The purpose of this topic is to acquaint the reader with the various suggested types of mastery needed to successfully guide significant change in organizations, including whether it is a team, departmental unit or the overall organization. Often this mastery is strongly associated with the field of Organization Development. Thus, that field is often mentioned below. However, this mastery applies to any change agent seeking to guide significant change in organizations.
The information in this topic is not sufficient to develop competencies in guiding successful significant change. Those competencies come from extensive experience in applying the information.
Learn More in the Library’s Blogs Related to Organization
In addition to the articles on this current page, see the following blogs which have posts related to organizational change and development. Scan down the blog’s page to see various posts. Also see the section “Recent Blog Posts” in the sidebar of the blog or click on “next” near the bottom of a post in the
blog.
A change agent is the person or team who is currently responsible for the overall change effort. It could be different people or different teams at different times during the change. For example, it could be a champion for change who encourages the change. Then it could be an expert on change who plans the change. Then it could be the leader in the organization who drives the change.
What is a Competency?
Wikipedia writes a “Competence is the demonstrable characteristics that enable performance of a job; for properly doing the job, the individual requires skills and knowledge essential for the set duties. A competency is a set of defined behaviors that provide a structured guide enabling the identification, evaluation and development of the behaviors in individual employees.”
The “job” might be any important task or role in a person’s life and work. It is conventional to divide a competency into knowledge (new useful information), skills (application of that knowledge) and abilities (an intuitive or natural proficiency to do the job). Core competencies are sometimes referred to as the foundational competencies needed to have excellent abilities in the particular job.
However, that conventional description is continually being analyzed and discussed with different emerging opinions.
There is a vast range of suggested models, or frameworks, for developing certain competencies. Descriptions range from one sentence to many pages. Organizations often develop them when writing job descriptions. See
Organizations’ Various Suggested Competencies for Change Agents
Focused on the Broad Field of Organization Development
Organization Development Program Director’s Program Review Criteria – This is a list of the suggested foundational elements that should be in programs to develop competencies in the foundations of Organization Development. (Created by Organization Development Program Directors at an Organization Development Network conference.)
SlideShare – lists suggested Competencies of an Effective Organization Development Practitioner by Manu Melwin Joy.
Institute of Organization Development’s – list of suggested competencies to become a World-Class Organization Development Interventionist. This list somewhat matches the self-assessment tool listed below: A Self-Assessment Tool for Organization Development Competencies (21st Century Version), Christopher Worley, William J. Rothwell and Roland Sullivan. It is “Supported by Don Cole and created for the Organization Development Institute.” (Don Cole and Roland Sullivan are some of the pioneering thought leaders in driving the field to look at competencies and levels of accreditation for the field.)
Organization Development Interventions – While this is a very detailed list of the suggested interventions that a highly qualified Organization Development practitioner should have, it also serves as a good list of suggested competencies.
Organization Development Network – is carefully developing a set of suggested competencies for Organization Development professionals called the Global Organization Development Practice Framework (a trademark of that Network). It defines “the differentiating competencies needed to succeed as an OD professional”. For now, it is a graphic of various categories. More detail is to be announced soon.
National Park Service – suggests competencies for their Organization Development Specialists specifically in their type of services.
The reader could get more impressions of suggested competencies by reviewing various job openings and descriptions for Organization Development personnel. See Job Banks.
Online Resources to Help Develop Competencies
The following list of competencies has not been peer reviewed or otherwise validated. However, they do appear in various other lists of competencies.
Understand Yourself as an Instrument of Change
See a video about best practices as a change agent; knowing your consulting style, biases, emotional intelligence and “lens” on organizations; knowing how you share
feedback and conflict. From the Consultants Development Institute.
Your nature and the way you choose to work has a significant impact on your client’s organization, whether you know it or not. You cannot separate yourself from your client’s organization as if you are some kind of detached observer. You quickly become part of your client’s system — the way the people and processes in the organization work with each other on a recurring basis. Thus, it is critical that you have a good understanding of yourself, including your biases (we all have them), how you manage feedback and conflict, how you react to others’ emotions, how you like to make decisions and solve problems, and how you naturally view organizations. The following articles will help you gain understanding of yourself, how you might prefer to work and how you actually do work.
See a video about principles for ethical and effective consulting, defining “success”,
managing ethical and legal risks and boundaries, and what to do if encounter ethical or legal issues. From the Consultants Development Institute.
Today, with the complex challenges faced by organizations and the broad diversity of values, perspectives and opinions among the members of those organizations, it is vital that change agents work from a strong set of principles to ensure they operate in a highly effective and ethical manner.
Understand Best Practices in Organizations, Leadership and Management
See a video about organizations, their major parts, how they are integrated and how they work — all from a very useful systems perspective. From the Consultants Development Institute.
To begin guiding successful change, the change agent should have at least a broad understanding of the context of the change effort. This includes understanding the basic systems and structures in organizations, including their typical terms and roles, as well as the core practices in leadership and management. That is why courses in Organization Development often include one on organizational theory. The following broad categories of links will acquaint you with that basic understanding.
The past few decades have seen an explosion in the number of very useful tools to help change agents to effectively explore, understand and communicate about organizations, as well as to guide successful change in those organizations. Tools from systems theory and systems thinking especially are a major breakthrough. Even if the change agent is not an expert about systems theory and thinking, even a basic understanding can cultivate an entire new way of working. The following link is to many well-organized resources about systems thinking and tools. Systems Thinking, Systems Tools and Chaos Theory
See a video about various driving forces causing major changes in organizations, including in their cultures and structures, and in how they are governed, led and managed. This affects consultants, as well. From the Consultants Development Institute.
There are numerous driving forces that are causing organizations to re-think how they operate and are structured. There are new paradigms in leading and managing that sharply contrast with how organizations have operated in the past. These changes also affect how change agents work with organizations. See
Understand Core Practices in Performance Management
See a video about what performance is, major levels of performance, 3-phase approach to developing performance, and characteristics of organizational effectiveness.
From the Consultants
Development Institute.
Organizational change should not be conducted for the sake of change. Organizational change efforts should be geared to improve the performance of organizations and the people in those organizations. Therefore, it is useful for change agents to have an understanding of what is meant by “performance” and various methods to manage organizational performance.
Know How to Guide Successful Organizational Change
See a video about language, types, models and roles in change; overcoming barriers to change; principles for changing systems; phases in change process; models for change; and core components of change plans. From the
Consultants Development Institute.
Organizational change is often about changing a significant part or all of an organization. There is no one standard approach or model for guiding successful change. They range from highly planned and structured to spontaneous and unfolding. A highly skilled practitioner can utilize a variety of change models based on the nature and needs of the client’s organization.
See a video about phases of collaborative consulting, goals and activities in each, and roles of consultant and client. From the Consultants
Development Institute.
The consulting activities in change management are often based on an overall action research approach. For example, a typical process would include phases such as contracting, discovery, action planning, implementation, final evaluation and then termination. However, all of the phases are conducted in a highly collaborative way with the client and are often highly integrated. For resources to conduct each of the typical phases in the consulting process, see
Be Acquainted With Types of Interventions – Know Where and How to Intervene
Organizational change consultants use a variety of processes, approaches, methods, techniques and applications (or “interventions”) to increase performance in organizations. A practitioner should be acquainted with the purpose of each, as well as knowing where and how to intervene in an organization.
Much of the content of this Library topic came from this book:
For the Category of Organizational Development:
To round out your knowledge of this Library topic, you may want to review some related topics, available from the link below. Each of the related topics includes free, online resources.
Also, scan the Recommended Books listed below. They have been selected for their relevance and highly practical nature.
The focus of this topic is to acquaint the reader with the broad principles and approaches in guiding successful change in an organization, including whether it is a team, departmental unit or the overall organization.
The information in those topics is not sufficient to develop competencies in guiding successful significant change. Those competencies comes from extensive experience in applying those types of information.
NOTE: Recently, there have emerged many opinions that Organization Development and change management are two somewhat different disciplines. The opinions are that Organization Development is focused primarily on changing a whole system, for example, a team, departmental unit or organization, while change management is focused on the necessary changes among people in the organization in order to accomplish the overall change in the organization. However, the phrase “change management” is still often associated with the nature of activities to improve an organization, rather than the name of a field or discipline. So this section in this topic in the Library considers change management to be an aspect of Organization Development.
Learn More in the Library’s Blogs Related to Organizational Change
In addition to the articles on this current page, see the following blogs which have posts related to Organizational Change. Scan down the blog’s page to see various posts. Also see the section “Recent Blog Posts” in the sidebar of the blog or click on “next” near the bottom of a post in the blog.
One of the biggest breakthroughs in how we understand and guide change in organizations is systems theory and systems thinking. To understand how they are used in organizations, we first must understand a system. Many of us have an intuitive understanding of the term. However, we need to make the understanding explicit in order to use systems thinking and systems tools in organizations.
