Page 350 - Managing Change in Organizations

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Change leadership
■ Problem orientation. Is management a search for a solution or a search for the
guilty? In the event of problems and setbacks, is the organization likely to be
focused on blame or on how to progress? Cultures are problem-oriented to the
extent that activity and effort is constructive and focused on solutions and
achievement rather than failure and blame.
■ Transparency. Nothing is more likely to encourage a problem orientation than
greater transparency of process. ‘Blame cultures’ thrive in secrecy and obscurity.
■ Management of expectations. People respond to expectations of change as much
as to change itself. Predictions about ‘what’s in it for me?’ will abound, as will
fears or enthusiasms about the demands and opportunities in the new ways of
working created by the proposed changes. For example, faced with a proposal
for ‘downsizing’ people will conclude that those who remain will have to work
harder. Even so, many will predict that others will not be affected. In the
absence of hard information people will predict consequences and those pre-
dictions will reflect existing stereotypes, including views about who wins and
who loses. So here we are looking at the extent to which expectations are pro-
vided for in terms of the provision of information about impact and of a
process in which they are to be engaged to work on developing new jobs and
so on.

Change leadership

Leadership cannot be examined other than as an interactive process. Leaders
must have ‘followers’ so, logically, if we are to understand change leadership we
need to say something about followers. One of the limitations of many models
of change is that each ‘stakeholder’ group is treated as if it could be considered
as a homogenous group in the context of change. In this model we seek to go
beyond that simplification by relying on the diffusion of innovation literature
(essentially the work of Rogers (1995)) identifying four categories of responses
to change within any group impacted by a given change. There are early and
late adopters, to make a simple distinction. The early adopters are likely to be

more venturesome, more able to cope with ambiguity, uncertainty and risk.
They are also more likely to be ‘well adjusted’ in the organization. Most inter-
estingly, research by Kelman (2005) shows that ‘most respected co-workers’ are
most influential with peers once the initial case for change has been made, just
when we are seeking to consolidate and deepen change implementation. One
role for leaders during this deepening period of change is that of providing sup-
port and ‘cover’ to people seeking to come to terms with the changes, including
working out the problems and local solutions in order to reach a sensible out-
come at local level. Rather than specify the solution in rigid detail it is better to
encourage local-level problem solving led by the most respected co-workers,
supported by local leaders with senior leaders focused on the overall integrity of
design and on the intended outcomes. Down that route lies the possibility of a
sense of ‘ownership’.
Moreover, the sponsorship of those ‘most respected co-workers’ group by group
as ‘early adopters’ would become a key leadership task. Not that all will respond.
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