Page 49 - Managing Change in Organizations

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Chapter 2 ■ Organization structures: choice and leadership
All of this implies that empathy, the ability to seek gains for all partners, flexibil-
ity and learning all become vital skills in the new organization. As we shall see, they
are also vital skills for those managing major change. Hastings (1993) writes about
organizational networking in terms of the need to break down organizational bound-
aries, create successful partnerships, connect computers and connect people. This
implies a new set of priorities for management in this new organization. New man-
agement roles that Hastings thinks may be emerging include those of mentor (long
talked about, increasingly practised), broker (connecting people, ideas and resources)
and what he calls the ‘counterpart’. This he describes as a vital role for the success of
joint ventures and strategic alliances, but it can be extended into project teams and
other internal networks. The role is about providing explicit liaison between links
(e.g. joint venture partners) over and above the informal linkages. Looking at cultural
change at BP, he reported the company view of the old and the new culture (the lat-
ter being one intended to encourage networking) as in Figure 2.1.
Not least of the characteristics of effective people in the new culture is that of
personal impact – influencing others through example and recognition of their
needs. But to conclude, the new thinking about organizations emphasizes the
need for new thinking about careers and career development as well as moves to
develop what has been called ‘the self-reliant’ manager (Bones, 1994).
The other source of pressure for change to which we have briefly referred is
that of internationalization. Doz and Prahalad (1991) identify characteristics of
the diversified internationally operating company as follows:
■ Organizational solutions based simply on either centralization or decentral-
ization will not meet the complexity of the modern environment.
■ Processes and structure need to allow differentiation to meet the needs of var-
ious products, functions and countries.

Old culture New culture

● Hierarchies ● Teams
● Boundaries ● Connections
● Internal focus ● External focus

● Paternalistic ● Empowerment
● Second guessing ● Trusting
● Controlling ● Supportive

● Action
● Analysis
● Calculated risk taking
● Risk aversion
or innovation
Figure 2.1 The new and old organizational cultures (after Hastings, C., (1993))

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