Simply put, a system is an organized collection of parts (or subsystems) that are highly integrated to accomplish an overall goal. The system has various inputs, which go through certain processes to produce certain outputs, which together, accomplish the overall desired goal for the system. So a system is usually made up of many smaller systems, or subsystems. For example, an organization is made up of many administrative and management functions, products, services, groups and individuals. If one part of the system is changed, the nature of the overall system is often changed, as well — by definition then, the system is systemic, meaning relating to, or affecting, the entire system. (This is not to be confused with systematic, which can mean merely that something is methodological. Thus, methodological thinking — systematic thinking — does not necessarily mean systems thinking.)
Then, What is an Open System?
An open system is a system that regularly exchanges feedback with its external environment. Open systems are systems, of course, so inputs, processes, outputs, goals, assessment and evaluation, and learning are all important. Examples in this topic are social systems, such as teams and organizations. Aspects that are critically important to open systems include the boundaries, external environment and equifinality. Healthy open systems continuously exchange feedback with their environments, analyze that feedback, adjust internal systems as needed to achieve the system’s goals, and then transmit necessary information back out to the environment.
This is in contrast to a closed system in which the system does not interact with its external environment. Employees in a closed organization have no interactions with others outside the organization. Closed organization systems often fail because they get no diversity of perspectives and opinions from outside the organization, including from those that the organization is intended to serve. Consequently, creativity and innovation tends to decrease over time. Those organizations tend to stagnate.
Open systems planning is a type of strategic change activity (referred to as a type of intervention) by the field of Organization Development. Cummings and Worley, in their book Organization Development and Change (Fifth Edition, p. 171), define open systems planning as “This change method helps organizations and departments to systematically assess their environmental relationships and to plan for improvements interactions. It is intended to help organizations to become more active in relating to their environments.”
In open systems planning, the organization closely examines the external environment, for example, political, economic, societal and technological influences on the organization. That also includes clarifying expectations and influences from stakeholders, for example, customers, collaborators and suppliers. It is critical that the understanding of the external environment as very accurate.
Then it is useful to articulate a vision for how the organization can best operate to take advantage of opportunities and ward of threats based on that external information. Then the organization identifies strategies and actions to best align itself to achieve that vision. It is critical that key personnel in the organization have a common perception of the external information, the vision for alignment, and the actions needed to make that alignment.
One of the best tools for starting open systems planning is to do a logic model of the organizational system. See the diagram in this document: What is an Open System?
Learn More in the Library’s Blogs Related to Large-Scale Interventions
In addition to the articles on this current page, also see the following blogs that have posts related to Large-Scale Interventions. Scan down the blog’s page to see various posts. Also see the section “Recent Blog Posts” in the sidebar of the blog or click on “next” near the bottom of a post in the blog. The blog also links to numerous free related resources.
The field of Organization Development sees large-scale organizational change as being across most or all of an organization. However, with the recent focus on transformational — fundamental and radical — change, practitioners often refer to large-scale interventions as means to accomplish transformational change. Types of large-scale interventions are also referred to as whole systems models.
In Leading Large Scale Change: A Practical Guide, the authors define large-scale change as “the process of mobilising a large collection of individuals, groups and organisations toward a vision of a fundamentally new future state, by means of:
• Key themes that can make a big difference
• A shift in power and a more distributed leadership
• Comprehensive and active engagement of stakeholders
• Mutually reinforcing changes in multiple systems and processes”
The following links gives a broad overview of various large-scale interventions.
The following might be considered examples of large-scale intervention techniques, although there certainly has been argument about what technically qualifies as such an intervention.
To round out your knowledge of this Library topic, you may want to review some related topics, available from the link below. Each of the related topics includes free, online resources.
Also, scan the Recommended Books listed below. They have been selected for their relevance and highly practical nature.
(Be sure to read the description in Organizational Performance Management to understand where organizational change typically fits into the cycle of activities in ensuring strong performance in an organization.)
Organizations are rapidly changing like never before. Numerous driving forces are causing these changes, including increasing markets and associated competition, increasing expectations of transparency and accountability, and an increasingly diverse workforce.
As a result, leaders and managers are having to learn about guiding and supporting significant change within their own organizations. It is difficult to find a management book today that does not include the topic of change.
The purpose of the first section in this topic is to give you a broad overview of organizational change so that you will have a meaningful context in which to undergo your own change efforts. The next section is more of a “how to” in understanding how to plan and implement a change effort.
However, that new information will not evolve into actual knowledge and skills unless you continue to practice applying it. That next section refers to a process called collaborative consulting that has been proven to be successful in guiding and supporting others to successfully implement systems for long-lasting, successful change.
OVERVIEW OF ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
Understanding the Nature of Organizational Change
What is a Change Agent?
A change agent is the person or team who’s currently responsible for the overall change effort. It could be different people at different times during the change. For example, it could be a champion for change who encourages the change. Then it could be an expert on change who plans the change. Then it could be the leader in the organization who drives the change.
Clearing Up Terms and Language About Organizational Change and Development
There are several phrases regarding organizational change and development that look and sound a lot alike, but have different meanings. As a result, there seems to be increasingly different interpretations of some of the phrases, while others are used interchangeably. Without at least some sense of the differences, communications about organizational change and development can be confusing and frustrating. Cleaning Up the Language About Organizational Change and Development
Why the Word “Change” is Heard So Often
See a video about various driving forces causing major changes in organizations, including in their cultures and structures, and in how they are governed, led and managed. This affects consultants, as well. From the Consultants Development Institute.
Many people argue that organizations are changing like never before. Some of those changes are planned to be accomplished over a long period. However, organizational change is often provoked by some major driving force, for example, a public relations crisis, sudden opportunity in markets, dramatic reduction in profits or new Chief Executive Officer with a very different leadership style.
The subject of organizational change has reached evangelical proportions. There is seemingly an explosion of literature about the subject and an accompanying explosion in the amount of consultants who offer services in this general area.
See a video about language about change, types of change, barriers to change, overcoming
barriers, phases in change, priorities in each phase and models for change.
From the Consultants
Development Institute.
When people struggle to accomplish successful organizational change – whether in for-profit, nonprofit or government organizations – it is often because they do not understand the nature of organizational change, types of change, barriers to change, how to overcome the barriers, major phases in proceeding through change, various models for planning and guiding change, and types of approaches (interventions) to implement successful change. That is the focus of this topic in this Library.
Organizational change can seem like such a vague phenomena unless you can think of change in terms of the various types of change. There are different types, including the scope, pace, urgency and style of the planning for change.
Organization-wide Versus Subsystem Change
Examples of organization-wide change are an organizational redesign and change in overall strategies. Experts assert that successful organization-wide change requires a change in culture – cultural change is another example of organization-wide change. Those examples change the entire organizational system.
Organizations have many subsystems, as well. Examples of a change in a subsystem include removal or addition of a product or service and reorganization of a certain department.
Transformational Versus Incremental Change
Transformational change is a radical and fundamental shift in the way the entire organization operates. Transformational change is sometimes referred to as quantum change. An example is changing the culture from the traditional top-down, hierarchical style of leadership to a network of self-directing teams. Another example is using Business Process Re-engineering to take apart all the parts of the organization and then put them back together in a more optimal fashion.
In contrast, incremental change is making small adjustments over time to improve the performance of the organization usually by increasing efficiencies in various processes, such as in refining product development and delivery and in reducing labor costs through attrition.
Remedial Versus Developmental Change
Change can be intended to remedy a current situation, for example, to improve the poor performance of a product, reduce burnout in the workplace, become much more proactive and less reactive, or address large budget deficits. Remedial projects often seem quite focused and urgent because they are addressing a current, major problem. It is often easier to determine the success of these projects because the problem has been solved or not.
Change also can be developmental – to make a successful situation even better, for example, to expand the amount of customers served or duplicate successful products and services. Developmental projects can seem more diffuse and long-term, depending on how specific and important the goals are for the change.
Unplanned Versus Planned Change
Unplanned change can happen when a sudden crisis occurs in the organization that can cause its members to respond in a highly reactive and disorganized fashion. Examples are when the Chief Executive Officer suddenly leaves the organization or a significant public relations problem occurs.
Planned change occurs when leaders in the organization recognize the need for a major change and proactively organize a plan to accomplish the change. Examples are strategic planning that is focused on truly strategic topics and succession planning for key leaders in the organization.
Change can be difficult for you and your client to accomplish for a variety of reasons.
People are afraid of the unknown. They communicate their fear through direct means, such as complaining about the plans for change. Or, they communicate their fear indirectly, for example, coming late to meetings and not taking agreed-upon actions.
People think things are just fine. This might occur if the executives in the organization have not adequately communicated the need for the change.
People are inherently cynical about change. This cynicism often occurs if earlier attempts at change were unsuccessful and it was not admitted to the employees.
People doubt there are effective means to accomplish successful change. They may have read publications in which writers assert that most organizational change efforts fail.
There may be conflicting goals in the organizational change effort. A conflicting goal might be, for example, to significantly increase resources to accomplish change, yet substantially cut costs to remain viable. That conflict can occur, especially if employees were not involved in the plans for the change.
