Organisational Development and Change
Introduction to the field
Organisational psychology focus: study of mind & behaviour in teams and organisations
- Well-being
- Motivation
- Change resistance
- Psychological safety
- Commitment and ownership
- Relation building
- Helping and leading
Organisational behaviour (three levels)
Individual level:
- Personality, perception, expectations, feelings, motivation, stress, burnout, well-being
- Knowledge & skills
Group level:
- Communication, trust, problem-solving, decision-making
- Leadership, group effectiveness
Organisation and system level:
- Structure & culture
- Inter-organisation cooperation/competition/CSR: how can organisations work together
- Organisational learning, organisational development, change mgt
VUCA:
- Volatility: increasing rate of change; the world is constantly changing eg AI
- Uncertainty: less clarity about the future
- Complexity: multiplicity of decision factors; multiple things to take into account
- Ambiguity: there may be no “right answer”
Organisational learning: used to point to sth you do to become better; holds on an individual level but also on
group level
Development is always a positive situation while change can also be difficult things that you didn’t always want
Examples of organisational change: mergers (different company cultures); restructuring and reorganisation;
new ways of working
Examples of learning & change: new ways of working (flex-office, activity-based office), culture change (from
specialised to collective, from traditional to innovative), restructuring & reorganisation, m&a, co-creative
leadership and implementing self steering teams, implementing new software
70% of the change processes fail; don’t achieve the intended results (goals aren’t met, initiatives fade away,
clients unhappy, employees show change resistance) ; most managers blame ‘circumstances’ or ‘individual
features’ and not the process of change itself
Reasons mostly attributed to low success ratio: unclear policy, hierarchical structure, ppl want to keep power,
ppl are change resistant and want to keep their identity, existing culture impedes change
Boonstra: many change processes fail bcs the approaches don’t fit today’s context; the wrong approach is used
to do the change
,Three types of change/learning:
First order change:
- Stable, predictable situations
- Technical/instrumental problems are solved in an existing context
- Logical adjustments without changing values/culture
- No reflection
-> Approach 1: planned change approach:
- “IMPROVING” metaphor of remodelling a house
o Organisation as adaptive to market demands, ‘economic’ model
o Top-down steering, managers using power or persuasion
o Consultants are knowledge experts
o Single linear process within a culture/structure that stays the same
o Structured, uniform, ‘techniques’; plan in advance
- Is overused; after a while of failed change efforts, ppl lose their motivation
Second order change:
- Problems are complex, several perspectives on problems/solutions
- Replacing current values and assumptions by new ones
- Transition from A to B is needed, there are ideas how B should look
- Reflection
-> Approach 2: organisation development approach:
- “CHANGING”, metaphor of moving to another house
o Using knowledge and insight of coworkers
o Consultants are process-consultants that help building a transition to point B; movement
from A to B; ppl and organisation is separate; change agents (eg consultants) and employees
also separate
o Based on existing situations and problems
o Collaborative process, commitment
- Danger for paternalism and manipulation: change agents and consultants become the social engineers
who guide the change and seduce ppl to participate; manager or consultant that seduces you to go in
the direction that the top wants to go
Third order change:
- Turbulent, complex, ambiguous situations
- New forms of organising towards unknown new situation
- Multiple actors and organisations work together; not limited to one organisation; different
stakeholders etc that come together
- Reflection-on-reflection
-> Approach 3: continuous learning and cocreating approach
- “CONTINUOUS RENEWAL”, metaphor of going on adventure
o Organising as ongoing relational process and sensemaking
o Employees, leaders and consultants cocreate new reality
o Changing is continuous process of endless modifications
o Collaborative process, stakeholder involvement, ‘everybody is expert’
o “relational perspective”, ownership and dialogue are central
- Future is unknown; continuously renewing; collaborative process; everybody is invited to think about
the direction that will be taken; get everybody together and try to create the new situation together
, Five change theories
Unfreeze-change-freeze model (Lewin)
Unfreeze: create an awareness of why the current way is hindering; questioning old values; creates a
(controlled) crisis
- Result: strong reactions but they are necessary to create a strong motivation to find a new equilibrium
Change: make ppl truly understand how change helps them; offering training and support; time & a lot of
communication are crucial; ppl begin to learn new behaviour, processes etc
Freeze/refreeze: after a critical mass accepts the change; consolidating change (a new form of stability);
rewards and acknowledging efforts; reinforcing, stabilising new ways
The changes in this model are more like first-order changes
Eight steps toward transformation (Kotter)
Each of the steps are necessary to succeed: forgetting a step or an error in a step creates problems
1. Create a sense of urgency -> in order to change, ppl have to feel that the old way isn’t working
anymore, that there is a need for change
- Assumption that creating a sense of urgency is a catalysator for change has become central in the way
many managers think about organisational change
2. Form powerful guiding coalition (top-down vision)
3. Create compelling vision
4. Communicate vision
5. Empower others & remove obstacles
6. Create ST wins
7. Consolidate & build on change
8. Institutionalise change
Kotter model is based on making ppl feel bad to make them realise that change is needed
Change triangle (Bouwen & Fry)
What should managers focus on when transforming their organisation (~how)
- Continuity: change means disruption (should have
attention for it), managing strengths, appreciating what is
already there, knowing what the culture is, knowing what
the strong points are
- Novelty: creating a shared vision; new ideas, visions,
intentions etc
- Transition: making sure learning occurs; ppl have to have
space to go from one stage to the other; letting ppl think
about things etc
- You need to balance all three of them to make a good
change, if you only have two, it won’t be a good change
Four pathways for innovation (Bouwen & Fry)
POWER model
- Authority w access to power resources
- Imposing change, declaring change
- Interest and power
- Are we really in control?
