Page 319 - Managing Change in Organizations

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Chapter 16 ■ Learning from change
4 Members of the organizations concerned operate with stereotyped attitudes
with respect to the behaviour of other people and treat complaints from the
general public or members of other organizations in a fairly cursory manner,
believing them to come from non-experts who do not fully understand the
issues involved.
5 Where signs of possible hazards emerge, some will be recognized and planned
for but others will be neglected because:
(a) they are not recognized by those working within a particular occupational
or organizational stereotype;
(b) of pressure of work;
(c) recognizing them and taking action would require the investment of time,
money and energy;
(d) few of the individuals concerned feel that quite probably it will not hap-
pen anyway.
Thus, in general, ‘failures’ are characterized by problems of communication,
problems of perception and attitudes, problems of uncertainty, inadequacy of
procedures for handling the situation and, therefore, of training. While there is
some overlap with Child’s list, important additional factors are identified here.
We should note, however, that Child was concerned to identify signs of problems
stemming from the structure of an organization whereas Bignell et al.’s list deals
with conditions for failures generally. We should also note that not every failure
will be caused by all the problems previously identified. Lorange and Nelson
(1987) identify the following four signs of organizational decline:
1 Entrapment: blinded by their own previous success, people can demonstrate a
powerful tendency to self-deception. Upturns can follow downturns and we
can delude ourselves into not recognizing the message that more and longer-
lasting downturns indicate – that of being out of date.
2 Hierarchy orientation: where decisions are made more on issues of internal pol-
itics than in terms of market and competitive goals.
3 Desire for acceptance, conformity: already discussed as ‘group think’ in Chapter 8.

4 Too much concern for consensus and compromise: all decisions being turned over
to teams, working parties and the like.
Lorange and Nelson also identify a number of early warning signals of decline, as
follows:
1 Excess personnel, particularly of staff and line management.
2 Tolerance of incompetence.
3 Inflexible and time-consuming administrative procedures.
4 Process dominates substance; for example, where the process of corporate
planning leads to the production of thick binders full of numbers and strate-
gic options which do not get implemented.
5 Lack of clear goals.
6 Absence of and fear of conflict.

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