Change often goes against values held dear by members in the organization. For example, they might disagree that the organization should maximize profits more than contribute to their community. This situation is not uncommon, particularly in nonprofit organizations.
People get burned out during the change effort. Organizational change usually takes longer to achieve than most people expect. This problem can occur if the question “Is this realistic?” was not continually asked and if an insufficient number of staff were not involved in the planning.
Key leaders leave the organization. Especially in smaller organizations or organizations with very limited resources, leaders might not believe they are receiving sufficient value for what they are investing in the organization. They might conclude that it is better to just leave. Or, the change may not be going as expected, and the leaders are asked to leave.
Participants do not understand the nature of planned change. Frequently, participants expect the change to be according to a well-designed, well-organized effort that has few surprises. When surprises do occur, they lose faith in the change effort and seek to abandon it.
The relationship between the consultant and the client “sours.” The relationship can deteriorate, especially if the client does not want to change or if the project struggles because of one or more of the above-listed barriers to change.
You can overcome many of those barriers if your consulting project meets the requirements for successful change listed below.
Requirements for Successful Organizational Change
Cummings and Worley, in their book Organizational Change and Development (Fifth Edition, West Publishing, 1993), describe a comprehensive, five-phase, general process for managing change, including: 1) motivating change, 2) creating vision, 3) developing political support, 4) managing the transition and 5) sustaining momentum. That process seems suitable for organizing and describing general guidelines about managing change.
Whatever model you choose to use when guiding organizational change, that model should include the priorities and areas of emphasis described in the following five phases of change.
Motivating Change
This phase includes creating a readiness for change in your client’s organization and developing approaches to overcome resistance to change. General guidelines for managing this phase include enlightening members of the organization about the need for change, expressing the current status of the organization and where it needs to be in the future, and developing realistic approaches about how change might be accomplished.
Next, organization leaders need to recognize that people in the organization are likely to resist making major changes for a variety of reasons, including fear of the unknown, inadequacy to deal with the change and whether the change will result in adverse effects on their jobs. People need to feel that their concerns are being heard. Leaders must widely communicate the need for the change and how the change can be accomplished successfully. Leaders must listen to the employees – people need to feel that the approach to change will include their strong input and ongoing involvement.
Creating Vision
Leaders in the organization must articulate a clear vision that describes what the change effort will accomplish. It should readily convey the benefits to the employees, as well. Ideally, people in the organization have strong input to the creation of the vision and how it can be achieved. It is critically important that people believe that the vision is relevant and realistic.
Research indicates that cynicism is increasing in organizations in regard to change efforts. People do not want their leaders to promote an idealized vision that will completely turn the organization around and make things better for everyone all the time. They want to feel respected enough by their leaders to be involved and to work toward a vision that is realistic, yet promising and rewarding in the long run.
Developing Political Support
This phase of change management is often overlooked, yet it is the phase that often stops successful change from occurring. Politics in organizations is about power. Power is important among members of the organization when striving for the resources and influence necessary to successfully carry out their jobs. Power is also important when striving to implement a plan in which everyone is involved. Power comes from the authority of one’s position in the organization. Power also comes from credibility, whether from strong expertise or integrity.
Some people have a strong negative reaction when talking about power because power too often is associated with negative applications, for example, manipulation, abuse or harassment. However, power exists in all human interactions and is not always bad. It is how the power is used that determines how the power is perceived.
A strong mechanism for ensuring political support for the change effort is to develop a network of leaders at various levels who interact and count on each other to support and guide the change effort. Means to do that can include ensuring that all power-players are involved in recognizing the need for change, developing the vision and methods to achieve the vision, and maintaining organization-wide communications about the status of change. Any recommendations or concerns expressed by members to the leaders must be promptly recognized and addressed.
Managing Transition
This phase occurs when the organization works to make the actual transition from the current state to the desired future state or vision. In consultations, this phase usually is called the implementation phase. The ways that consultants and organizations go through this phase can vary widely, ranging from clearly delineated phases and steps to a continual mutual engagement with the client from which the project activities continue to unfold. See How Consultants Customize Their Approaches.
Conventionally, it includes implementing a variety of “interventions” designed to make the necessary change in the organization, ranging from strategic planning, leadership development and team building to whole-systems change, strategic restructuring and cultural change.
Ideally, the various interventions are detailed into associated actions that are integrated into one overall Implementation Plan. If the change is deep and extensive, then each action plan would includes specific objectives, or milestones, that must be accomplished by various deadlines, along with responsibilities for achieving each objective. Rarely are these plans implemented exactly as planned. Thus, as important as developing the plan, is making the many ongoing adjustments to the plan while keeping other members up-to-date about the changes and the reasons for them.
These changes might require ongoing coaching, training and enforcement of new policies and procedures in the workplace. In addition, means of effective change management must continue, including strong, clear, ongoing communications about the need for the change and status of the change.
Sustaining Momentum
Often, the most difficult phase in managing change is this phase when leaders work to sustain the momentum of the implementation and adjustment of plans. Change efforts can encounter a wide variety of obstacles, for example, strong resistance from members of the organization or unexpected changes in the environment outside the organization. Client resistance can be expected because organizational change requires a change in behaviors, which can be very difficult. Authentic responses to the resistance can be very effective. See Authenticity — How to Remain Authentic With Yourself and Others.
The role of support cannot be minimized. Despite its importance during organizational change, the role of support is often forgotten. Strong, visible, ongoing support from top leadership is critically important to show overall credibility and accountabilities in the change effort.
Supervisors play a critical role in effectively delegating tasks to employees and providing ongoing support in the form of feedback, coaching and training. Employee performance management plays a key role in ensuring that the required actions are being taken at the right times and are being done with high quality.
At this point in a consulting project, it may be wise for the consultant to ensure he or she has ongoing support themselves (for example, from other consultants) who can provide ongoing objectivity, affirmation and other forms of support.
Additional Perspectives
The following links are to articles that together provide an increasingly comprehensive and detailed orientation to change management.
See a video about models for change, roles during change, interventions, how choose them and principles for changing systems. From the Consultants Development Institute.
The purposes of an organizational change model are to 1) provide guidance to leaders of the change effort and 2) give a common perspective and frame of reference for participants when communicating about their change effort. The following paragraphs provide a general overview of some of the more prominent change models. The purpose of the overviews is to increase your general knowledge about approaches to change and help you grasp the diversity of approaches. The overviews are not intended to provide you detailed guidelines about implementing any of the models.
Note that there are many other change models, many of them formed by modifying the well-known models, such as Kurt Lewin’s action research. Also note that, because there is no standard definition for a change model, some readers might consider some of the following to be standard management practices, rather than means to affect change.
Unfreeze, Move, Refreeze
Lewin’s model is probably the most well known. Its simple, but powerful, premise is that to change a system, you first have to “unfreeze,” or loosen up those structures and influences that currently hold the system together. Without attention to those factors, the actions to accomplish desired changes are not likely to be successful because they will continue to encounter strong resistance from members of the organization.
Structures can be loosened in a variety of ways. The means mentioned in the above section Requirements for Successful Organizational Change about motivating change and creating a vision are powerful for unfreezing an organization. The next general phase in this model is about moving the change along, including by developing political support as described in the above section. The final phase is about developing and implementing new structures, such as new plans, policies and procedures, which freeze, or hold, the current state of change in place. The means mentioned in the above section about managing the transition and sustaining momentum would be very useful in refreezing the intended changes.
Lewin’s action research model is based on an overall cycle of 1) clarifying the current problem in the system, 2) involving a specialist or consultant, 3) gathering data and diagnosing the situation, 4) providing feedback to people in the system, 5) incorporating members’ feedback to further clarify the problem and its causes, 6) developing action plans to address the problem, 7) taking those actions and 8) gathering data to assess the effects on the problem. The cycle can also generate tremendous learning for those involved.
Many models for consulting are based on action research and include various modifications. They include, for example, more involvement of members of the organization in the process, and less focus on “diagnosis” and more focus on joint discovery. There is also more focus on strengths and opportunities and less on weaknesses and problems, as well as more focus on learning.
This method aims to increase organizational performance by radically re-designing the organization’s structures and processes — by starting over from the ground up. As with any major model for change, there are many proponents and opponents of BPR. BPR can require an extensive amount of detail, attention and time and can be quite demanding on employees.
Still, the process might be one of few that provides clear guidelines and procedures for carefully dissembling and assembling an organization. The model, like Future Search Conference (below) and Whole Systems Change, really forces leaders to take a complete, fresh look at systems in their organization and how to re-develop those systems anew.
Marvin Weisbord developed the future search approach, which can involve 30-100 people or more, usually over three days, to articulate a preferred future and develop the action steps to accomplish that future. It is an example of a relatively recent category of change models called large-scale interventions. Large-scale change is an example of transformational, organization-wide change.
In the approach, a consultant works with a small planning group to design the event. All key internal and external stakeholders are encouraged to attend. Participants examine the past, present and future of the organization from the perspective of the participants themselves, the organization and its industry. Participants discover their shared values and assumptions to clarify a preferred future or vision. The vision emerges from various scenarios, built from considering what has worked and what has not worked in the past — but especially what has worked. Short-term and long-term action plans are established. Emphasis is on building to the desired future, rather than on solving problems.
