Guide The Power of Spirit: How Organizations Transform

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One of the leading pioneers in the field of organizational change argues that real transformation does not result from corporate mandate but from the expression of the spirit and passion of the people in the organization.
Table of contents

These sessions, once conducted mainly in outside courses for representatives of many different organizations, are increasingly being used inside individual companies for effecting change. Compared to the previously discussed approaches, the T-group places much less emphasis on the discussion and solution of task-related problems. Instead, the data for discussion are typically the interpersonal actions of individuals in the group; no specific task is assigned to the group.

The basic assumption underlying this approach is that exposure to a structureless situation will release unconscious emotional energies within individuals, which, in turn, will lead to self-analysis, insight, and behavioral change. The authority figure in the group, usually a professional trainer, avoids asserting his own authority in structuring the group. Instead, he often attempts to become an accepted and influential member of the group. Thus, in comparison to the other approaches, much more authority is turned over to the group, from which position it is expected to chart its own course of change in an atmosphere of great informality and highly personal exchanges.

As we have seen, each of the major approaches, as well as the various forms within them, rests on certain assumptions about what should happen when it is applied to initiate change. Now let us step back and consider what actually does happen—before, during, and after a particular approach is introduced. To discover whether there are certain dimensions of organization change that might stand out against the background of characteristics unique to one company, we conducted a survey of 18 studies of organization change. The successful changes generally appear as those which:.

In all, eight major patterns are identifiable in five studies reporting successful change, and six other success studies show quite similar characteristics, although the information contained in each is somewhat less complete. See the Appendix for studies included in the survey Consider:. Robert R. Blake, Jane S. Mouton, Louis B.

Studying Organizational Development Efforts

Barnes, and Larry E. Robert H. Seashore and D. Gene W. Dalton, Louis B. Paul R. Lawrence et al. Floyd C. Arensberg et al.


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New York, Harper and Brothers, The organization, and especially top management, is under considerable external and internal pressure for improvement long before an explicit organization change is contemplated. Top management seems to be groping for a solution to its problems. A new man, known for his ability to introduce improvements, enters the organization, either as the official head of the organization, or as a consultant who deals directly with the head of the organization. An initial act of the new man is to encourage a reexamination of past practices and current problems within the organization.

The head of the organization and his immediate subordinates assume a direct and highly involved role in conducting this reexamination. The new man, with top management support, engages several levels of the organization in collaborative, fact-finding, problem-solving discussions to identify and diagnose current organization problems. The new man provides others with new ideas and methods for developing solutions to problems, again at many levels of the organization.

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The solutions and decisions are developed, tested, and found creditable for solving problems on a small scale before an attempt is made to widen the scope of change to larger problems and the entire organization. The likely significance of these similarities becomes more apparent when we consider the patterns found in the less successful organization changes. Let us briefly make this contrast before speculating further about why the successful changes seem to unfold as they do.

Where each of the successful changes follows a similar and highly consistent route of one step building on another, the less successful changes are much less orderly see Appendix for a list of these studies. The less successful changes begin from a variety of starting points.

The Transformations That Work—and Why

This is in contrast to the successful changes, which begin from a common point—i. Only one less successful change, for example, began with outside pressure on the organization; another originated with the hiring of a consultant; and a third started with the presence of internal pressure, but without outside pressure.

Another pattern of inconsistency is found in the sequence of change steps. In the successful change patterns, we observe some degree of logical consistency between steps, as each seems to make possible the next. But in the less successful changes, there are wide and seemingly illogical gaps in sequence. One study, for instance, described a big jump from the reaction to outside pressure to the installation of an unskilled newcomer who immediately attempted large-scale changes.

In another case, the company lacked the presence of a newcomer to provide new methods and ideas to the organization.

Individual and Organizational “Action-Logics”

A third failed to achieve the cooperation and involvement of top management. And a fourth missed the step of obtaining early successes while experimenting with new change methods. A final pattern of inconsistency is evident in the major approaches used to introduce change. In the successful cases, it seems fairly clear that shared approaches are used—i.

In the less successful attempts, however, the approaches used lie closer to the extreme ends of the power distribution continuum. Thus, in five less successful change studies, a unilateral approach decree, replacement, structural was used, while in two other studies a delegated approach data discussion, T-group was applied. None of the less successful change studies reported the use of a shared approach. How can we use this lack of consistency in the sequence of change steps and this absence of shared power to explain the less successful change attempts?

