Organizational change and development
Organizations experience the opportunity to change in real
time and with real issues that are generated by such phenomena
as:
- Acquisitions, mergers, and alliances
- Business strategy shifts
- Business shortfalls or anticipated vulnerabilities
- New leadership
- Low productivity and/or employee morale
- Mandate to redesign or reengineer work
- Joining the continuous quality improvement movement
- Unusually high levels of strife and stress among people
- New vision and ambition regarding the future
- Diagnosis of entropy and a call for a more resilient
culture
- Being challenged to go outside the boundaries of the
current mental model
- Salivating over an opportunity
- Breakthrough learning
These are all triggers for realizing the opportunity to
change intentionally. And they are moments when organizations
usually need outside guidance in how to best carry out their
intentions to change.
The Harvest Rune of the ancient Book of Runes says:"You
can't make the beans grow faster by pulling on them. "This
points to the reality that human organizations are organic,
just like plants. Organizations are not machines for which
engine parts can be exchanged....and thus fix the engine.
Changes in organizations are organic.They need to be grown,
not plugged in.So time is needed to make effective changes
in organizations. And "green
thumb" gardening expertise, otherwise known as knowledge
in organizational change, is helpful. Organic change requires
preparation of the soil for the transplanting that follows,
as well as cultivation and time for growth. Organisms are
self-correcting systems, so the act of help is focused on
facilitating the organism to renew itself. The processes
of change resemble the development of new hybrids (or permanently
changing ones diet, learning a second language, or becoming
proficient at Bach and Beethoven). The organization is much
more than structure.It is heart and soul, a culture evolving
over time.
Just like all living organisms, an organization has a "DNA" that
differentiates it from all others. Discover your "DNA" as
an organization; What really are you or ought you be at your
core? Use that "DNA" and leverage it for greater success.
Since everything within a system is interrelated with everything
else, all you have to do to change the system is to change
something within it.In turn everything else will change,
at least somewhat. Each smaller change will leverage larger
change.If you change something critical, then everything
else will be affected more critically. Changing one behavior
and modeling it will often modify that behavior in others.It
is important to understand the principle of leverage when
trying to change an organization.
"All you need is a critical mass of people with a shared
vision. "Any significant organization change is accomplished
through a few people who are desirous of change, and who
place themselves strategically throughout the larger organization
in order to gradually impact the knowledge, attitudes, and
behaviors of many people. They also continue to support and
assist each other as a group with a shared vision, even though
they are dispersed throughout the greater organization. The
shared vision is critical in that it is a new story, and
a new story drives an organization's energy and compels the
alignment of people so that it can leave behind its old story.
By definition there is always resistance tochange, and that
resistance must be identified and its negative energy absorbed
by the critical mass of people with their new story or vision
before the organization can move ahead with the desired change.
For a fundamental change to be successful it must have three
elements:
1. Dissatisfaction with the current situation
2. Desirability of the proposed change
3. Relative practicality of the change, such as sufficient
resources and sufficient know-how regarding its implementation
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