Exploring the Complex Dynamics of Change Implementation: An Empirical Case Study
Most professionals clearly understand the need for continuous efforts of change initiatives that improve the performance and fiscal demands of the organization, while misunderstanding precisely what it entails to make this happen successfully (Beer, Eisenstat, & Spector, 1990; Armenakis & Harris, 2002).
Literature focused on the factors for enabling promising organizational change and development point to the lack of guidance and direction during times of problem assessment and institutionalization of these efforts (Armenakis, Harris, & Feild, 1999). More specifically, two primary reasons for the failure of follow-through with change efforts are said to stem from:
(1) false assumptions tied to change implementation as a sole element for securing institutionalization, and
(2) a lack of patience and pure neglect in seeing through efforts to completion (Armenakis et al., 1999).
The following takes an empirical case study involved with the complex dynamics of managing change implementation efforts in order to take a critical look at how future efforts may increase success rates in making lasting change a reality.
After a recounting of the business case made for change, and the details regarding the organizational results, analysis of the decisions, along with future recommendations, are posited with the aid of prior scientific discoveries.
A Business Case for Change
One sizeable, multinational corporation owns an information technology company comprised of several diverse divisions (Armenakis & Harris, 2002). The company had decided to initiate a large-scale change in order to secure integration of organizational activities and produce economies of scale (Armenakis & Harris, 2002).
The conduit for this change derived from the firm’s governing body, which decided upon the creation of a new business unit (BU) profit center, which could address the existing ineptitude and dispersion among these divisions, combining them into one autonomous unit (Armenakis & Harris, 2002).
Tasked with assisting in the planning, designing, focusing, and transitioning of a new change initiative, organizational researchers Armenakis and Harris (2002) used their five key domains to address three phases of organizational change, namely, (1) readiness, (2) adoption, and (3) institutionalization, to help create this new organization within nine months.
The consulting psychologists began with a preliminary coaching session exclusively for the president, facilitated a two-day management strategy meeting for a group of twenty-four individuals, and shepherded a one-day executive team meeting that resulted in a company-wide teleconference where a readiness speech was presented by the president and three key managers (Armenakis & Harris, 2002).
A Summary of Results
Coaching of the president entailed utilizing an active participation strategy to produce a cohesive management team that would diagnose the situation, and decide on the strategy and structure of the new BU (Armenakis & Harris, 2002).
Since the change was predicated on an executive management decision, the consultants focused on clarifying the change process to communicate its appropriateness, and why the change would be beneficial for the entire organization (Armenakis & Harris, 2002).
Upon the insistence of the president, the first management strategy meeting included twenty-four managers, causing the consultants to devise smaller group activities where SWOT analyses, top priorities, and organizational structures of the new BU were produced (Armenakis & Harris, 2002).
The researchers addressed the five message domains to ensure opportunity to adequately tackle discrepancy, actualize appropriateness, foster efficacy, commit principle support, and provide personal valance (Armenakis & Harris, 2002). The authors relate how they ran into some resistance when trying to implement an assessment of readiness previously agreed upon by the president, causing the tabled activity to never be executed, and possibly contributing to the lack of persistence in the change effort, which was not properly institutionalized, although the persuasive communication effort and all-employee meeting seemed to go successfully (Armenakis & Harris, 2002).
Post Hoc Evaluation and Future Recommendations
The work of Beer, Eisenstat, and Spector (1990) offer an alternative framework, and possible explanation, for why organizations face failure with creating lasting change efforts, even when everything from the literature on organizational transformation is painstakingly carried out in a methodological manner.
The authors posit organizational issues to stem from an understanding of precisely who should lead the change effort, what should be changed, and the procedures needed to achieve it (Beer et al., 1990). According to Beer and associates, a successful change effort focuses on the task that must be done, not on intellectual abstractions that may impede the appropriate timing of six overlapping steps that can promote a self-reinforcing cycle of commitment, coordination, and competence, known as the critical path to effective change (Beer et al., 1990).
Also, the work of Dent and Goldberg (1999) challenge the widely accepted notion that resistance to change is an inevitable aspect of organizational behavior, which must be addressed and overcome in order for successful change implementation to occur.
In the aforementioned case study, the organizational consultants enabled the traditional top-down structure of decision-making by never addressing the lack of co-creation with clearly diagnosing the business problem outside of the executive suite (Armenakis & Harris, 2002).
A logical admonishment is offered in taking the initial step of devising a way to represent all stakeholders in the organization to nurture joint diagnosis of the problem and marshal true commitment to change (Beer et al., 1990). Armenakis and Harris’ (2002) forthright claim that momentum for change fizzled out at the local level, never moving beyond the global level, might stem from a lack of attention with including employees in the client organization outside those upper echelons in an effort to procure a more common understanding of the problem (Beer et al., 1990).
Thus, a collaborative effort could have been initiated for problem diagnosis and possible solution creation (Beer et al., 1990), which may or may not have included the formation of a new BU. Additionally, by offering this co-created and task-aligned vision for change to others, the organization could have created the opportunity for developing a shared vision that trickled into every aspect of the firm, spreading revitalization efforts without forcing it down from the top (Beer et al., 1990).
An additional self-critique offered by the organizational consultants includes the retrospective understanding that by allowing the readiness assessment to dissipate, it potentially becomes a sunk cost that should have been implemented during the management strategy meeting they facilitated (Aremakis & Harris, 2002).
This can be construed as a potential opportunity for addressing resistance to change, lost through the inadequacies of the change agents’ design of the change program (Dent & Goldberg, 1999). On the other hand, perhaps the consultants (Armenakis & Harris, 2002) were planning these change efforts in an ineffective way by placing too much emphasis on identifying the attitudes and knowledge of individuals (Dent & Goldberg, 1999), rather than focusing on the tasks needed to create long-term adaptation and learning (Beer et al., 1990).
A potential alternative for providing greater results may be found in the six steps to effective change offered by Beer and associates (1990), who advise on patiently putting off efforts of institutionalization and surveying employee behavior patterns until after consensus for the new vision has been built, competencies are safeguarded to ensure enactment, and cohesion is fostered to advance coordination and organizational flow.
The Takeaway
This empirical case study offers a critical analysis of change implementation and its resulting effects on an organization. Armenakis and Harris (2002) were completely transparent in their self-evaluation of a change implementation program that failed to last long-term.
Using the five domains of a change message with the three overlapping phases of organizational change (Armenakis & Harris, 2002), the consultants were able to initiate a powerful and timely readiness speech that built into a wave of momentum, which rode out fairly quickly, just missing the mark for fostering true adaptation and institutionalization.
As an alternative explanation, the work of Dent and Goldberg (1999) offers the notion that an overhaul of expectations in creating programs of change with inherent properties for addressing resistance to change may need to be reevaluated.
Also, there may be much needed guidance and effectiveness found in the critical path conceptualization where timing becomes a crucial factor in carrying out the appropriate steps though an ad-hoc team structure that challenges the assumptions of programmatic change efforts (Beer et al., 1990).
References
Armenakis, A. A., Harris, S. G. (2002). Crafting a change message to create transformational readiness. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 15(2), 169-183. doi: 10.1108/09534810210423080
Armenakis, A. A., Harris, S. G., & Feild, H. S. (1999) Making change permanent: A model for institutionalizing change interventions. Research in Organizational Change and Development, 1297-128.
Beer, M., Eisenstat, R. A., & Spector, B. (1990, Nov.-Dec.). Harvard Business Review, 158-166.
Dent, E. B., & Goldberg, S. G. (1999). Challenging “resistance to change.” The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 35(1), 25-41.