In the next section, I shall examine in greater depth the successful changes, which, unlike the less successful ones, are marked by a high degree of consistency and the use of shared power. My intent here will be not only to develop a tentative explanation of the more successful changes, but in so doing to explain the less successful attempts within the same framework.

Keeping in mind that the survey evidence on which both the successful and the less successful patterns are based is quite limited, I would like to propose a tentative explanatory scheme for viewing the change process as a whole, and also for considering specific managerial action steps within this overall process.

The framework for this scheme hinges on two key notions:. Successful change depends basically on a redistribution of power within the structure of an organization. By power, I mean the locus of formal authority and influence which typically is top management.

By redistribution, I mean a significant alteration in the traditional practices that the power structure uses in making decisions. I propose that this redistribution move toward the greater use of shared power. Power redistribution occurs through a developmental process of change. This implies that organization change is not a black to white affair occurring overnight through a single causal mechanism.

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Rather, as we shall see, it involves a number of phases, each containing specific elements and multiple causes that provoke a needed reaction from the power structure, which, in turn, sets the stage for the next phase in the process. Using the survey evidence from the successful patterns, I have divided the change process into six phases, each of them broken down into the particular stimulus and reaction which appear critical for moving the power structure from one phase to another.

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Exhibit I represents an abstract view of these two key notions in operation. Let us now consider how each of these phases and their specific elements make themselves evident in the patterns of successful change, as well as how their absence contributes to the less successful changes. This initial stage indicates a need to shake the power structure at its very foundation. Until the ground under the top managers begins to shift, it seems unlikely that they will be sufficiently aroused to see the need for change, both in themselves and in the rest of the organization.

The success patterns suggest that strong pressures in areas of top management responsibility are likely to provoke the greatest concern for organization change. These pressures seem to come from two broad sources: 1 serious environmental factors, such as lower sales, stockholder discontent, or competitor breakthroughs; and 2 internal events, such as a union strike, low productivity, high costs, or interdepartmental conflict. These pressures fall into responsibility areas that top managers can readily see as reflecting on their own capability. An excerpt from one successful change study shows how this pressure and arousal process began:.

As this example points out, it is probably significant when both environmental and internal pressures exist simultaneously. When only one is present, or when the two are offsetting e. However, when both are present at once, it is easier to see that the organization is not performing effectively.

The presence of severe pressure is not so clearly evident in the less successful changes. In one case, there was internal pressure for more effective working relations between top management and lower levels; yet the company was doing reasonably well from a profit standpoint. In another case, there was environmental pressure for a centralized purchasing system, but little pressure from within for such a change. While strong pressure may arouse the power structure, this does not provide automatic assurance that top management will see its problems or take the correct action to solve them.

As a result, we find a second stage in the successful change patterns—namely, intervention by an outsider. Important here seems to be the combination of the fact that the newcomer enters at the top of the organization and the fact that he is respected for his skills at improving organization practices. Being a newcomer probably allows him to make a relatively objective appraisal of the organization; entering at the top gives him ready access to those people who make decisions affecting the entire organization; and his being respected is likely to give added weight to his initial comments about the organization.

Thus we find the newcomer in an ideal position to reorient the power structure to its own internal problems. This occurs in the successful changes as the newcomer encourages the top managers to reexamine their past practices and current problems. Otherwise, we would not find top management undertaking the third stage—identifying and diagnosing organization problems. We can see how an outsider was accomplishing this reorientation in the following comment by the plant manager in one successful change study:.

But he was an outsider, supposedly an expert at this sort of thing. So maybe he could see our problems better than we could. I asked him what we ought to do, and he said that we should begin to identify our specific problems. Three of the less successful changes missed this step. Two of the three attempted large-scale changes without the assistance of an outsider, while the third relied on an outsider who lacked the necessary expertise for reorienting top management. Here, we find the power structure, from top to bottom, as well as the newcomer, joining in to assemble information and collaborate in seeking the location and causes of problems.

This process begins at the top, then moves gradually down through the organizational hierarchy. Most often, this occurs in meetings attended by people from various organization levels. A shared approach to power and change makes itself evident during this stage.