Aantekeningen Handboek Pro 3: Exploring strategic change
Chapter 1: Exploring strategic change; an introduction
1.1 Introduction
The pace of change experienced by organisations is getting greater: M&A’s, globalisation,
technological innovations, political agenda of the government, TQM, employee engagement etc. All
those things influence organisations. However, the success rate for most of the change programmes
within organisations is poor: failure rate is around 70%.
As a result, change management has become a highly sought-after managerial competence. The
problem however is that the management of strategic change remains a skill that many organisation
overlook, yet need to develop, particularly in their most senior executives but also in all levels of
management.
The senior manager has two prior roles: both internal and external. So strategic thinking/formulation
and strategic acting/implementation.
The key feature of this book is the focus on strategic change: change that results from a shift in
strategic direction for an organisation, requiring the implementation of change to
processes/practices/systems and potentially even culture to enable the development of new
competences and new ways of competing.
- Hereby it is important to realise the difference between intended and realised strategy
1.2 Structure of the book
- Hoofdstukken 2 – 4 gaan over de rol van context. Hier wordt een framework voor gebruikt.
- Hoofdstukken 5 – 7 gaat over hoe je dit daadwerkelijk in de praktijk moet brengen.
1.3 The nature of strategic change
Strategic/transformational change is defined as descriptive of magnitude in alternation in, for
example, the culture, strategy and structure of the firm, recognising the second order effects, or
multiple consequences of any such change.
Patterns of change
Broadly there are two schools of thought about how change occurs in organizations.
1. Change as continuous, organisations are transforming on an on-going basis to keep pace with their
changing environment (left)
2. Change as a process of punctuated equilibrium (right)
Punctuated equilibrium models
- Relative long periods of stability that are
,interspersed by shorter periods of more fundamental revolutionary change
- Convergent change is adaptation within the existing way of doing things – leads to extension and
continuity of the past
- Revolutionary change is transformational change achieved through a simultaneous change in the
strategy, structure, systems and culture of an organisation leading to a radically different way of
operating. This change is likely to be reactive and forced by an impending crisis.
Continuous change models
- These models argue for a higher and more consistent level of on-going change
- Importance of emergent change
- Emergent change may be slower/outcomes in small scale thus it may be unsuitable for responding
to major competitive threats or significant downturns.
Both models are suitable but apply to different types of organisations, and maybe different stages of
an organisation’s life cycle. Continuous change models are more suitable to industries where the
pace of change is rapid: the opposite goes for punctuated equilibrium models (more likely to apply to
industries where changes occur less frequently.
Organisations and strategic change
Strategic drift is a key concept: this is a gap between what the organisation is doing and what it
needs to be doing to be competitive in its market place. As the gap widens, performance starts to
decline consistent with punctuated equilibrium models of change.
Change is an on-going process. No organisation can stand still. Furthermore, it is not organisations
that change, but people. For an organisation to change, the people within must change. This makes
managing and achieving change a challenging undertaking for any manager.
1.4 Context-specific change
This book does not advocate one best way to change: it needs to be context-specific. So everything is
dependent on the specific situation or context of each organisation. Something that works for
organization one does not necessarily work for organisation 2.
- An alternative is to develop a contingency approach in which different contextual configurations are
associated with a particular set of change design choices: again, this is something this book avoids.
This book argues, therefore, that the internal and external context of the organisation should be
examined as the starting point to determine the appropriate change process. Change agents should
not automatically refer to best practice solutions or contingency approaches without understanding
the applicability of these models to their context and what is feasible and what isn’t.
1.5 Managerial capabilities for change agents
For change agents to be effective at strategic acting, they need to develop their analytical and
judgemental skills, but also skills in translation and implementation. All four of these are important.
Analytical skills: able to dig deep into an organisation, to understand its culture and the motivations
of its staff, to develop a full and holistic picture of the change context of the concerned organisation.
Judgemental skills: which features of the context are the most critical?
Translation skills: strategic vocabularies and concepts need to be translated into action that is
practical and meaningful in a particular organisation. How do executives translate strategy jargon
into something meaningful in terms of the organization?
Implementation skills: this is about making things happen. Which interventions to make and in what
order to implement them?
,1.6 The transition state: designing context-sensitive approaches
to change
We consider 3 states: the current, the future and the transition.
The transition state can only be designed when the current and
the future state are determined. The main concern in this book is
the transition state.
Typically lengthy consideration is given to the why and what of strategy development. The internal
and external context of the organisation is analysed in order to gain an understanding of why change
is necessary and the current state. In addition, the strategists decide on the content of change –
what actually has to change and the nature of the
future state. Hereby this context-specific approach is
often forgotten and managers tend to pick between a
number of existing solutions. The approach that needs
to be taken (contextual) can be seen in this image >>>
Here, the change agent judges which are the most
critical features of the current change situation. Then,
the change agent considers the appropriate design
choices.
This text uses a diagnostic
framework, the change
kaleidoscope, to help with this
process.
- Outer ring: organisational
strategic context. This refers
to the broader analysis
conducted to determine why
the organisation should
change and what it should
change to.
- Middle ring: features of the
change context. Aspects of
the organisation to do with
its culture, competences and
current situation. These can
be extracted from the
broader organisational
context.
- Inner ring: menu of design
choices. These are the range
of options a change agent needs to choose from when selecting an appropriate approach.
The contextual factors in this kaleidoscope do not carry equal weight in all organisations – some will
be more important than others in different organisational change context. Thus, the kaleidoscope is
not static.
, More in chapter 2 - 4.
1.7 The transition state: design and management
When the change approach has been selected, the interventions that will deliver this approach have
to be designed. This is to do with skills of translation and implementation action.
More in chapter 5 – 7.
1.8 Putting the jigsaw together – a change flow chart
For change to be successful, managers charged with the responsibility of managing this activity need
to address the complexities of both context and process. This change and flow chart gives some
overview.
- Stages 1 and 2 are not addressed in this
text
- Stage 3 is about the kaleidoscope
(chapter 4)
- Stage 4 is discussed in chapters 2 and 3
- Stage 5 = chapter 5
- Stage 6 = chapters 6 and 7
Summary
- There is an on-going and enduring need for senior executives to develop a competence in managing
planned change, and particularly strategic change
- The role of senior executives in strategic change has two components: strategic thinking to do with
formulation and strategic acting to do with aligning the organisation behind the intended strategy.
This book concerned with the second, typically underplayed component, and how executives can
develop a competence in this
- All change design must be context-specific, which requires change agents to possess managerial
skills of analysis, judgement, translation and implementation
- Transition is a stage in change which demands that attention is given to both its design and
management
- A general change flow chart identifies different decision-making points in the strategic change
process and sets out the overall way this text recommends a change agent should approach the
management of strategic change.
Chapter 2: Understanding implementation choices: the
change path
2.1 Introduction