3 From the language of “New Year’s Resolutions” to the language of competing commitments
4 From the language of big assumptions that hold us to the language of assumptions that we hold
5 From the language of prizes and praising to the language of ongoing regard
6 From the language of rules and policies to the language of public agreement
7 From the language of constructive criticism to the language of deconstructive criticism (pp. 8–9)
They argue that these seven languages play a role in conversations that we have at individual, team, and organizational levels, and that they often inhibit us from making the changes we seek to make. New conversations can encourage greater learning and achieve change.
The role of the change agent implied by social construction models of change is to facilitate an appropriate environment for these conversations. Managing change in this vein is more like coaching an improvisational jazz band than turning a series of levers and dials on a machine. Creating change does not mean rigidly following the same set of rules through a well-defined process no matter what is trying to be changed, but being inventive and creative with how it is achieved, negotiating among different stakeholders to produce the dialogues that need to happen for change to succeed. In this approach, “the job of a change agent . . . is to initiate, maintain, and complete conversations so as to bring into existence a new conversational reality in which new opportunities for action are created and effective action takes place” (J. D. Ford, 1999, p. 492). How effective change is depends on how well new conversations are initiated and adopted. Marshak and Grant (2011) argue that multiple levels of conversation exist at which to intervene to accomplish change: the intrapersonal (cognitive frames and schema), the personal (one’s own language choices), the interpersonal and the small group (conversations occurring between individuals or in groups), and the organizational level (official discourses and statements of mission and values). Each of these conversations is in some way implicated in effective change.
Jeffrey and Laurie Ford (2008) have developed a practical tool called the conversational profile for change managers to use in analyzing and interpreting the four kinds of change conversations described earlier. They invite managers to log their conversations during a period of 2 weeks or so. Managers write, as in a journal, who participated in the conversation and what was said, as close to a verbatim record of the conversation as they can recollect. Managers then identify which types of change conversations they have engaged in most frequently, and they can then alter their approach if the results of those conversations have not resulted in the outcome they expected or desired.
After seeing analysis of their conversations and results, managers come to their own conclusions about what might be missing or not working; that is, develop a hypothesis, which they can then test by altering either the type of conversations they use or the content of those conversations. (p. 455)
Managers might realize, for example, that they engage in conversations for understanding, assuming that action will follow, but that they have not been explicitly engaging in conversations for performance in which actions are discussed.
New Paradigms in OD
In addition, related to the social construction approach to change, new paradigms are emerging in organization development that take the social construction philosophy quite seriously. One of these has been influenced by the study of self-organizing systems in biology and other disciplines. The complex adaptive systems perspective, like the social construction approach reviewed above, rejects the notion of the organization as a machinelike set of interconnected and systematized parts that form a predictable whole. Instead, this view sees the organization as ever-changing based on emerging patterns of self-organization created by the interactions of those agents acting as part of it (Olson & Eoyang, 2001). This approach rejects the belief inherent in systems theory that systems are generally alike and general principles can be applied to predict how they will react and respond. Instead, complex adaptive systems thinking believes that individuals and organizations respond differently depending on the circumstances, so behavior cannot be predicted and controlled so systematically. This implies that managing change does not work from a top-down perspective, as in systems theory, but instead, “the role of the change agent is to use an understanding of the evolving patterns to . . . affect the self-organizing path, to observe how the system responds, and to design the next intervention” (Olson & Eoyang, 2001, p. 16). For many observers, this approach resonates because it highlights how changes can adapt and spread throughout a system to illustrate how even small changes made to a single project team can have expansive effects across the organization.
Another of these emerging paradigms, a dialogic approach to OD, similarly supports the notion that changes in an organization can be continuous and emergent, and that they are based in the narratives and changing conversations of organizational members. This view also takes seriously the notion that the organization and its changes are not objectively real phenomena (nor that there is agreement about them) that exist apart from the reality defined and ascribed to them by organizational members. In fact, there are likely to be multiple and competing discourses about change circulating at any given time. What does this view imply about the role of the OD practitioner? To fully appreciate the implications of the dialogic perspective on OD, we will postpone a more complete description of this perspective until the next chapter, when it can be effectively contrasted with a classic diagnostic OD process.
At this point, you may be wondering which of these explanations of organizational change is the most appropriate one to use. Each offers benefits and contains drawbacks, making some elements of the organization visible while it obscures others. From a philosophical perspective, there are some fundamentally incongruous assumptions between the two schools of thought, so buying into multiple perspectives would seem impossible (e.g., the nature of organizational structure as representing an empirical reality versus being socially constructed).
From a practitioner’s pragmatic view, however, each of these models offers unique insight into a client’s environment. For some, what matters is not so much which model is right, but instead which model helps to facilitate additional understanding and is most consistent with both a practitioner’s approach and the client’s need. For example, in a highly structured hierarchical environment or in a stable organization not experiencing rapid change, clients may be more drawn to systems theory approaches. Alternately, in a rapidly changing or uncertain environment, practitioners may find it enlightening to examine a team’s language during meetings to better understand how the team is arriving at decisions or how team member conflicts reflect different underlying assumptions. Using multiple models may also help to illuminate new aspects of a situation, since being overly wedded to one particular model may blind the practitioner to important information (Burke, 1993). What is important is to be conscious of the assumptions of the approach being taken and the consequences of those assumptions.
Practices in Leading Change
No matter the model of change that guides it, many scholars and practitioners believe that there are several practical steps and ideal leadership practices that will facilitate change. Kotter (1996) has outlined eight steps that leaders should follow in instituting a major change in their organizations:
1 Establishing a sense of urgency. Fight complacency about current performance by examining current performance and measuring it against competitors or other benchmarks.
2 Creating the guiding coalition. Build a team of energetic, capable leaders who have expertise and credibility to lead the change.
3 Developing a vision and strategy. Create an engaging description of the future and the path that will be taken to get there.
4 Communicating the change vision. Communicate regularly, using multiple media, in jargon-free language, what the change will mean and why organizational members should be enthusiastic.
5 Empowering broad-based action. Remove organizational, systemic, skill, and policy barriers