“The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow.” – RUPERT MURDOCH
Organizations go through constant change, and it is essential for leaders to effectively manage that change. Interest in organizational change management is on the rise, as companies need to keep up with technological developments, competition, changes in government regulations, and the current global pandemic, forcing organizations to move their traditional workplaces to the virtual sphere.
What is organizational change?
Organizational change can take many forms, but in general terms, it is the transition of an organization from one state to another. It may involve transformations in the company’s strategy, structure, policies, procedures, culture, or technology. It may be planned or unplanned, happening once or continuously, radical or incremental.
It usually includes preparation, implementation, follow-through, and effective management throughout the whole process.
Types of organizational change
Organizational change is a broad term, and we can think of it as a spectrum, adaptive and transformational changes being on each end. Most changes fall somewhere between these two extremes, but understanding the possibilities will help managers adapt their change processes and strategies to each situation.
Adaptive change: small, incremental adjustments that organizations adopt to address specific needs. They are usually minor changes to fine-tune or upgrade current processes, technologies, or strategies.
Transformational changes: larger alterations that involve a change from something into something that is considerably different. It may be a response to external forces, such as new government regulations, market changes, or a global pandemic. The scope is much larger and might entail changing the mission of the organization. These changes require larger amounts of preparation and time.
Another differentiation is whether the change is episodic or continuous.
Episodic change: discontinuous, intermittent. Radical or transformational innovations often occur during periods of discontinuous change.
Continuous: evolving and incremental. Adaptive changes are incremental innovations occurring over longer periods of time.
Importance of organizational change management
It is clear that change is an inherent aspect of the business. In order to grow and thrive, organizations must adapt to new situations and conditions. Good change management is the most essential tool for companies to enact and implement change initiatives effectively. Conversely, poor management of organizational change can end up being unstable, and expensive, and it may even give rise to organizational crises. It can also result in lower employee morale, lack of engagement, and low commitment.
Understanding the key factors that set you up for success, and those that set you up for failure will help you leverage your change management strategy.
In general terms, managers should have high levels of emotional intelligence and the ability to communicate clearly and effectively. They should have strong organizational skills, from problem-solving to decision-making skills, and it is crucial for them to be able to delegate without micromanaging. However, change management is difficult. In fact, studies show that two thirds of transformation initiatives fail. So, what factors have the biggest influence on organizational change? What factors can help us implement change initiatives effectively? It turns out, there is no consensus on this. Experts and executives all have different perspectives and approaches.
There are many aspects managers should take into consideration, including the duration of the change initiative, the time between milestones and reviews, whether roles, commitments, and accountability are clear to everyone, the additional effort needed to follow through, the capabilities of each team, the people leading them, and the attitudes of each individual towards the change.
The change curve
The change curve is a model that details the emotions people feel when going through change, as it assumes that people experience a similar set of emotions, regardless of the cause of the change. The change curve is widely used in change management and business in general, and there are many variations and adaptations, although it is often attributed to psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross.
The curve represents the different stages people go through and the emotions associated with each of them:
Shock → surprise or shock immediately following the initiation of a change
Denial → individuals often look for evidence that proves against the change and they try to blame others or themselves. At this stage, do not advise or fix, only listen.
Frustration or anger → individuals recognize that things are different, but they still show resistance to change.
Depression → for big, dramatic changes, individuals are in a low mood and lack energy. They feel lost and uncertain.
Experiment → then, people stop focusing on what they’ve lost and start to let go. Here’s when people initially engage with the new situation. They begin testing and exploring what the changes mean and start to see the positives and the negatives
Decision → once they have accepted the new status quo, they can commit to the change. They can begin to rebuild their ways of working and decide how they are going to adapt.
Integration → in this last phase, people not only accept the change but also start to embrace it and the change starts to become ‘normal’. Only when people get to this stage can the organization start to see the results of the effective implementation of a change initiative.
Effective change management is about helping people reach the later stages earlier. It’s about reducing negative emotions – such as uncertainty, frustration, and resistance – and promoting positive attitudes toward change – readiness, commitment, and support.
Power dynamics in organizational change
In organizational change, power is used by CEOs, top managers, change managers, consultants, employees, and any other interest groups. The goal of these groups is to manage and influence the change processes to their best interest. In change processes, various stakeholders try to influence each other, and they do so by using power and influence tactics. Ideally, in change processes, power and influence should lead to compliance and commitment to the change initiative. However, power dynamics are often difficult to observe, as they are invisible or people are often oblivious due to their own perceptions, cognitions, and preferences.
What does power dynamics mean?
Power can take different definitions. In organizational change, we can refer to power as a dynamic social process affecting the opinions, emotions, and behavior of interest groups. In this process, inequalities are involved with respect to the realization of wishes and interests. There are different perspectives on power dynamics and organizational change, and present a comparison in their study (Bradshaw & Boonstra, 2008):
Perspectives on power dynamics and organizational change (Boonstra & Bennebroek, 1998)
Long-lasting changes will depend on the use of effective tools by change managers, as well as how the employees feel in their new working context.
