Organisational Change Mythbusting
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This document summarizes a monthly discussion on organizational change myths. It includes: 1) A discussion of cognitive biases like confirmation bias that can undermine organizational change efforts. 2) Questions about whether urgency around change is overstated and can undermine credibility. Different levels of urgency are discussed, from creating a sense of concern to destroying attitudes. 3) A note that while research supports creating urgency, practitioners are uncertain, and overstating urgency risks appearing insincere.
Organisational Change Mythbusting
- 1. Myth Busting Organisational Change – Nos 2 Join the conversation 7-9pm GMT 7th September 2022 Presented by Alex Boulting The aim of these monthly talks is to crowd-source a body of knowledge from people who have experience in Organisational Change.
- 4. What’s the problem? • Bayesian Updating - we hold onto our current beliefs & get into habitual ruts • Active Inference – looking for confirmation of our world – confirmation bias • Cognitive Candy - Highly intuitive – things generally are not simple KISS can make us stupid • Waste of time & money - Could be learning other things • Negative outcomes – could end up hurting people • Undermine our practice – we loose credibility particularly other psychological practices
- 5. 04 03 02 01 01 02 03 04 03 02 01 01 02 03 04 S L E I Deduction (inference from facts) Experts Induction (inference from observation) Education Consultants Institutions Abduction (inference from what you ‘know’ ) Knowledge Pattern Matching Agency Practitioner Organisational Stakeholder Academic Active Inference we seek information that makes our predictions of our reality true. This ‘reality’ is our mental model - a bias. Our reality is a self fulfilling perceptual prediction. Authority – information that is repeated within a systems creates a ‘narrative’ where you assume people know what they are talking about. A relational & conceptual beliefs. Empirical – objective observation used to test hypothesis “seeing is believing” - ‘empirical reality’ used in evidence-based practice Automatic –”Automatically generated solutions without long logical arguments or evidence” subject to cognitive bias Experience INTERNAL EXTERNAL
- 7. How do we know?
- 8. Is this a Valid Construct…? COHERENCE Definition + Scope + Relationship = Coherence and CONSTRUCT VALIDITY. How can we claim to have a body of knowledge if we don’t have valid constructs? RELATIONSHIP No construct is an island so where is the body of knowledge that underpins Kotter & ADKAR when they have no (or few) references in their books. SCOPE Space = Kubler Ross extrapolation from grief counselling to Organisational Change, Time = Kotter’s 19thC model applied to 20thC problems and Values Judgements = “brains hate change” extrapolation from Neuroscience DEFINITION Precise distinctions from other concepts. Change Management = “people side of change” – a circular tautology or clear definition? Suddaby, R. 2010. Construct clarity in theories of management and organization. Academy of Management Review, 35: 346-357. Construct = an abstract categorisation of observations - exist in our brain only ;)
- 9. Spotting a dodgy concept 01 02 03 04 05 LOGICALLY POSSIBLE UNIQUELY & CLEARLY DEFINED MEANINGFUL MEASURES PREDICABLE ETHICAL We cannot defy the laws of physics so there are no miracles. Equally there is no ‘truth’ so there must be a possibility of it being wrong. Vague definitions are hard to disprove. New ideas might be ‘old wine in new bottles’ which creates confusion and narrows our understanding. Clear terminology so that results can be reproduced by others. Need to measure what we claim to observe. Does it feel overly complicated? Operationalising a construct means that it can consistently predict outcomes and is testable. Is it correlation or causality? Do we feel comfortable doing this even if it works? What impact will it have on other factors?