The model was developed by Watermann and Peters and depicts seven dimensions of organizations that must be considered when accomplishing organizational change. Imagine a circle of six circles with one circle in the middle. The middle circle is labeled “shared values.” Shared values represent the overall priorities in how the organization chooses to operate. The six outer circles include “strategy,” “structure,” “systems,” “skills,” “staff” and “style.” The point of the model is that an effective organization has to accomplish a fit between all seven S’s, and to realize that a change in any one of the seven dimensions will effect a change in all others.
Strategy is the overall direction of the organization and how it is going to follow that direction. Structure is the organization of the company, defining its roles and lines of authority. Systems include the processes and procedures that guide day-to-day activities in the organization. These three are the hard S’s.
Skills are the capabilities of the organization. Staff includes the organization’s people and how their expertise is utilized. Style is how the organization is led. These three are the soft S’s.
Major Roles During Successful Organizational Change
The process of organizational change can include a variety of key roles. These roles can be filled by various individuals or teams at various times during the change process. Sometimes, individuals or teams can fill more than one role.
Change Initiator
It is conventional wisdom among organizational development consultants that successful change is often provoked by a deep “hurt” or crisis in the organization, for example, dramatic reduction in sales, loss of a key leader in the organization, warnings from a major investor, or even actions of a key competitor. It is not uncommon then that someone inside the organization reacts to that deep hurt and suggests the need for a major change effort. Often the person who initiates the change is not the person who becomes the primary change agent.
Change Agent
A change agent is the person or team who’s currently responsible for the overall change effort. It could be different people at different times during the change. For example, it could be a champion for change who encourages the change. Then it could be an expert on change who plans the change. Then it could be the leader in the organization who drives the change.
After the project plan has been developed and begins implementation, the change agent might be an implementation team comprised of various people from across the organization. If the change effort stalls out, the change agent might be a top leader in the organization who intercedes to ensure the change process continues in a timely fashion.
It is extremely important for the consultant to always know who the real change agent is at any time during the project because that person or team usually has the most influence on the success of the project, and therefore is the most important role to be working with then.
Change efforts often require a person or team to continue to sustain strong enthusiasm about the change. This includes reminding everyone of why the change is occurring in the first place, and the many benefits that could come if it is successful. The champion might be the same person as the change agent at various times in the project.
Sponsor of Change
Usually, there is a one key internal person or department that is officially the “sponsor,” or the official role responsible for the success of the change process. In large organizations, that sponsor often is a department, such as Human Resources, Strategic Planning or Organization Development. In smaller organizations, the sponsor might be a team of senior leaders working to ensure that the change effort stays on schedule and is sustained by ongoing provision of resources and training.
Leadership, Supervision and Delegation
Leadership could defined as setting direction and influencing people to follow that direction. A person can lead themselves, other individuals, other groups or an entire organization. Supervision is a leadership role and is guiding the development and productivity of their direct reports in the organization. Effective supervisors are able to achieve goals by guiding the work of other people – by delegating.
Note that supervisors exist throughout an organization, depending on its particular structure. For example, the Board of Directors supervises the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), the CEO supervises middle managers and middle managers supervise entry-level supervisors.
The topic of leadership has become one of the most prominent topics in all of management literature today. It is almost impossible to find a general management book that does not include frequent mention of the topic of leadership. There are a variety of reasons for this, one of the most important being that successful organizational change requires strong, ongoing and visible leadership in support of that change. Leaders must model the type of behaviors that they want to see in their organization. Other reasons include:
Leaders must ensure that desired results are clarified and widely communicated, including to define the vision and goals.
Leaders in the organization must “walk their talk.” They must behave according to the same values and behaviors that are needed during the change effort.
Leaders must ensure the ongoing accountabilities, resources and support to ensure that actions are taken to accomplish the overall change effort.
There simply is no substitute for the role that leadership and supervision play in accomplishing successful organizational change. Thus, it is extremely important that leaders and supervisors in the organization have a strong understanding of basic principles of successful change in organizations.
Since the early 1990s, there has been a common assertion that 70% of change efforts fail. That statistic has been mentioned by prominent people and organizations in the field, including John Kotter, Michael Hammer and James Champy, Michael Beer and Nitin Nohria, McKinsey & Company and the Harvard Business Review.
It has been used a powerful motivator for further research in organizational change, more innovation in models for change, and more commitment from leaders in making change actually happen.
However, many are skeptical of that assertion. They cite the lack of valid research that concludes that finding. They mention numerous examples of success stories about change. Some assert that it is mostly independent consultants (those who are not employees of their client’s organization) who believe that statistic, while internal consultants believe that change is mostly successful.
Regardless of the opinions about the validity of the statistic, it is a significant topic to examine when talking about organizational change. Here are a variety of opinions for and against the statistic.
Collaborative Consulting Skills for Accomplishing Significant Change
Research over the years has found that the most successful approach to accomplishing long-lasting, successful change in organizations is to use a highly collaborative approach in working with the members of the organization to implement that change. That approach, including its nature and various phases, is fully explained in the Library’s topic: Collaborative Consulting for Performance, Change and Learning
Before selecting appropriate strategies for change below, you and your client should have done the necessary activities in the contracting phase of the consulting process, especially to ensure the client’s readiness for change. You also should have done the discovery phase, especially to identify the causes from the symptoms of the client’s problem.
How to Choose Which Strategies (Interventions) to Use for Change
See a video about where consultants should focus, where clients should focus, where projects should focus and core components of change plans. From the Consultants Development Institute.
Preparation
There are a wide variety of strategies often referred to as “interventions” to use to guide successful change in organizations. There is no unique intervention to use for each different situation in an organization. However, there are some key considerations when selecting from among the many choices. (The term “intervention”, unlike the term “strategy”, has its detractors. Thus, this topic in the Library often refers to strategies.)
Also, before you and your client select the best type of strategies, be aware of your strong biases about how you view organizations. Without recognizing those biases, you might favor certain types of strategies primarily because those are the only ones you can readily see and understand, even if other types of strategies might be much more effective in your project. Understand the Preferred Lens Through Which You View Organizations
Now, Select the Best Category of Interventions
With your client, discuss the findings from your research in the discovery phase. For example, did it suggest problems primarily among how individuals and groups got along with each other? Lack of strong internal practices to support growth? Lack of performance among many employees and teams? Need for an effective response to rapid changes inside and/or outside the organization?
Then read the introductions to each of the four categories of interventions in the section below to find the most likely category of interventions to use. Then select the category that seems to most closely match the nature of your findings. (If you and your client had selected a particular change management model, then that model might suggest a certain strategy for accomplishing the change.)
The choice need not be the best one right away. If you and your client work collaboratively, always respectfully and honestly sharing impressions of the activities in the project and reflecting on what they are learning, then you will end up using the best interventions.
Categories of Possible Strategies (Interventions) to Use for Change
For the sake of clarity and understanding, the following interventions are categorized. The four major categories are from Cummings and Worley, in their book Organizational Change and Development (West Publishing, 1993). The following interventions are often highly integrated with each other during a project for change.
Before selecting your interventions below, it might be interesting now to consider an alternative perspective about selecting categories of interventions. In the article below, Edgar Schein, the developer of process consultation, a very meaningful and widely respected process for collaborating with clients to guide and support change, wonders how useful it really is to try categorize interventions. He ventures that it might be most useful instead to reflect on what emerges from continuing to help the client, rather than on which category of interventions to choose from.
Can One Develop a Useful Typology of Interventions? (see the 3rd page)
Human Process Interventions (Group and Individual Human Relations)
The following human process interventions might be particularly helpful during change projects in organizations where, for example, there are many new employees, different cultures working together, many complaints among organizational members, extensive low morale, very high turnover and/or ineffective teams.
The following technostructural interventions might be particularly helpful in situations having, for example, rapid growth but few internal systems to sustain that growth, much confusion about roles, a strong need to soon learn a major new technology or process and/or many internal operational systems that must soon be implemented.
Human Resource Management Interventions (Individual and Group Performance
Management)
The following human resource interventions might be particularly helpful in situations where, for example, new organizational goals have been established, many new employees have been hired, individual and team goals do not get achieved, plans do not get implemented and/or there is rapid turnover.
Strategic Interventions (Organization and Its External Environment)
The following strategic interventions might be particularly helpful in situations where, for example, there are rapid changes in the external environment, significantly increased competition, rapid expansion of markets, a likely merger or acquisition, and/or need for a comprehensive change throughout the organization.
Now Select the Best Strategy or Intervention in That Category
Now that you have selected the most appropriate category of strategies with your client, discuss which strategy most closely matches your findings from the discovery. Again, if your choice is not the best one right away, then if you and your client have been working collaboratively, you will end up using the best strategy. Consider the following questions about your selected strategy.
Does the nature of that strategy match the culture of your client’s organization? The best way to find out is to discuss the strategy with members of the organization.
