Page 346 - Managing Change in Organizations

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Components of change architecture
present a challenge to the organization and its people. But does it? What if the
past saw little change? What if competitors are not engaged in transformational
or breakthrough change? What if political leaders are not pressing on with rapid
change? In the current era none of these statements seem likely to be true on the
face of it, but there is a kernel of truth here. We need a definition of ambition
which goes beyond the relativist position because only with such a definition can
we judge ambition on a reasonably consistent basis. Of course, any definition will
certainly be socially constructed . . . our point here is that we seek a means to
avoid accepting the view of those directly involved merely at face value.
In most cases ambition is also defined relative to what competitor organizations
are or seem likely to achieve. This is one level of benchmarking. Another is to take
a particular category of activity in the organization and then judge ambition in
comparison to ‘best in class’, comparing an organization to its equivalents else-
where or comparing it to the world’s best, always assuming you can identify either.
With this in mind we propose that ambition can be recognized by various char-
acteristics. Just as you can recognize an ‘old master’ by characteristics of composi-
tion, brushwork and so on, so can we recognize an ambitious programme of change
by the extent to which we can identify the presence of the following characteristics:

■ Creative destruction. To what extent are existing infrastructure, departments,
and activities being taken out to enable a significant shift of resources towards
new priorities?
■ Distinctive value. To what extent are the changes planned judged likely to
deliver a clear and distinct growth in the value of the business or in the orga-
nization’s activity?
■ Distinctive operational efficiency. To what extent are the changes planned judged
likely to deliver clear and distinct operational efficiencies?
■ Integration. To what extent does the change planning/implementation process
depend on the integration of internal and/or external knowledge sources about
the organization, its clients, its market space, competitors and so on? Are
processes in place to do so? Are we engaged in internal and external benchmark-
ing for example?

■ Simultaneous change. Can we observe many changes going on concurrently?
To repeat, any definition of ambition based on the above ideas is socially con-
structed . . . not least because stakeholder judgements will often be involved. But
some of the above is observable and therefore we have the prospect of triangula-
tion based in part on observable data, rather than on the various views of those
stakeholders.

Components of change architecture

Here I simply argue that arrangements need to be in place to achieve certain tasks
common to any typical change programme. Again we can observe whether or
not they are in place as a first step. These components are as follows:
■ Engagement of the top team.
■ A steering process is devised to ensure effective leadership and governance.
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