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Chapter 14 ■ Change architecture

would be included. A steering group was established to oversee the changes, and an
implementation plan comprising 107 key activities was agreed. A comprehensive com-
munication programme was established including the formal launch attended by 170 key
BBC staff. This was followed up by staff meetings, workshops, question and answer
forums and the distribution of a Producer Choice brochure.
A series of one- and two-day courses was implemented over the 18 months to spring
1993 involving 1800 staff from different levels. In parallel, workshops were arranged for
all levels of BBC staff to discuss and debate Producer Choice, not least to continue the
process of raising awareness.
In parallel with these activities, an overhead review, a resource utilization review and
a market testing process were also underway. Headcount was reduced by 19 per cent
between 1990 and 1993.
Producer Choice commenced with a pilot period. This opened with groups of senior
BBC managers attending workshops in which a custom-designed simulation of the BBC
under Producer Choice was used as a vehicle for ‘piloting’ the model. Seventy-two sen-
ior managers were involved.
There were myriad implementation problems associated with this change, many of
which were predicted by the pilot exercise. Many junior staff noted that the 481 business
units created under the new regime was unnecessarily high, creating a large ‘paper
chase’. Nevertheless, by 1994, survey and other data suggest that value for money had
improved and, moreover, the BBC now had credible measures of its market performance.
The number of business units had been reduced to 200. While not ever anything but con-
troversial, Producer Choice appears to have been part of a process of culture change
needed by the BBC as it moved into the era of global competition for media and the dig-
ital age. But results from staff surveys (based on the Burke–Litwin model) undertaken in
1994 and 1995 suggest that staff were not opposed to the ideas of Producer Choice, but
rather that they believed the pace of change was out-running the ability of management
to create the infrastructure needed to deploy the new ways of working. Thus, while issues
of resistance to change commitment, stress and anxiety were all too apparent, a crucial
question related to infrastructure. Would it be in place? If not, the new approach would
not work. If so, staff would prefer the old, comfortable ways. If yes then, given the tools,
they felt able to work in new ways. On this view, success in change is about whether peo-
ple involved see a ‘change architecture’ which looks able to deliver that infrastructure,

and resistance to change is as much about resistance to half-hearted changes which look
likely to fail – not resistance to change as such.
Source: Felix (2000)

Conclusion

Is there a difference between engagement and involvement? I argue that this is so.
For example, if I ask someone to send me their views on a particular topic I seek
to gain their engagement with the topic and the issues involved. But I have not
sought to involve them in the process of debate, dialogue, decision making and so
on. We could only describe this as an example of involvement by defining the lat-
ter too widely to be useful. Again, if I ask someone to think about the implications
for them of a particular change before a career counselling discussion I am seek-
ing to engage their thinking about the change without involving them.

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