Do you and your client have the ability to implement that strategy? For example, the categories of technostructural and strategic interventions often require rather technical expertise in organizational design.
Does the strategy suggest what actions are needed in order to implement it? For example, the strategy of strategic management might suggest a SWOT analysis, identifying strategic goals, developing action plans for each goal and then implementing the action plans.
Does the strategy require more time to conduct than the time available to implement it? For example, a cash crisis requires immediate attention, so while a comprehensive strategic planning process might ultimately be useful, the time to develop and implement a strategic plan is impractical.
Does your client’s organization have the necessary resources to implement the strategy? Consider resources such as expertise, funding and facilities.
The following articles provide another set of considerations when selecting strategies (interventions).
Other Organizations’ General Lists of Interventions
The following are lists offered by other organizations and professionals in the field, and are not from those in the Cummings and Worley book, Organizational Change and Development (West Publishing, 1993), as listed above.
Implementing Strategies for Organizational Change — Finish Phases in Consulting
Now that you and your client have selected a strategy to accomplish long-lasting, significant change in the organization, it is time to implement that strategy. One of the best approaches is to continue following the general phases in a collaborative consulting process. This topic assumes that you have already completed the contracting and discovery phases.
Next, you would evolve into the action planning phase in order to begin detailing how to implement the strategy that you and your client selected. While doing this, you would begin to integrate the principles for successful organizational change that were explained above in this topic.
After detailing the action plans, you would begin the implementation phase to implement the action plans, while concurrently managing the change. The guidelines in the description of that phase share some basics about managing change.
After the implementation, you would conduct the project evaluation phase to conclude if the client’s problem had been solved; if the client had implemented the necessary systems to avoid that kind of problem in the future; and if the client did encounter that type of problem, then they would be able to solve it themselves.
If those indicators of success were achieved, then you and your client would evolve into the project termination phase in which you would work to accomplish both an administrative and ethical closure to the project.
GENERAL RESOURCES
Miscellaneous: Other Business and Management Topics to Round Out Knowledge
Learn More in the Library’s Blogs Related to Organizational Change
In addition to the articles on this current page, see the following blogs which have posts related to organizational change. Scan down the blog’s page to see various posts. Also see the section “Recent Blog Posts” in the sidebar of the blog or click on “next” near the bottom of a post in the blog.
The focus of this topic is to acquaint the reader with the broad principles and approaches in changing the culture of an organization, including whether it is a team, departmental unit or the overall organization.
The information in those topics is not sufficient to develop competencies in changing organizational culture. Those competencies comes from extensive
experience in applying those types of information.
Basically, organizational culture is the personality of the organization. Culture is comprised of the assumptions, values, norms and tangible signs (artifacts) of organization members and their behaviors. Members of an organization soon come to sense the particular culture of an organization. Culture is one of those terms that’s difficult to express distinctly, but everyone knows it when they sense it. For example, the culture of a large, for-profit corporation is quite different than that of a hospital which is quite different than that of a university. You can tell the culture of an organization by looking at the arrangement of furniture, what they brag about, what members wear, etc. — similar to what you can use to get a feeling about someone’s personality.
Corporate culture can be looked at as a system. Inputs include feedback from, e.g., society, professions, laws, stories, heroes, values on competition or service, etc. The process is based on our assumptions, values and norms, e.g., our values on money, time, facilities, space and people. Outputs or effects of our culture are, e.g., organizational behaviors, technologies, strategies, image, products, services, appearance, etc.
The concept of culture is particularly important when attempting to manage organization-wide change. Practitioners are coming to realize that, despite the best-laid plans, organizational change must include not only changing structures and processes, but also changing the corporate culture as well.
How to Change Organizational Culture
Cultural change is a form of transformational organizational change, which is is a radical and fundamental shift in the way the entire organization operates. It is also classified as a strategic intervention, which is particularly helpful in situations where, for example, there are rapid changes in the external environment, significantly increased competition, rapid expansion of markets, a likely merger or acquisition, and/or need for a comprehensive change throughout the organization.
See a video about models for change, roles during change, interventions, how choose them and principles for changing systems. From the Consultants Development Institute.
The purposes of an organizational change model are to 1) provide guidance to leaders of the change effort and 2) give a common perspective and frame of reference for participants when communicating about their change effort. The following paragraphs provide a general overview of some of the more prominent change models. The purpose of the overviews is to increase your general knowledge about approaches to change and help you grasp the diversity of approaches. The overviews are not intended to provide you detailed guidelines about implementing any of the models.
Note that there are many other change models, many of them formed by modifying the well-known models, such as Kurt Lewin’s action research. Also note that, because there is no standard definition for a change model, some readers might consider some of the following to be standard management practices, rather than means to affect change.
Unfreeze, Move, Refreeze
Lewin’s model is probably the most well known. Its simple, but powerful, premise is that to change a system, you first have to “unfreeze,” or loosen up those structures and influences that currently hold the system together. Without attention to those factors, the actions to accomplish desired changes are not likely to be successful because they will continue to encounter strong resistance from members of the organization.
Structures can be loosened in a variety of ways. The means mentioned in the above section Requirements for Successful Organizational Change about motivating change and creating a vision are powerful for unfreezing an organization. The next general phase in this model is about moving the change along, including by developing political support as described in the above section. The final phase is about developing and implementing new structures, such as new plans, policies and procedures, which freeze, or hold, the current state of change in place. The means mentioned in the above section about managing the transition and sustaining momentum would be very useful in refreezing the intended changes.
Lewin’s action research model is based on an overall cycle of 1) clarifying the current problem in the system, 2) involving a specialist or consultant, 3) gathering data and diagnosing the situation, 4) providing feedback to people in the system, 5) incorporating members’ feedback to further clarify the problem and its causes, 6) developing action plans to address the problem, 7) taking those actions and 8) gathering data to assess the effects on the problem. The cycle can also generate tremendous learning for those involved.
Many models for consulting are based on action research and include various modifications. They include, for example, more involvement of members of the organization in the process, and less focus on “diagnosis” and more focus on joint discovery. There is also more focus on strengths and opportunities and less on weaknesses and problems, as well as more focus on learning.
This method aims to increase organizational performance by radically re-designing the organization’s structures and processes — by starting over from the ground up. As with any major model for change, there are many proponents and opponents of BPR. BPR can require an extensive amount of detail, attention and time and can be quite demanding on employees.
Still, the process might be one of few that provides clear guidelines and procedures for carefully dissembling and assembling an organization. The model, like Future Search Conference (below) and Whole Systems Change, really forces leaders to take a complete, fresh look at systems in their organization and how to re-develop those systems anew.
Marvin Weisbord developed the future search approach, which can involve 30-100 people or more, usually over three days, to articulate a preferred future and develop the action steps to accomplish that future. It is an example of a relatively recent category of change models called large-scale interventions. Large-scale change is an example of transformational, organization-wide change.
In the approach, a consultant works with a small planning group to design the event. All key internal and external stakeholders are encouraged to attend. Participants examine the past, present and future of the organization from the perspective of the participants themselves, the organization and its industry. Participants discover their shared values and assumptions to clarify a preferred future or vision. The vision emerges from various scenarios, built from considering what has worked and what has not worked in the past — but especially what has worked. Short-term and long-term action plans are established. Emphasis is on building to the desired future, rather than on solving problems.
The model was developed by Watermann and Peters and depicts seven dimensions of organizations that must be considered when accomplishing organizational change. Imagine a circle of six circles with one circle in the middle. The middle circle is labeled “shared values.” Shared values represent the overall priorities in how the organization chooses to operate. The six outer circles include “strategy,” “structure,” “systems,” “skills,” “staff” and “style.” The point of the model is that an effective organization has to accomplish a fit between all seven S’s, and to realize that a change in any one of the seven dimensions will effect a change in all others.
Strategy is the overall direction of the organization and how it is going to follow that direction. Structure is the organization of the company, defining its roles and lines of authority. Systems include the processes and procedures that guide day-to-day activities in the organization. These three are the hard S’s.
Skills are the capabilities of the organization. Staff includes the organization’s people and how their expertise is utilized. Style is how the organization is led. These three are the soft S’s.
Learn More in the Library’s Blogs Related to Organizational Change
In addition to the articles on this current page, see the following blogs which have posts related to Organizational Change. Scan down the blog’s page to see various posts. Also see the section “Recent Blog Posts” in the sidebar of the blog or click on “next” near the bottom of a post in the blog.
It seems like the topic of organizational change has reached evangelical proportions. There’s an explosion of literature about the subject and an accompanying explosion in the number of consultants who offer services in this general area. The following information attempts to provide some basic perspective about the concept of organizational change. (See the and listed at the end of this article.)
Learn More in the Library’s Blog Related to Organizational Change (Change Management)
In addition to the articles on this current page, see the following blog which has posts related to Organizational Change (Change Management). Scan down the blog’s page to see various posts. Also see the section “Recent Blog Posts” in the sidebar of the blog or click on “next” near the bottom of a post in the blog.