On-stage and off-stage behavior
People will embrace the change they understand, in the way they understand it. When an organization goes through a change process (especially at larger organizations), some aspects of change are left unmanaged or unexplained. Leaders give up some control, sometimes purposely to give space to employees, sometimes due to lack of bandwidth. These “gaps” in the change message are filled out by individuals based on their own cognition and beliefs and also based on what they hear from other coworkers. This is also known as sensemaking.
Professor Implementation and Change Management Thijs Homan conceptualized “on-stage” and “off-stage” behavior during organizational change. On-stage behavior refers to the official actions and messages that are displayed in front of managers and leaders. Off-stage behavior refers to how employees act among their colleagues, often in a more informal way. These informal conversations contribute to how individuals perceive reality, and it is a process that happens jointly.
Employees’ attitudes toward change
According to researchers, employees’ attitudes toward change is one of the most crucial factors contributing to the successful implementation of organizational change, and employees’ attitudes toward change implementation are important components of a successful implementation itself.
Although different constructs such as resistance to change, cynicism or support for change have been studied, readiness for change and commitment to change are two of the constructs more widely researched when studying employees’ attitudes toward organizational change. By understanding these attitudinal constructs, organizations can improve their ability to increase the levels of support and acceptance displayed for a particular change initiative.
Change readiness
Change readiness, one of the most prevalent positive attitudes toward change that has been studied in the organizational change literature, is a multi-level construct, as well as a multi-faceted one. Armenakis et al. defined it as an “individual’s beliefs, attitudes, and intentions regarding the extent to which changes are needed and the organization’s capacity to successfully undertake those changes.”
Change readiness usually results in change-supportive behaviors, defined as “actions employees engage in to actively participate in, facilitate, and contribute to a planned change initiated by the organization”.
For individuals to be ready for a specific change, they need to believe that the change is needed (also called discrepancy). They also need to feel that the proposed change is a suitable response to the situation (i.e. appropriateness) and that the organization will provide tangible support for that change, in the form of resources and information, (i.e. principal support). At a more individual level, employees must feel that they are capable of implementing said initiative (i.e. efficacy) and they need to evaluate the benefits or costs of a change for his or her job and role (i.e. personal valence). This multidimensional construct will be measured using the scale developed by Hold et al. (2007).
Affective commitment to change
For organizations to implement change successfully, they first need employees to cooperate and submit to the change, as one of the principal conditions of sustainable change is the desire that employees have to provide support for the change with the conviction of obtaining inherent benefits. This is known as affective commitment to change, a component of organizational commitment and it is associated with emotional attachment to the organization and identification with its goal. Herscovitch and Meyer (2002) described commitment to change as a multidimensional construct that consists of three dimensions: (a) affective commitment to change, (b) continuance commitment to change, and (c) normative commitment to change. In their conceptualization, affective commitment to change refers to “a desire to provide support for a specific change being introduced in the workplace”. The continuance component refers to commitment based on the costs that employees associate with leaving the organization. Finally, the normative component refers to employees’ feelings of obligation to remain with the organization.
Literature supported that affective commitment to change has a stronger impact on the successful implementation of organizational change compared with the other two dimensions. In addition, it was observed that commitment to change is a better predictor of behavioral support for change than organizational commitment because the successful implementation of organizational change requires changes in the behaviors and attitudes of employees, we focus our attention on the employee level. When employees experience high commitment to change, they are confident about the change, understand its repercussions, and have high self-efficacy.
Results showed that leadership is generally seen as a crucial factor in order to create affective commitment to change among employees. The main leadership theory that emphasizes organizational change is the theory of transformational leadership.
Affective commitment to change can be measured using Herscovitch and Meyer’s (2002) Affective Commitment scale.
Precursors of employees’ attitudes toward change
Employees’ attitudes toward change have three main categories of antecedents or predictors: external organizational pressures, personal characteristics, and internal context enablers. The category of external organizational pressures refers to factors such as the economy, politics, competitors, or government regulations, and it has been studied mainly when examining change readiness at an organizational level. Among the personal characteristics, openness for change seems to be a predictor of higher change readiness and overall show support for change. In this section of the blog, we will focus on the third category, internal context enablers, which includes change participation, communication processes, and leadership processes, among others.
Employees' attitudes toward change and their antecedents (Science of Efficiency)
Change communication
The role of communication during organizational change has been studied with focus on different functions and aspects of communication. Communication is sometimes referred to as a tool to inform, create understanding and change people’s attitudes and behaviour, but it can also be seen as a socially constructed process. In this section, we present a summary of an extensive literature review with the most relevant communication aspects that increase both change readiness and affective commitment to change.
Most relevant aspects of communication during organizational change
When research on communication in the context of organizational change has tried to dissect the aspects that influence employees’ attitudes toward change, transparency, appreciation, and participation have been some of the most relevant ones.
Participation
Transparency
Meaningful communication
Communication as a socially constructed process
Appreciation and support
Understanding the effect of these five aspects of communication will help you leverage your change management strategies.