Page 199 - Managing Change in Organizations

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Chapter 11 ■ Strategies for change

Management performance and learning

One thing is clear from this case. Senior managers needed to learn that preceding
systems and styles were no longer working. A narrow focus on outdated objectives
was one problem, the autocratic management style another. Until they learned
that change was needed their approach was simply more of the same, only mak-
ing things worse. Where fundamental changes are needed we must first look at
how managers see the problems. What feedback systems are used? How do they
monitor performance? What do they monitor? What strategies and approaches
are they using to effect improvements? How do they monitor and review these
strategies? Do they modify their approach in the light of feedback? Are new ideas
encouraged? Are they examined carefully? Are the needed resources available? Do
the existing systems of performance appraisal, promotion, product development,
pay and benefits training, corporate culture and management style encourage or
inhibit either the achievement of corporate objectives or improved performance?
First and foremost, therefore, we need to review managerial performance.

Effective team work
I well remember hearing a senior manager from an international oil company
state that ‘the problem of managing change is, in essence, a multi-functional
problem’. We have worked hard in our organizations to develop highly compe-
tent and professional functions, but as the functions have changed, developed
and improved so we have more and more problems in obtaining collaboration
between them. Integration becomes a key task. Thus we must add to managerial
performance and learning the need to gain more effective collaboration across
functional boundaries.
Partly, this is a matter of attitudes and understanding. Partly, it is a matter of
effective information and control. In ABF Ltd it was vital to integrate the work of
sales and production. Partly, it is a matter of jargon. The oil company manager
gave the management of information technology projects as an example. He
argued that it was increasingly recognized that the key to success in such projects

was to gain effective user and specialist collaboration. This is often made the
more difficult given the specialist jargon that both information technology and
user departments may use. Going a stage further, he noted that his company, in
common with many others, now always allocated responsibility for managing IT
projects to user department managers.

Effective organizational structures and systems

Next an effective structure and systems need to be in place either to sustain exist-
ing strategies or to implement new ones. There must be appropriate account-
abilities, reporting systems, information and authority, and resource allocation.
Revised systems, performance appraisal, promotion and so on need to be
defined in order to sustain or improve performance against the organization’s
objectives. Without effectiveness here, other changes (say new products or new
technology) cannot be properly deployed or exploited.

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