Typically, the concept of organizational change is in regard to organization-wide change, as opposed to smaller changes such as adding a new person, modifying a program, etc. Examples of organization-wide change might include a change in mission, restructuring operations (e.g., restructuring to self-managed teams, layoffs, etc.), new technologies, mergers, major collaborations, “rightsizing”, new programs such as Total Quality Management, re-engineering, etc. Some experts refer to organizational transformation. Often this term designates a fundamental and radical reorientation in the way the organization operates.
What Provokes “Organizational Change”?
Change should not be done for the sake of change — it’s a strategy to accomplish some overall goal. (See Organizational Performance Management.) Usually organizational change is provoked by some major outside driving force, e.g., substantial cuts in funding, address major new markets/clients, need for dramatic increases in productivity/services, etc. Typically, organizations must undertake organization-wide change to evolve to a different level in their life cycle, e.g., going from a highly reactive, entrepreneurial organization to more stable and planned development. Transition to a new chief executive can provoke organization-wide change when his or her new and unique personality pervades the entire organization.
Why is Organization-Wide Change Difficult to Accomplish?
Typically there are strong resistances to change. People are afraid of the unknown. Many people think things are already just fine and don’t understand the need for change. Many are inherently cynical about change, particularly from reading about the notion of “change” as if it’s a mantra. Many doubt there are effective means to accomplish major organizational change. Often there are conflicting goals in the organization, e.g., to increase resources to accomplish the change yet concurrently cut costs to remain viable. Organization-wide change often goes against the very values held dear by members in the organization, that is, the change may go against how members believe things should be done. That’s why much of organizational-change literature discusses needed changes in the culture of the organization, including changes in members’ values and beliefs and in the way they enact these values and beliefs.
How Is Organization-Wide Change Best Carried Out?
Successful change must involve top management, including the board and chief executive. Usually there’s a champion who initially instigates the change by being visionary, persuasive and consistent. A change agent role is usually responsible to translate the vision to a realistic plan and carry out the plan. Change is usually best carried out as a team-wide effort. Communications about the change should be frequent and with all organization members. To sustain change, the structures of the organization itself should be modified, including strategic plans, policies and procedures. This change in the structures of the organization typically involves an unfreezing, change and re-freezing process.
The best approaches to address resistances is through increased and sustained communications and education. For example, the leader should meet with all managers and staff to explain reasons for
the change, how it generally will be carried out and where others can go for additional information. A plan should be developed and communicated. Plans do change. That’s fine, but communicate that the plan has changed and why. Forums should be held for organization members to express their ideas for the plan. They should be able to express their concerns and frustrations as well.
Some General Guidelines to Organization-Wide Change
(Note that the library topic Basic Overview of Major Methods and Movements to Improve Organizational Performance includes overviews of major methods and movements associated with organizational change. Readers would best be served to read the following basic guidelines as foundation for carrying
out any of the methods associated with organizational change.)
In addition to the general guidelines listed above, there are a few other basic guidelines to keep in mind.
1. Consider using a consultant. Ensure the consultant is highly experienced in organization-wide change. Ask to see references and check the references.
2. Widely communicate the potential need for change. Communicate what you’re doing about it. Communicate what was done and how it worked out.
3. Get as much feedback as practical from employees, including what they think are the problems and what should be done to resolve them. If possible, work with a team of employees to manage the change.
4. Don’t get wrapped up in doing change for the sake of change. Know why you’re making the change. What goal(s) do you hope to accomplish?
6. Plan the change. How do you plan to reach the goals, what will you need to reach the goals, how long might it take and how will you know when you’ve reached your goals or not? Focus on the coordination of the departments/programs in your organization, not on each part by itself. Have someone in charge of the plan.
7. End up having every employee ultimately reporting to one person, if possible, and they should know who that person is. Job descriptions are often complained about, but they are useful in specifying who reports to whom.
8. Delegate decisions to employees as much as possible. This includes granting them the authority and responsibility to get the job done. As much as possible, let them decide how to do the project.
9. The process won’t be an “aha!” It will take longer than you think.
10. Keep perspective. Keep focused on meeting the needs of your customer or clients.
11. Take care of yourself first. Organization-wide change can be highly stressful.
12. Don’t seek to control change, but rather to expect it, understand it and manage it.
13. Include closure in the plan. Acknowledge and celebrate your accomplishments.
14. Read some resources about organizational change, including new forms and structures.
To round out your knowledge of this Library topic, you may want to review some related topics, available from the link below. Each of the related topics includes free, online resources.
Also, scan the Recommended Books listed below. They have been selected for their relevance and highly practical nature.
Most experts on organizational communications, management and leadership, assert that effective communications is the foundation for effectiveness in any type of organization. They assert there can’t be too much communication. Some leaders misinterpret communications to be the same as paperwork or bureaucracy and so they’re averse to a high degree of communications. As leaders and managers mature, they realize the need to effective convey and receive information, and efforts at communications (internal and external) increase substantially.
Learn More in the Library’s Blogs Related to Organizational Communication
In addition to the articles on this current page, also see the following blogs that have posts related to Organizational Communication. Scan down the blog’s page to see various posts. Also see the section “Recent Blog Posts” in the sidebar of the blog or click on “next” near the bottom of a post in the blog. The blog also links to numerous free related resources.
Texts on organizational communications tend to first examine basics concepts such as “communications”, “sender”, “receivers”, “encoders”, etc. They go on to examine aspects of communications, e.g., downward, upward, body, verbal, written, formal and informal, interpersonal and group, etc. Some texts include various means to analyze effectiveness of communications. Some writers include public relations and media relations in organizational communications.
This document is geared to provide practical suggestions for nonprofit leaders and managers to ensure sufficient communications within their nonprofits and with external stakeholders. Public relations and media relations are outside the range of this document. Communications is one of those topics that tend to leave people feeling somewhat confused or sometimes bored. People get confused because communications is such a broad topic and it seems to somehow relate to everything. People who get bored assume that they’ve been communicating since childhood so why bring up the topic of communications. Consequently, it may be most useful in this document to start with common pitfalls in communications and then provide a range of items that can be used to enhance communications.
Note that many organizations take a deliberate, formal approach to ensuring sound communications, (both internal and external) by developing a communications plan.
Common Causes of Problems in Internal Communications
1. If I know it, then everyone must know it. Perhaps the most common communications problem is managements’ (leaders’ and managers’) assumption that because they are aware of some piece of information, than everyone else is, too. Usually staff aren’t aware unless management makes a deliberate attempt to carefully convey information.
2. We hate bureaucracy — we’re “lean and mean.” When organizations are just getting started, their leaders can often prize themselves on not being burdened with what seems as bureaucratic overhead, that is, as extensive written policies and procedures. Writing something down can be seen as a sign of bureaucracy and to be avoided. As the organization grows, it needs more communications and feedback to remain healthy, but this communication isn’t valued. As a result, increasing confusion ensues — unless management matures and realizes the need for increased, reliable communications.
3. I told everyone, or some people, or …?
Another frequent problem is managements’ not really valuing communications or assuming that it just happens. So they’re not aware of what they told to whom — even when they intended for everyone to know the information.
4. Did you hear what I meant for you to hear?
With today’s increasingly diverse workforce, it’s easy to believe you’ve conveyed information to someone, but you aren’t aware that they interpreted you differently than you intended. Unfortunately, you won’t be aware of this problem until a major problem or issue arises out of the confusion.
5. Our problems are too big to have to listen to each other! Particularly when personnel are tired or under stress, it’s easy to do what’s urgent rather than what’s important. So people misunderstand others’ points or understand their intentions. This problem usually gets discovered too late, too.
6. So what’s to talk about?
Lastly, communications problems can arise when inexperienced management interprets its job to be solving problems and if they’re aren’t any problems/crises, then there’s nothing that needs to be communicated.
7. There’s data and there’s information.
As organizations grow, their management tends to focus on matters of efficiency. They often generate systems that produce substantial amount of data — raw information that doesn’t seem to really be important.
8. If I need your opinion, I’ll tell it to you.
Lastly, communications problems can arise when management simply sees no value whatsoever in communicating with subordinates, believing subordinates should shut up and do their jobs.
Key Principles to Effective Internal Organizational Communications
1. Unless management comprehends and fully supports the premise that organizations must have high degrees of communications (like people needing lots of water), the organization will remain stilted. Too often, management learns the need for communication by having to respond to the lack of it.
2. Effective internal communications start with effective skills in communications, including basic skills in listening, speaking, questioning and sharing feedback. See Communications Skills. These can developed with some concerted review and practice. Perhaps the most important outcome from these skills is conveying that you value hearing from others and their hearing from you.
3. Sound meeting management skills go a long way toward ensuring effective communications, too. See Guidelines for Effective Meeting Management.
4. A key ingredient to developing effective communications in any organization is each person taking responsibility to assert when they don’t understand a communication or to suggest when and how someone could communicate more effectively.
Basic Structures/Policies to Support Effective Internal Communications
This communication can be looked at as communications downward and upward.
