to develop a change strategy using implementation models
3. Understand how to analyse an organisational response to change
4. Be able to evaluate the impact of change strategies