Page 268 - Managing Change in Organizations

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Involving people
give them up . . . Secrecy guards projects that require creativity and prolonged
work: the tentative and the fragile, unfinished tasks, probes and bargaining of
all kinds . . . Lack of secrecy would, for instance, thwart many negotiations,
in which all plans cannot be revealed at the outset. Once projects are under
way however, large portions of secrecy are often given up voluntarily, or dis-
pelled with a flourish.
Bok, 1984, page 181
Some degree of control over information provided may be justified at the indi-
vidual level to protect identity, plans and action, or choices for the individual.
Thus it applies as much to the senior manager as it does to the employee. This,
then, is the dual nature of the question.
Openness and sharing of information is valuable as a means of facilitating
change. Yet other pressures apply. There are counteracting pressures which create
limits for the individual whose job may be changed, for the people who have
taken the initiative, planned and gained support for change and who are now
seeing it through to implementation. Our concern, then, should not simply be
to provide information but, rather, to establish the means by which people
involved can control the information to be provided – not a purist answer
because there is no guarantee here against abuse. But no such guarantee exists,
short of domination and coercion. Making the issue explicit seems likely to cre-
ate conditions under which valid and relevant information can be established
without undermining the identity of those involved. To do otherwise is to be
careless of the people involved in a change situation and careless of the quality
of information to be obtained.

Give people time

People need time to get through a major change. This is especially true if the
change requires them to solve problems. Spend time with people. It is important
to listen to their views. They may well know better than you do about the details
of a particular job, system or work area. Always reinforce the new situation in

your discussion. Empathy is important but remember that the concern should be
to help them build energy for change. Encourage people to put off those deci-
sions which are not needed immediately. Recognize that everyone needs to feel
their way forward in a period of change. Help them to see personal milestones,
jobs to train for, objectives to achieve, systems to get working. Routines and mile-
stones provide stability and structure. People need time to get through change
but they also need to structure that time. Do not impose this structure.
Encourage it to emerge.

Involving people

Whether, when, to what extent and how people are involved in a change situa-
tion needs careful thought because there are both advantages and disadvantages,
as discussed in the following.

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