Page 257 - Managing Change in Organizations

CarnCh13v3.qxd 3/30/07 4:31 PM Page 240

Chapter 13 ■ Managing major changes
behaviour becomes volatile and unpredictable? In fact, people respond differently.
Some stress motivates people by providing challenge. But we need to avoid stress-
ing ourselves and others overmuch; it can lead to people feeling ‘swamped’.

The coping cycle

Changes which have a significant impact on the work that people do will have a
significant impact on their self-esteem. So much is well established (see Cooper,
1981; de Vries and Miller, 1984; Kirkpatrick, 1985). Linked to this impact on self-
esteem will be an impact on performance. I suggest that performance will be
affected in three ways, as follows.
The new systems, processes, structures, etc. will have to be learned. This takes
time. There is a learning-curve effect as people build their performance up through
learning. There is also a progress effect as the new system is commissioned, the
snags ironed out and modifications introduced to enable performance to be
improved. I remember being invited to a large new factory in Scandinavia ‘to see
our new robots’. There were 27 of them and on the day of the visit only six were
working. In some cases this was because the staff involved had not yet learned to
program or maintain them; in others it was because the robot had proved inca-
pable of meeting the task requirements without modification. Thus, while learn-
ing-curve and progress effects are interrelated they are, however, quite different
in origin. New systems never work 100 per cent to specification first time.
Especially if the specification is wrong.
In addition to these performance effects there is also the self-esteem effect. I sug-
gest that significant organizational changes create a decline in self-esteem for
many of those who are directly affected. This decline has an impact on perform-
ance. The link between satisfaction, feelings of well-being, self-esteem and per-
formance has been the subject of much research. Lawler (1978) and Steers and
Porter (1979) present excellent reviews of much of this work. Whatever the causal
mechanisms involved and whatever the direction of the relationship, there does
seem to be a clear link, albeit a small one. Combine the suggested self-esteem

effect with the learning-curve effect and the progress effect and we get a signifi-
cant potential effect on performance. All the effects are interrelated. We propose
that the driving force for rebuilding performance subsequent to a major change
will be the rebuilding of self-esteem. However, as we shall see, this can be helped
by action on the learning-curve and progress fronts. I summarize this discussion
with a simple model based on the work of de Vries and Miller (1984) and Adams
et al. (1976). In the model I propose five main stages. These are capable of more
detailed analysis but for both practical and pedagogic purposes I have presented
a simplified model. The model is shown in Figure 13.5.

Stage 1: Denial

When significant changes are first mooted the initial response may be to deny
the need for change: ‘We have always done things this way.’ ‘Why change, we are
making a profit, aren’t we?’ ‘Don’t change a winning team.’ ‘We tried that before

240