Leading Change and Projects
Lectures
5 september
This course assumes that change is an episode (so not a constant), with a beginning and an
end). Cognitions, behaviours, structures, organizational architectures change to meet
environmental threats or opportunities.
Leadership has social influence, a crucial element. Without it, there is no leadership. Without
a vocal point in a social network, there is no leader. A process. The N-step model as a
template. Challenge is a necessary component.
Change leadership is motivating and directing others.
Project based management has four components: goal orientation, flexibility, results
orientation and control. Has to be formed into a coherent composition. Most
straightforward is the operational/earth project. Results/control orientation (pragmatic).
Risk can be mitigated, and you are still in control. A more difficult one: organizing a party
with your neighbours who don’t necessarily agree. That is an alliance project.
Quite similar to different types of change. Change depth vs change controllability.
Transformational leadership is not the solution to all problems.
Depth of change: behavioural vs operational (people oriented vs task oriented). The things of
the organisation that we create, impersonal elements. Fuse VUMC and AMC, stitching wires
turned out to be part of their professional identity instead of just an operational issue.
Controllability of change: the outcome of the change, to what degree can the outcome of
the change be known at all. Change as adventure. Drawing the map, the terrain, yourself. An
extreme of uncontrollability. Scope and complexity, the number of variables that you need
to move and assemble. Often don’t know the variables, they come up on the way. Black
swan an unknown, unpredictable situation. Creates the need for flexibility, team. Always
not exclusively controllable or surface-level change. Doing different things over time.
In the depth deep level, there needs to be social integration. Leadership function that is
important here. At the depth surface level, there needs to be monitoring. Controllability
high controllability, structuring. A new way of working, systems, teams, agile way of
working, making sure people behave according to the structure. Controllability low
controllability, inspire: visioning. An image of who we are becoming. Active. On the high
controllability, you have a vision. On the low controllability, you are visioning. Keeping
people inspired. Commitment.
Project management toolkit = surface level depth and high controllability. Monitoring and
structuring. Cost cutting is often presented as surface level change, but is in fact deep
change.
Monitoring & structuring andersom?
,Project management is not necessarily different from change management. The attitude is
different though. The best change is done it is regarded as a project. A project manager that
is sensitive to the human touch.
12 September – ING Case
38 million private, corporate and institutional clients. European roots, but global reach.
Present in 40 countries. 65% of the revenue comes from outside the Netherlands. 52,000
employees, most of them work abroad. Retail (standardized products made for volume) and
wholesale banking (three main product groups: transaction service, financial markets,
corporate loans. Only companies with revenue >250 million. Personalized products for large
companies. Cost a lot of money). Return on equity is more relevant than net result. USP:
Purpose: empowering people to stay ahead of life and business. Be there as a
financial partner.
Strong and trusted brand. Always the same brand, especially internationally very
strong.
One of the leading banks in digitalization and innovation. ING being that digital is not
that common, therefore a leading bank.
Sustainability: one of the forerunners.
Change Management within ING
Bringing new products, technology or organization. Creation: something that is good can be
better, destruct bad things. Technology is a very big part of a bank.
Scope: global mandate, front-to-end, running through the entire process (jurisdiction, risks
associated with it, compliance, which country to begin with, what kind of systems do we
need, how do the operations look like). Safeguarding all the items as a change
manager/professional. Change portfolio of 210 million, spending on technological
innovations, knowing your customer, creation of new systems. Most money: systems and
processes (people). 30/100 change managers in the Netherlands.
Types of change initiatives:
Implementation of:
o New regulatory requirements: 80%. Banking sector is a highly regulated
industry. Transparency.
o Customer- and employee experience improvements: 20%. Getting more and
more traction, doing everything online.
First bank in the world to adopt ING. Iterative process to more quickly, client behaviour is
going faster and faster. ING is working on the greatness of their IT infrastructure, just as
Adyen did.
What have we achieved, where are we now, and what do we want to achieve the next 3
months. Minimal viable product per sprint.
Change managers also have a very formal role. Also, it involves working with a lot of
different cultures and time zones. Being the bridge between business and IT: being a
translator.
,€119 per hour per resource. 7 people per squad ideally. €1 mil to €1,5 mil. An epic delivers
actual value for the customer. For spotify: karaoke functionality.
Case: people working in a squad don’t necessarily understand there is multiple ways of
working. Regulators don’t care there are multiple ways of working, they just want the job
done. How can we create more value? What do we need to look out for in the market.
Fintech.
19 September – Discussion lecture
Relevant knowledge clips are "knowledge clips on Change and project management
synthesis (Theme H), Management Fashions (Theme B), and Agile (feature topic).
Discussion I: Are change management and project management different categories of
behavior? Can or cannot be integrated. Without project management skills, you are a lesser
change manager! You don’t need project management to be a good change manager.
Discussion II: Is Agile a management fashion?
Discussion 2:
Agile is a management fashion because:
Mass adoption, because everyone uses it. Regardless of efficiency, not every
company has the same problems. Adoption despite failure.
Efficiency because of speed.
Progressive, “new = better”
Flexibility of application.
Economic (real change in the world of business, more digital and data-driven)/social
(there are some elements within agile that are social, e.g. self-managing teams. A
component of agile, which is very popular and has been popular in the past. Self-
managing teams works and people become more motivated, evidence-based.)
Agile is not a management fashion because:
Fast-paced world makes Agile a necessity, a must.
Emphasis on structure, which is not a fashionable idea. And a deep change, whereas
a fashion is more of a cosmetic transformation, it doesn’t affect deeper structures.
However, all fashions do have a surface level transformation.
Agile is not always efficient. It can fail.
It is an actual innovation (in project management). However, the adoption outside of
IT might be a fashion.
Problems with formal hierarchy is that it is problematic in uncontrollable situations.
A fashion, by definition, must have a transient quality. It comes and goes. This argument
with a bell shaped-curve can be used for both sides. Very flexible in the adoption, a lot of
variety.
Agile is a melting pot of different ideas. Super fashionable thing. Pragmatic ambiguity
(important sign of a fashion). Under the banner of agile, you can do different things.
, Discussion 1:
CM = not PM
A project has by definition a beginning and an ending. If change is continuous, then it
cannot be PM.
Processes/operations (PM), vs people-focus (CM) the stereotype. Misconception.
CM focuses on operations and processes as well.
Institutionalized practises’ PM is not CM. A more experienced PM will be assigned
tasks that are harder to control.
CM = PM
CM helps PM to stay efficient.
o In project management, there is always issue management. Things always
come up.
o Build culture. Project culture, is very important. Setting the standard on how
to work together.
Strategic focus of CM.
Functions of structuring/monitoring
3 October – Discussion Lecture
4 logics of change management – Theme C
1. Evidence-based intervention
Environment is based on facts, control. content
Establish causality. Combining multiple sources, reasoning from your own experience
and gather data to see whether it works (similar to medicine).
Mechanism (why? Proved there is an effect, but then figure out why. Solinger article;
the perception that the organization cares for you. If perception of support increases,
employee commitment also increases).
Critical
Downside: relapse back to old level & extremely time consuming (can take up to years). No
involvement of employees
2. N-step (diagnostic; problem focussed) – Theme A (controllable with either deep level
or surface level)
Very little consensus in the field.
More eclectic (not one approach)
Stepwise procedure focussed on steps, process
Problem-driven (if nothing is broken, don’t fix it. If everything is going alright, do not
change). Go and do research, talk to people, look at the data, what is really
happening.
Clear beginning and end
Controllable, and therefore easy to put a template to
Assumption of a template
Downside: no involvement of employees.