Managing Change / Changing Managers

Julian Randall

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• eBook ISBN: 9781134350803
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

The topic of change management presents students with many challenges. One of the most difficult is making sense of the plethora of guru and hero-manager literature.
Managing Change/Changing Managers is an innovative textbook that encourages readers to rigorously question popular management theory, presenting a challenging review of existing literature in the change management field. The author brings together an overarching perspective on the most influential writings in the area, but unlike other textbooks, provides a much-needed criritque of the material and its implications for management practice.
Arguing that the majority of management guru literature makes the art of managing change appear simple and foolproof when it is not, this text is refreshingly critical, guiding and enhancing the reader's own criticality. The book also draws the best practice out of the traditional theory, using cases to illuminate the practical side to change management.

Chapter 1
Finding your way in

Managing change or changing managers

TOPIC HEADINGS

• Current issues in the management of change
• The different literatures contributing to the management of change
• The theoretical assumptions underpinning the management of change
• Sociological paradigms and organizational analysis
• Historical human relations background to change interventions

INTRODUCTION

The Management of Change is a subject that is destined to be with us for many years to come, while people adjust to a world of work that is likely to be more fragmented than previous generations had come to expect. In the middle of the last century it would be fair to say that most people expected to choose a trade, profession or occupation and, if they wanted to, stay in it until retirement. Popular authors frequently refer to a period of stability after the Second World War when full employment was the objective of governments, whether in the Western world or in the more managed economies to be found elsewhere.

If we accept the findings of Expectancy Theory (Vroom, 1964), we would anticipate that most individuals looked forward to a stable experience of employment, which started with specific qualification levels and induction training and then proceeded through various promotions, accompanied by appropriate incremental pay rises. For many, the prospect of working for one employer enabled individuals to plan their lives, and to invest in a family and property with the security of feeling that they could discharge these responsibilities with a reasonable prospect of consistent success. Individuals might freely embark on change should opportunity arise elsewhere or an alternative offer be made in the same sector. One well-known popular writer in management summarizes what many might have felt then:

Thirty years ago I started work in a world-famous multinational company. By way of encouragement they produced an outline of my future career – ‘This will be your life,’ they said, with titles of likely jobs. The line ended, I remember with myself as chief executive of a particular company in a particular far-off country. I was, at the time, suitably flattered.

(Handy, 1989, 5)

However, the author continues to consider the changes that have broken into the world of work since that time. We can note that it has given rise to much reassessment by individuals of how they will manage their lives to take account of different, sometimes imposed and unplanned breaks in what would previously have been a seamless experience. The post-war consensus of providing employment for all broke down and the assumptions that underwrote motivation at work and career development came to be questioned.

Interestingly, the full development of the all-providing organization had emerged in the terms of Human Resource Management (HRM) (Beer, 1984). It could be said that traditional personnel management during the twentieth century had offered the prospect of managed motivation leading to productivity and achievement of organizational objectives (Storey, 1989; Sisson, 1994). However, now there came a philosophy that was far more comprehensive and combined performativity with personal commitment to the organization (Fournier and Grey, 2000). The outcomes of HRM could be listed:

• Quality
• Flexibility
• Commitment
• Strategic integration.

(Guest, 1989)

There were even those who saw a psychological contract in which transactional elements (money in return of work and effort) were balanced by relational elements (loyalty and trust), which would explain the internal calculation that an individual might make during his or her experience at work (McNeil, 1985; Rousseau, 1998).

This obligingly cohesive and easily managed world could not be expected to survive what was to be a decade of monetarism in which businesses were projected into a financial accountability, which would find them struggling to survive without radical downsizing or merger. The alluring prospect of reducing what for most businesses accounted for 75 per cent of overhead – staff costs – could only lead to the competitive drive to become lean and risk averse (Peters and Waterman, 1985). Excellence came at a price and the right formula for a company’s survival could well mean reduction in numbers and arbitrary termination of employment contracts. The effect of this on individuals became the focus of increasing research (Jahoda, 1982; Little, 1976; Smith, 1985; Swinburne, 1981). The consequences were found to impact on not just workers directly affected in this way, but also those employees who remained in work and had witnessed how their peers had been treated (Hallier and Lyon, 1996; Hallier and James, 1997).

The implications of this imposition of change also affected the rationale of much public sector employment. Governments were not slow to see the value of reducing head-count in sectors for which they were responsible. Performativity could offer the prospect not just of reduction of overhead but also the functional flexibility that unionized environments had precluded in the past. The debate about the rights of private profit makers to undertake publicly funded services is with us still. But the drive for what was sometimes referred to as New Public Sector Management is unlikely to recede (Fox, 1991; Pollitt, 1993).

MANAGING CHANGE

The claim that change at work can be managed is not a new position. The history of industrialization offers myriad examples of organizations evolving in all sectors. New technologies have always driven the search for new applications, which in turn provide the competitive advantage to those who first implement them. Unsurprisingly, it often meant for workers increased productivity imposed with no necessary compensating benefits (Littler, 1985; Melling and McKinlay, 1996; Gall, 2003). Into that world of change came initiators, inventors and managers of change who offered business owners new ways of implementing such competitive advantage. Taylorism is a prime example of Ford’s investment in performativity linked to production, but following this application of derived productivity to systematic management were many others whose names are equally well known. Most students of social sciences will have heard of Lewin (1947) who addressed the forces for and against change and attempted to manage the process with groups of workers using group work. His research influenced many practitioners who took part in facilitating that work and who went on to research and write in the field of management and motivation in their own right. Among them were such well-known names as Argyris, Schein and McGregor, to name but three of those who continued and developed his work.

