If you are interested in sustainable change, then the ideas and concepts in Senge et al (1999) will be of interest to you. This excellent article, The Dance of Change, seeks to help ‘those who care deeply about building new types of organisations’ to understand the challenges ahead.
Senge et al observe that many change initiatives fail to achieve hoped for results. They reflect on why this might be so, commenting, ‘To understand why sustaining significant change is so elusive, we need to think less like managers and more like biologists.’ Senge et al talk about the myriad of ‘balancing processes’ or forces of homeostasis which act to preserve the status quo in any organization.
HOMEOSTASIS IN ACTION
We wanted to move to a matrix structure for managing projects. There was significant investment of time and effort in this initiative as we anticipated payoff in terms of utilization of staff and ability to meet project deadlines. This approach would allow staff to be freed up when they were not fully utilized, so that they could work on a variety of projects.
Consultants worked with us to design the new structure. Job specs were rewritten. People understood their new roles. For a couple for months, it seemed to be working. But after four months, we discovered that the project managers were just carrying on working in the old way, as if they still owned the technical staff. They would even lie about utilization, just to stop other project managers from getting hold of their people.
I don’t think we have moved on very much at all.
Business Unit Manager, Research Projects Department
Senge et al say:
Most serious change initiatives eventually come up against issues embedded in our prevailing system of management. These include managers’ commitment to change as long as it doesn’t affect them; ‘undiscussable’ topics that feel risky to talk about; and the ingrained habit of attacking symptoms and ignoring deeper systemic causes of problems.
Their guidelines are:
- Start small.
- Grow steadily.
- Don’t plan the whole thing.
- Expect challenges – it will not go smoothly!
Senge et al use the principles of environmental systems to illustrate how organizations operate and to enhance our understanding of what forces are at play. Senge says in his article, The Fifth Discipline (Senge 1993):
Business and other human endeavours are also systems. They too are bound by invisible fabrics of interrelated actions, which often take years to fully play out their effects on each other. Since we are part of that lacework ourselves, it’s doubly hard to see the whole patterns of change. Instead we tend to focus on snapshots of isolated parts of the systems, and wonder why our deepest problems never seem to get solved.
The approach taken by Senge et al is noticeably different from much of the other work on change, which focuses on the early stages such as creating a vision, planning, finding energy to move forward and deciding on first steps. They look at the longer-term issues of sustaining and renewing organizational change. They examine the challenges of first initiating, second sustaining and third redesigning and rethinking change. The article does not give formulaic solutions, or ‘how to’ approaches, but rather gives ideas and suggestions for dealing with the balancing forces of equilibrium in organizational systems (resistance).
What are the balancing forces that those involved in change need to look out for? Senge et al say that the key challenges of initiating change are the balancing forces that arise when any group of people starts to do things differently:
- ‘We don’t have time for this stuff!’ People working on change initiatives will need extra time outside of the day to day to devote to change efforts, otherwise there will be push back.
- ‘We have no help!’ There will be new skills and mindsets to develop. People will need coaching and support to develop new capabilities.
- ‘This stuff isn’t relevant!’ Unless people are convinced of the need for effort to be invested, it will not happen.
- ‘They’re not walking the talk!’ People look for reinforcement of the new values or new behaviours from management. If this is not in place, there will be resistance to progress.
They go on to say that the challenges of sustaining change come to the fore when the pilot group (those who start the change) becomes successful and the change begins to touch the rest of the organization:
- ‘This stuff is _____!’ This challenge concerns the discomfort felt by individuals when they feel exposed or fearful about changes. This may be expressed in a number of different ways such as ,‘This stuff is taking our eye off the ball’, or ‘This stuff is more trouble that it’s worth.’
- ‘This stuff isn’t working!’ People outside the pilot group, and some of those within the pilot group, may be impatient for positive results. Traditional ways of measuring success do not always apply, and may end up giving a skewed view of progress.
- ‘We have the right way!’/’They don’t understand us!’ The pilot group members become evangelists for the change, setting up a reaction from the ‘outsiders’.
The challenges of redesigning and rethinking change appear when the change achieves some visible measure of success and starts to impact on ingrained organizational habits:
- ‘Who’s in charge of this stuff?’ This challenge is about the conflicts that can arise between successful pilot groups, who start to want to do more, and those who see themselves as the governing body of the organization.
- ‘We keep reinventing the wheel!’ The challenge of spreading knowledge of new ideas and processes around the organization is a tough one. People who are distant from the changes may not receive good quality information about what is going on.
- ‘Where are we going and what are we here for?’ Senge says, ‘engaging people around deep questions of purpose and strategy is fraught with challenges because it opens the door to a traditionally closed inner sanctum of top management’.
Our view
We like the ideas of Senge et al very much. They are thought-provoking and highly perceptive. If we can persuade clients to read the article, we will. However, in the current climate of time pressure and the need for fast results, these ideas are often a bitter pill for managers struggling to make change happen despite massive odds.
Whenever possible we encourage clients to be realistic in their quest for change, and to notice and protect areas where examples of the right sort of behaviours already exist. The messages we carry with us resulting from Senge et al’s thoughts are:
- Consider running a pilot for any large-scale organizational change.
- Keep your change process goals realistic, especially when it comes to timescales and securing resources.
- Understand your role in staying close to change efforts beyond the kick-off.
- Recognize and reward activities that are already going the right way.
- Be as open as you can about the purpose and mission of your enterprise.
There are no standard ‘one size fits all’ answers in the article, but plenty of thought-provoking ideas and suggestions, and a thoroughly inspirational reframing of traditional ways of looking at change. However, those interested in rapid large-scale organizational change are unlikely to find any reassurance or support in Senge et al’s article. The advice is, start small.
STOP AND THINK!
Reflect on an organizational change in which you were involved that failed to achieve hoped-for results. What were the balancing forces that acted against the change? Use Senge et al’s ideas to prompt your thinking.