Process Improvement and Change
Table of Contents
Chapter 1- Changing organization in a complex world ........................................................................... 2
Chapter 2: how to lead organizational change: frameworks .................................................................. 7
Chapter 4: Building the need for change (Awakening)......................................................................... 12
Chapter 5: navigating change through formal structures and systems ................................................ 18
Chapter 6: organizational politics and culture ...................................................................................... 24
Chapter 7: managing recipients of change and influencing internal stakeholders ............................... 29
Chapter 8: becoming a master change agent........................................................................................ 36
Chapter 9: action planning and implementation .................................................................................. 43
Chapter 10 get and use data throughout the change process .............................................................. 51
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, Chapter 1- Changing organization in a complex world
Defining organizational change
Organizational change: intentional and planned alteration of organizational components to improve
organizational effectiveness.
- Enhancing effectiveness increases the ability to generate value, so it is essential for managers
to know what is happening in/outside the organization and adapt to those changes.
Organization components include the organization’s:
- Mission and vision, Strategy, Goals, Structure, Processes or systems, Technology, People
When the change target is more deeply imbedded in the organization and intangible, the change
challenge is magnified.
Sustained behavioral change occurs when people in the organization understand, accept, and act.
Through their actions, the new vision or strategy becomes real.
• The target of change needs to be considered carefully.
The orientation of this book
The organizational member who has a broader perspective on the value of his or her contributions
and on the task at hand is likely to be a more committed and capable contributor.
• Change capability is a core managerial competence. why? Without change individuals cannot
operate effectively in today’ fluctuating shifting organizations.
The knowing-doing gap: Managers need to become effective agents of change, possessing the will
and skills to make positive change happen -they struggle at this however.
Environmental forces driving change today
Much change starts with shifts in an organization’s environment.
Environmental scanning and early warning systems allow for action before customers are lost or
provide paths to new customers and or new services.
Environmental forces driving change (PESTEL factors)
- Political changes
- Economic changes
- Social, cultural, and demographic
- Technologies
- Legal changes
- Ecological/ environmental factors
Turbulence and ambiguity define the landscape for both
the public and private sectors.
Martec’s law
- Technologies change exponentially fast, while
organizations change logarithmically slowly. The
more time progresses, the greater the distance
between the two becomes.
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,Responses to the external environment can escalate risks When
economy is low, the fertility rate is high.
Companies appear to be ill prepared to deal with this aging population. With aging populations
organizations can expect pressures to manage age prejudice more effectively. Innovative solutions
will be welcomed by aging members of the workforce and an increasing necessity for employers.
New organizational forms and management
Change leaders need to be able to identify how external events can impact organizational dynamics
Macro changes and impact
- Digitalisation leading to
• Faster information transmission
• Lower cost information storage and transmission
- Integration of states and opening of markets
- Geographic dispersion of the value chain
These macro changes result in the globalization of markets -> shifts in organizational forms and
competitive dynamics
New change tool: social media has altered thinking about change management. It has changed how
information is framed, who frames it and how quickly it migrates from the few to the many.
• Leaders need to be aware of technological trends and political landscape and be proactive in
considering how to respond to organizationally relevant ones.
o Why? If they are attentive and nimble, their interests will be better served.
New organizational forms and competitive dynamics
Global small and medium-sized enterprises, networks, Large global firms
All leading to:
- Spread of autonomous, dislocated teams
- Digitally enabled structures
- Intense global rivalry and running faster while seeming to stand still
Implications of worldwide trends for change management: The economic globalization of the world,
the demographic shifts around the world, technological changes, environmental and ecological
pressures and the upheaval and political and economic uncertainties around the world form the
reality of organizational environments.
If we do not disrupt ourselves, our competitors will.
New management challenges
- Greater diversity
- Greater synchronization requirements
- Greater time-packing requirements
- Faster decision making, learning and innovation
- More frequent environmental discontinuities
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, - Faster industry life cycles
- Faster newness and obsolescence of knowledge
- Risk of competency traps where old competencies no longer produce desired effects
- Greater newness and obsolescence of organizations
Common management responses to Competitive pressures
• Running hard, but for all purposes standing still -> Red Queen phenomenon
• In global competition, what matters is not the firm’s absolute rate of learning and
innovation, but the relative pace of its development compared to its rivals.
We life in a VUCA world
- Volatile
- Uncertain
- Complex
- Ambiguous
Dimensions of change
Continuous change
- incremental change: you go step by step.
- organizations are more emergent and self-organizing where change is constant, where
change is constant, evolving, and cumulative.
Episodic/ discontinuous change: dramatic & sudden
- Change is infrequent and discontinuous (New tech replacing old one).
- (reengineering programs: planned examples of injecting significant change into organization)
Programmatic, proactive, or planned change or reactively in response to external events:
- occurs when managers anticipate events and shift their organizations as a result.
Four types of organizational change - Nadler & Tushman
Tuning Adapting
- Incremental/ continuous and anticipatory - Incremental and reactive
- Need is for internal alignment - Incremental changes made in response to
- Focuses on individual components or sub- environmental changes
systems - Need if tor internal alignment focuses on individual
- Middle management role components or sub systems
- Implementation is the major task - Middle management role
Small, relatively minor changes made on an ongoing basis - Implementation is the major tasks
to improve the efficiency or effectiveness of the Minor changes made in response to external stimuli a
organization. reaction to things observed in the environment
(competitors moves, customers shifts.
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