However, it took the excellence literature to bring popularity to writings on the management of change. Academics such as Porter and Kanter became household names among the advocates of proactive intervention and positive interpretation of the imposed management of change. Practising managers and students alike found such contributions accessible and readable. They often reinforced an optimistic belief that it was possible to bring about change at work without inducing resistance or alienation in those on whom it was imposed.

Not surprisingly a range of texts appeared for students and managers wanting to investigate good practice and the theoretical principles that underpin the practice of change management (Burnes, 1992; Carnall, 1999; Wilson, 1999; Collins, 1998; Williams et al., 2002; Darwin et al., 2002; Hayes, 2002; Jick and Peiperl, 2003). They balanced the theoretical and the empirical using different approaches, sometimes illustrating theory with practical examples or alternatively offering case study-led comment on practical contributions to an exponentially burgeoning literature on the successful implementation of change.

At the foundation of such theorizing lie the findings of researchers. Such contributors, mostly academics, enter into the world of work carrying with them a set of tools and a set of assumptions (Weick, 1995). Some come from the Labour Process tradition, which has its roots in the assumption that the employer–employee relationship is inherently exploitative. Others have a more critical approach, perhaps accepting the necessary interaction of worker and manager whilst seeking to evaluate critically the outcome of management strategies and their intervention in the workplace. Such work often finds its initial publication in periodicals and journals and in edited volumes of assembled contributions (McKinlay and Starkey, 1998).

EXAMINING DIFFERENT CONTRIBUTIONS

In the first section of this chapter we will attempt to give the reader examples of these different types of contribution. Popular writers can provide compelling reading, particularly when consultancy has provided them with examples which give their texts both credibility and currency. It can sometimes be difficult for the general reader approaching such literature to identify the theoretical assumptions being made by the writer. Perhaps the pace of the narrative overtakes the need to be analytical and, on occasion, critical of claims being made about effectively managed change and its impact on the individuals involved. The examples used offer opportunities to examine the assumptions made by the writers.

In the second section we will look at the theoretical assumptions underlying the management of change in greater detail, for the impact of change on individuals has its base in the discipline of psychology, in which there is a very full literature addressing change and its impact on individual subjects both in laboratory and in fieldwork. But individuals usually work with others and this brings us into the areas of group work and the ever-popular emphasis on teams. Here we are entering into the more sociologically based literatures of group dynamics and team roles. Finally, once we embark on organizational studies there are other debates that need to be addressed. These are both definitional – what is an organization – and also conceptual – how do we think about the dynamics which underpin the disciplines we are studying during change?

In the third section we will look at the historical evolution of traditions, which have been significant contributors to the way we think about change and the assumptions that may be made about it. We will consider the background of those who would see organizations as almost mechanical in the way they operate. There are still many practitioners and consultants who would see their work as diagnosing problems arising from the way an organization is structured and staffed. Organization Development as a discipline has its roots in such a functionalist view.

The alternative tradition of perceptions of individuals as the critical factor in managing change in organizations derives from an interpretist tradition. Contributions range from the Human Relations school to later work on climate and culture, in which the way individuals interpret change depends on the basic assumptions they hold about themselves, their jobs, their career and the organization. Here we are at the heart of the structure and actor debate, which surfaces along the interface between personal and corporate constructs (Balnaves and Caputi, 1993). The debate will endure and reflects the distinct contributions that psychology and sociology have made to the management of change. We have allowed that distinction expression in the alternate parts of the title of this book, for structuralists will usually be more comfortable with managing change as a process, whereas interpretists will be more comfortable starting from the premise that changing managers’ attitudes is what actually underlies the claim to be effective in the management of change.

The fourth section of this chapter will address the practical considerations of those embarking on academic, postgraduate courses. You will probably be confronted by requirements to produce essays, assignments and eventually a dissertation. Getting back into the ways of writing extended prose composition can be trying for those whose lives are more dependent on minimal e-mails and bullet-point lists.

So, here is the opportunity to examine the conventions required to be successful, and the form and content, which should make it easier to write and gain reasonable marks from academics who, as a race, can be remarkably insistent on the requirements of parsing, analysis and the grammatical conventions sometimes left behind at school by those involved in everyday management practice.

In this first chapter we will look at the structure of assignment and examination questions and the methods to follow in putting together your answer. Writing is a discipline which, like any other, should become easier with practice. However, some ground rules may make it easier to judge how closely your work has come to best practice. In subsequent chapters we will use the fourth section to examine how to develop questions which can arise in exams and assignments.

DIFFERENT VOICES IN THE MANAGEMENT OF CHANGE

The most accessible works for a general readership interested in entering the world of the management of change are usually popular to-do books. Their titles often give them away. We will notice the inclusion of ‘how to’ and ‘to do’ phrases included in the title. Academic students are often warned off using such books as frequently very little is offered to the reader by way of Index or References. This makes the work, however well written, difficult to link to other contributors and can become a monologue of the author’s personal opinion backed by anecdote and selective quotation from sympathetic sources. However, for those looking to break into the subject there is sometimes a value in reading to identify what the basic assumptions of the writer are and whereabouts on a spectrum of contributors he or she would be sited. With this in mind we offer the following extract as not untypical of such general works. It comes from a book entitled Effective change: twenty ways to make it...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of boxes
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Finding your way in: managing change or changing managers
• 2 Thinking about change: stages, process or continuum
• 3 Managing systems: open or closed?
• 4 Individuals and change: manageable or not?
• 5 Cultural transformation: behaviours or perception?
• 6 N-step models: practice, performance or preference?
• 7 Programmed approaches to organizational change: rhetoric and reality
• 8 Project management: facilitation or constraint?
• 9 Change agency: managing change or changing managers?
• 10 Conclusions
• Index