- 10. 04 05 06 Cutting edge consultants extrapolate findings to wide applications Managers become the evangelists resulting in self-fulfilling prophecies Review of original findings sows scepticism. Concept now makes consultants look outdated. Everyone smartly moves on. Academic Discovery 01 02 03 A modest cautious complicated contextual discovery showing a causal link between two factors. High powered simplified presentation embellishing the ‘discovery’ creates a ‘buzz’ & repetition makes it stronger One idea becomes a book released by a ‘guru’ with a catchy title Doubt & Defection Cult-like Following Consultancy Hype Popularisation Study Description Pop psychology The Fad & Fashion Funnel “Thinking scientifically is a skill. Scepticism is healthy; cynicism is not. In order to be a discriminating “purchaser” of management ideas we need to evaluate the evidence for them.“ Fads and Fashions in Management - July 20, 2015 - Adrian Furnham Professor of Psychology University College London – European Business Review
- 11. 04 05 06 Create some generic questions that fit with attributes of athletic leaders e.g., resilient in face of set-backs H1 - Athletic leaders create positive results or produce more athletic followers Find a company to run survey, test hypothesis & with some statistical jiggery- pockery publish results & claim a new construct Positive Adjective 01 02 03 Think of a positive adjective such as ‘authentic’ ‘spiritual’ or ‘athletic’ Make up some attributes for ‘athletic’ leaders e.g., winners, driven, demand the very best etc. Find inspiring quotes & interviews from CEOs who mention attributes in Step 2 Test Hypothesis Formulate Hypothesis Create a Questionnaire Gather Evidence Imagine a Theory DIY Leadership How to invent a new leadership style “Without this (critical thinking*) we have a pseudo-science. Researchers into authentic leadership have fallen into this trap, willingly. For now, they show not desire to escape from it” Management Studies in Crisis - 2019 – Dennis Tourish Professor of Leadership and Organization Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London *my summary of a quote from Richard Feyman that Tourish uses in his book
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- 14. Poll Results
- 16. Constant Change FREE ENERGY = Divergence –Evidence Discrepancy between our model & the world = prediction error PERCEPTION – change beliefs to minimise divergence ACTION – change observations to maximise evidence CHANGE YOUR MIND CHANGE YOUR WORLD PREDICTION OBSERVATION BEING – Sensory States DOING – Active States
- 19. The Origins of N-Step Change Model 01 02 1. The Develop Of A Need For Change (“unfreezing”), 2. Establishment of Change 3. Relationship, Working Toward Change (“moving”), 4. Generalisation & Stabilisation of Change (“freezing”) & 5. Achieving A Terminal Relationship Lippit’s 5-steps – 1958 1. Creating A Sense of Concern, 2. Developing A Specific Commitment to Change, 3. Pushing For Major Change, 4. Reinforcing & Consolidating New Course Phillip’s 4 Steps – McKinsey & Co - 1983 1. Create Urgency 2. Form a Powerful Coalition 3. Create a Vision for Change. 4. Communicate the Vision. 5. Remove Obstacles. 6. Create Short- Term Wins. 7. Build on the Change. 8. Anchor the Changes in Corporate Culture. Kotter’s 7 Steps – 1995
- 20. 10 Problems with N-step Change Models Mental Models Time to Change? Practice Lack Of Evidence Out Of Date Extraordinary Extrapolations Gloomy Vision Self Fulfilling Top Down Project Based Closed Episodic Linear
- 21. Bayesian Updating Getting the complete picture Sensory Input (‘New’ Evidence - Change) Current Beliefs (Unfreeze) Future Beliefs (Refreeze) Organisational Academic Stakeholder Our Knowledge Our Experience Our Current model of the world New mental model of the world Organisation’s most likely situation 1 2 3 4
- 23. Research seems to support the claim but practitioners are unsure?
- 24. Challenging Status Quo Creating Pain Urgency Continuum Not Accepting BAU “Strong and widespread felt need for change although the direction of change is not clear yet Phillips (1983) Sense of Concern “To break open the shell of complacency and self‐righteousness it is sometimes necessary to bring about an emotional stir up”. Lewin (1943) Organisations are “canyons of complacency” Kotter (2012) Emotional Stir-up “support for attitudes have to be undermined and destroyed if change is to take place.” Schein (1962) Destroy Attitudes “Orchestrating pain messages throughout an institution is the first step in developing organisational commitment to change” Conner ‘create a crisis’ Kotter (2012) Create a Crisis Do we know what we are talking about? “Hiatt (2006) warns against overselling change by putting too much stress on the urgency of every change—reducing credibility. Similarly, Kanter et al. (1992: 383) caution that messages of urgency might appear to “cry wolf” and “fail to induce a felt need for change.“ “it is difficult to make much progress…of a major change effort unless most managers honestly believe that the status quo is unacceptable” (p51) (2012) Decreasing likelihood of change success