Downward Communications:
1. Ensure every employee receives a copy of the strategic plan, which includes the organization’s mission, vision, values statement, strategic goals and strategies about how those goals will be reached.
2. Ensure every employee receives an employee handbook that contains all up-to-date personnel policies.
3. Develop a basic set of procedures for how routine tasks are conducted and include them in standard operating manual.
4. Ensure every employee has a copy of their job description and the organization chart.
5. Regularly hold management meetings (at least every two weeks), even if there’s nothing pressing to report. If you hold meetings only when you believe there’s something to report, then communications will occur only when you have something to say — communications will be one way and the organization will suffer. Have meetings anyway, if only to establish and affirm the communication that things are of a status that there’s not immediate problems.
6. Hold full staff meetings every month to report how the organization is doing, major accomplishments, concerns, announcements about staff, etc.
7. Leaders and managers should have face-to-face contact with employees at least once a week. Even if the organization is over 20 employees (large for a nonprofit), management should stroll by once in a while.
8. Regularly hold meetings to celebrate major accomplishments. This helps employees perceive what’s important, gives them a sense of direction and fulfillment, and let’s them know that leadership is on top of things.
9. Ensure all employees receive yearly performance reviews, including their goals for the year, updated job descriptions, accomplishments, needs for improvement, and plans to help the employee accomplish the improvements. If the nonprofit has sufficient resources (a realistic concern), develop a career plan with the employee, too.
Upward Communications:
1. Ensure all employees give regular status reports to their supervisors. Include a section for what they did last week, will do next week and any actions/issues to address.
2. Ensure all supervisors meet one-on-one at least once a month with their employees to discuss how its’ going, hear any current concerns from the employee, etc. Even if the meeting is chit-chat, it cultivates an important relationship between supervisor and employee.
3. Use management and staff meetings to solicit feedback. Ask how it’s going. Do a round table approach to hear from each person.
4. Act on feedback from others. Write it down. Get back to it — if only to say you can’t do anything about the reported problem or suggestion, etc.
5. Respect the “grapevine.” It’s probably one of the most prevalent and reliable forms of communications. Major “movements” in the organization usually first appear when employees feel it safe to venture their feelings or opinions to peers.
Supervisor and Employee Communications
Supervision is often considered to include designing the job, hiring someone to fill the job, training them, delegating to them, guiding them via performance reviews, helping them develop their career, noting performance issues, and firing them, if needed. Obviously small nonprofits may not be able to afford full attention to all of these activities.
However, there are several basic and regular activities which provide a solid foundation for effective supervision. These basics ensure that everyone is working together — as important, that staff feel they are working together — towards a common cause.
Ironically, these basics are usually the first activities that stop when an organization is in a crisis. Consequently, an organization development specialist, when “diagnosing” an organization, often first looks to see if these basics are underway. The following activities should be conducted by the new employer’s supervisor.
1. Have all employees provide weekly written status reports to their supervisors.
Include what tasks were done last week, what tasks are planned next week, any pending issues and date the report. These reports may seem a tedious task, but they’re precious in ensuring that employee and their supervisor have mutual understanding of what is going on, and the reports come in very handy for planning purposes. They also make otherwise harried staff and managers stand back and reflect on what they’re doing.
2. Hold monthly meetings with all staff together
– Review the overall condition of the organization and review recent successes. Consider conducting “in service” training where employees take turns describing their roles to the rest of the staff. For clarity, focus and morale, be sure to use agendas and ensure follow-up minutes. Consider bringing in a client to tell their story of how the organization helped them. These meetings go a long way toward building a feeling of teamwork among staff. See Guidelines for Meeting Management.
3. Hold weekly or biweekly meetings with all staff together if the organization is small (e.g., under 10 people); otherwise, with all managers together.
Have these meetings even if there is not a specific problem to solve — just make them shorter. (Holding meetings only when there are problems to solve cultivates a crisis-oriented environment where managers
believe their only job is to solve problems.) Use these meetings for each person to briefly give an overview of what they are doing that week. Facilitate the meetings to support exchange of ideas and questions. Again, for clarity, focus and morale, be sure to use agendas, take minutes and ensure follow-up minutes. Have each person bring their calendar to ensure scheduling of future meetings accommodates each person’s calendar.
4. Have supervisors meet with their direct reports in one-on-one meetings every month –
This ultimately produces more efficient time management and supervision. Review overall status of work activities, hear how it’s going with both the supervisor and the employee, exchange feedback and questions about current programs and services, and discuss career planning, etc. Consider these meetings as interim meetings between the more formal, yearly performance review meetings.
Develop a Basic Communications Plan
Whether planning your internal or external communications efforts, it helps a great deal to develop a communications plan, either informally or formally. For example, consider:
1. What key messages do you want to convey?
2. To what key stakeholders do you want to convey the key messages (e.g., consider clients, funders, community leaders, service providers, etc.)?
3. What’s the best approach to reach each key stakeholder, including who/how should the message be conveyed?
4. How will you know if you’re reaching these stakeholders or not?
For the Category of Marketing:
To round out your knowledge of this Library topic, you may want to review some related topics, available from the link below. Each of the related topics includes free, online resources.
Also, scan the Recommended Books listed below. They have been selected for their relevance and highly practical nature.
Learn More in the Library’s Blogs Related to Organizational Communication
In addition to the articles on this current page, also see the following blogs
that have posts related to Organizational Communication. Scan down the blog’s
page to see various posts. Also see the section “Recent Blog Posts”
in the sidebar of the blog or click on “next” near the bottom of a
post in the blog. The blog also links to numerous free related resources.
For the Category of Communications (Organizational):
To round out your knowledge of this Library topic, you may want to review some related topics, available from the link below. Each of the related topics includes free, online resources.
Also, scan the Recommended Books listed below. They have been selected for their relevance and highly practical nature.
Be sure to read the description in Organizational Performance Management to understand that organizational behavior and organizational structures are ultimately strategies to help increase the performance of an organization.
In this topic, the Library aims to convey the core practices in guiding organizational behaviors, as well as how the practices might be organized and integrated. You will recognize most of the practices because many of them are commonplace in our lives and work.
Understand that the practices are cyclical and highly integrated in nature. Like any component in a cycle, the learning from implementing the practices should, in turn, improve the other components.
Remember that the nature of how the practices are implemented depends on whether the leaders in the organization choose traditional or progressive approaches to performance management. See Performance Management: Traditional and Progressive Approaches
The purpose of the information in this topic is to convey the core concepts in organizational behavior. Your proficiency in the concepts would come from applying them over time, especially under the guidance of a person who is highly experienced in applying them, as well.
(Those who naturally prefer to focus on the “human” side of organizations, rather than on the “business” side, might particularly appreciate this topic on organizational behavior.)
What is Organizational Behavior?
Definitions
Organizational behavior focuses on how humans behave in organizations, including how they interact with each other, as well as how they work within the organizations’ structures to get their work done. Here are some other definitions:
Organizational behavior is the “the study of human behavior in organizational settings, the interface between human behavior and the organization, and the organization itself.” iEduNote
“Organizational behavior is directly concerned with the understanding, prediction, and control of human behavior in organizations.” — Fred Luthans
Goals
This description specifies the goals of organizational behavior:
“The goals of OB [organizational behavior] are to explain, predict, and influence behavior. Managers need to be able to explain why employees engage in some behaviors rather than others, predict how employees will respond to various actions and decisions, and influence how employees behave.” — Open Class
However, organizational behavior holds benefits for employees, as well. The field is rich with research, findings, guidelines and tools for employees to clarify their own goals, understand what motivates them and increase their job satisfaction.
Practices to Influence and Sustain Desired Behaviors in Organizations
There is a vast array of different types of practices that leaders and managers use to influence their employees toward achieving the organization’s goals. More recently, they use a variety of practices to help employees to achieve their own goals, as well. Thus, it can be a challenge to efficiently categorize and explain the practices in a manner that is comprehensive and yet well organized.
IEduNote‘s listing of the eight objectives of organizational behavior seems a reasonable way to categorize them, as well. The titles of their objectives have been slightly reordered and modified in the following categories. The categories are cyclical and highly integrated with each other.
NOTE: Descriptions of each of the following practices are included in each of their respective topics in this Free Management Library. Thus, the descriptions are not duplicated here.
Cultivating the Right Organizational Culture
Organizational culture can be explained as a combination of the members’ values, beliefs, assumptions and ways that they interact with each other. Basically, an organization’s culture is its personality. A person’s personality influences every aspect of their life.
The same is true of an organization’s culture. That is why experts on strategic planning often assert that “culture eats strategy for breakfast” — that is, culture often determines whether strategies are successful or not. That is why so much of what happens in an organization starts from its culture, especially the behaviors that occur in it. The following topics refer to practices that might influence an organization’s culture, and thus the overall behaviors in it.
The culture of the organization, its current life cycle and the nature of its strategic goals all help to suggest the types of leadership needed in an organization.
For example, a start-up organization might want leaders who are visionary and charismatic in attracting more employees to join it. It might also want leaders who have strong expertise in the types of products and services that it delivers. However, as the organization evolves, it might want leaders with expertise in developing internal systems and practices to form a firm foundation for further growth.
A complicating factor about leadership is that different leadership skills are required for leading oneself versus leading another individual versus leading a group versus leading an organization. See Understanding All Aspects of Leadership.
If the organization’s culture is quite traditional, then it might prefer a rather autocratic style of leadership; whereas, a more progressive organization might prefer a more participatory style.
The leaders in an organization are the “engines” that drive the activities in organizational performance. Thus, the expertise of the leaders is a critical component in the success of the organization itself. As discussed above, the nature of the leaders must match the models and styles preferred by the organization. That often requires further development of the leaders, including its executives, managers and supervisors.
The most important asset in an organization is its people. As important as having the right kind of leaders and managers is having the right kind of employees — employees who can do a great job in doing the necessary work to best achieve the goals of the organization. This is where expertise in human resource management is vital to the success of the organization. However, small- to medium-sized organizations can still do that 20% of effort that generates 80% of the success in finding and equipping the right people.
Historical approaches to management treated employees like machines. The top priority was on efficiency — on producing more results in less time. However, today’s approaches have changed dramatically. Today’s leaders are realizing that they will get better performance if they treat their employees as individuals, each of whom is unique in their own interests and capabilities — and also in what motivates them. For the new generations in today’s workforce, it is often far more important to find meaning and fulfillment in their work than to make more money.
Research shows that the cost of hiring and re-training employees is one of the highest of labor costs in organizations. Research also shows a strong correlation between job satisfaction and employee retention. Fortunately, there are a variety of approaches to support strong job satisfaction for employees.
Most of the significant accomplishments in organizations is done in teams. However, a team is often comprised of a wide diversity of values, perspectives and opinions among its members. So teams must be carefully planned, organized and supported. Also, a team is an organization — just a small one. Thus, team performance management is also critical to the success of a team.
Strong performance is the result of very effectively and efficiently achieving the goals, whether they are for an employee, team or the overall organization. Performance management means establishing the goals, monitoring their achievement and making the necessary corrections in order to achieve them even better.
Learn More in the Library’s Blogs Related to Organizational Performance
In addition to the articles on this current page, also see the following blogs that have posts related to organizations. Scan down the blog’s page to see various posts. Also see the section “Recent Blog Posts” in the sidebar of the blog or click on “next” near the bottom of a post in the blog. The blog also links to numerous free related resources.
To round out your knowledge of this Library topic, you may want to review some related topics, available from the link below. Each of the related topics includes free, online resources.
Also, scan the Recommended Books listed below. They have been selected for their relevance and highly practical nature.
In addition to the guidelines included in the large amount of
other fundraising information referenced from the library:
· Ensure the board is strongly involved in fundraising
planning and implementation
· Develop fundraising goals to be the resources needed
to reach the strategic goals identified during strategic planning
· Identify a variety of funding sources for each goal and
the particular fundraising strategies preferred by each of the
sources (the above-mentioned Web page provides a good overview
of various strategies and where they should be used)
· Ensure your plans specify who will be doing what fundraising,
so you don’t have sources who become overwhelmed or irritated
by repeated solicitations from different people in your organization
“The Complete Guide to Nonprofit Management” by Smith,
Bucklin and Associates suggests:
· The most important aspect of fundraising is excellent
public relations, that is, ensuring that your community has a
strong, positive impression of your organization
· Establish an organizational structure to implement the
fundraising plan, including:
Board Executive Committee – Establishes priorities
and goals and approves the plan
Outreach/Marketing Committee – Identifies potential
donors and coordinates efforts to promote fundraising
Fundraising Committee – Leads development and implementation
of the plan, and approaches donors
Volunteer Coordinator – Coordinates volunteer efforts,
including identifying where volunteers might help, recruiting
volunteers, ensuring they are effective and that they are recognized
Information processing – Assign staff to develop and
maintain the fundraising database
Accounting – Be sure to include moneys raised in your
accounting system
Donation processing – Have staff available to process
donations (cashing checks, sending notes of appreciation, updating
the fundraising database, etc.)
· Most fundraising is done in the fall of the year when
corporations are doing their planning for the following year
· Corporations typically require a written proposal
· Foundations rarely fund operating costs, that is, costs
to support central administration of an organization, rather than
specific programs which directly deliver services
· Consider approaching a local advertising, marketing or
public relations firm for pro bono advice. Regularly send these
companies evidence of the successes of your organization to keep
them up to date on your organization.
· Consider using third-class mailing, which is cheaper
than first-class, but sometimes takes as much as two weeks longer
to arrive. Expedite arrival of third-class mail by using bar codes
and nine-digit zip codes.
Typical Funding Sources and Advantages/Disadvantages of Each
(Credit to Ellen M. Hatfield of the Twin Cities in Minnesota)
Source
Advantages
Disadvantages
Individuals
· Largest source of giving
· Ongoing source one can build
· Once a giver, also an advocate
· Volunteers are a good source of money
· Costly to develop, small return
per individual unit
· Hard to generate unless broad-based direct service appeal
· Risky for the inexperienced
· Need significant assistance from the organization’s
board and volunteers
Large-Family Foundations
· Source of large sums of money
· Accessible, professional staff
· Clear guidelines, process
· Most likely to research your request
· Board volunteers can help, not always key
· Start-up funds only
· Lengthy process
· More difficult to access through personal influence
· Proposals may be more lengthy
Community Foundations
· Much like large-family
foundations
· Staff may be sufficient
· Host of foundations within
foundations
· Most money is earmarked, special funds
Small-Family Foundations
· May fund ongoing operating
expenses
· Personal influence with board members helps
· Guidelines often broad
· Not very fussy about grant format
· Hard to access, no professional
staff
· Often not large sums of money
· Without personal influence, may not be possible
Large Corporations / Corporate
Foundations
· Can be source of large
sums of money
· Smaller amounts of money may be ongoing
· Often accessible, professional staff
· May be tied to volunteer involvement
· Business strategy may be clear
· Source of cause-related marketing
· Large sums of money aren’t
ongoing
· Hard to get around staff
· Must be within their guidelines
· Not likely to contribute if not headquartered locally
or have a public consumer base
· Often want board representation
Small Corporations
· Very informal approach
· Money may be ongoing
· Personal connections will suffice
· Neighborhood focus will help
· Small amounts of money
· Narrow range of interest
· Personal contacts are key
Federated Funds (United Ways,
United Arts, Combined Health Appeal)
· Steady source of relatively
large sums of money
· Clear process
· Professional staff, can be agency staff driven
· Generally can’t be a start-up
organization
· Must be social service and fit priority focus
· Very lengthy entry process
· Very time consuming as must be part of yearly fund raising
process, with periodic in-depth review
Government
· Large sums of money possible
· Process is set, clear
· Political clout helps
· May be source of ongoing money
· Application procedures
may be long, tedious
· May only pay by unit of service, fluctuates
· Unspent monies may be returned
· Difficult record keeping
Churches and Organizations
· Often looking for group
projects
· In-kind services most likely
· Need to fit their service focus, neighborhood or religious
outlook
Information
for Smaller Nonprofits
For smaller nonprofits (e.g., with budgets under $100,000 or so),
Smith, Bucklin and Associates (in “The Complete Guide to
Nonprofit Management”) recommend:
· Start with internal solicitations to board members, staff
and members of your organization (if you are chartered on a membership
basis).
· Look to the donors who can make the largest contributions.
Write them, call them and arrange a visit. Offer a co-sponsorship
to events.
· Next, prepare a detailed donor list and offer them a
range of options.
· Then go to the smaller donations list.
For the Category of Fundraising (Nonprofit):
To round out your knowledge of this Library topic, you may want to review some related topics, available from the link below. Each of the related topics includes free, online resources.
Also, scan the Recommended Books listed below. They have been selected for their relevance and highly practical nature.
We and our partners store and/or access information on a device, such as cookies and process personal data. This includes unique identifiers and standard information sent by a device for personalized ads and content, ad and content measurement, and audience insights.
With your permission, we and our partners may use precise geolocation data and identification through device scanning. You may click to consent to our processing as described above. Alternatively, you may click to refuse to consent or access more detailed information. You may also change your preferences before consenting.
Please note that some processing of your personal data may not require your consent, but you have a right to object to such processing. Your preferences will apply to this website only. You can change your preferences at any time by returning to this site or by visiting our privacy policy.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
I’m okay with functional and analytical cookies for website functionality. I agree to the use of cookies under these circumstances:
Will be used if you visit Managementhelp.org
Are necessary for the proper functioning of the website
Enable you to use the site securely
Do not collect personal information that’s not needed for personalization
Help us detect any bugs and improve our website
Collect anonymous information about your visits to our website
Are never used for remarketing
I’m okay with the functional and analytical cookies for marketing purposes and not for website functionality.
Are used to monitor the performance of marketing campaigns
Enable us to compare performance across our marketing campaigns
Are used for individual targeting
Can be used for retargeting on other partner platforms
Enable a more personalized experience
