Conflict

While I was going to start on the topic of Relationship building, I think that discussing conflict is appropriate given the events of this date in 2001. September 11, 2001 illustrates how destructive an ongoing conflict can be. On this day 3000 innocent people from all walks of life and countries died because of a conflict half the world away.

September 11^th represents another turn in the ongoing destructive spiral of conflict that continues to engulf the Middle-east. As in all destructive conflict spirals the only results, of the event, was an escalation in the conflict. Now two governments have been disposed and the death toll continues to mount.

Looking at conflict from the point of view of events like September 11^th may lead you to believe that conflict is a bad thing to be avoided; this view point is as destructive as a conflict spiral. Instead you should look at conflict from the view points of the two classifications used by professionals. These classifications are Constructive and Destructive Conflict.

We already have an example of Destructive conflict, but what’s constructive conflict? Constructive conflict is differing viewpoints that can lead to new thoughts, ideas and ways of looking at things. Constructive Conflict forces you to look outside you current worldview or “box”.

An example of Constructive Conflict can be seen a recent script revision my writing partners and I conducted. During the rewrite a scene was added to show and tighten a major characters motivation. It was a mediocre scene. As the revision progressed my partners got in a conflict over whether the secondary character currently in the scene should be switched with another character. As they worked through the conflict an alternate version emerged which none of us had envisioned. Their conflict took the scene from a mediocre, give the audience some information, scene to an emotionally driven, character defining scene.

As can be seen conflict is a driving force and how it is viewed and handled can have both positive and negative impact, it is not something to be ignored. In future posts we will discuss in more detail the two classifications of conflict and some techniques for handling conflicts. The goal of this discussion is to help you to harness this natural force to drive successful change initiatives

Introduction to Change Situations

There are many reasons why over 70% of Change Initiatives fail to perform up to expectations. This entry will introduce two change situations that will be used by future entries to demonstrate how Communications, Relationship Building and both Formal and Informal Leadership can impact a change initiative’s success or failure.

Below are the two change situations:

Situation one: A major healthcare institution has a sweeping long-term change initiative going on in a technical department. As part of this change two related but formerly separate department have been merged into one overall department with several specialized units. During the merger the small of the departments, which is the concentration of this case study, was positioned in the device support unit. Historically throughout the change initiative this former department, made up of mostly long-term employees, has had management issues. They have gone through a series of managers and team leaders that have not performed up to expectations. Additionally, during the early days of the change initiative the senior management and most of the now merged department was relocated to a geographically separate site due to space issues within the organization.

At one point during this still ongoing change initiative they reassigned the manager prior to hire a new manager. The unit’s senior officer stepped in to handle the management of this group while they searched for a new manager.

The situation during that time is bulleted below:

• The group’s client forms and process where being transferred over to the databases used by the rest of the department
• Most of the employees were long-term, between 5 - 20 years
• As part of senior management, interim manager was physically located in a different area of the city
• He came over to the office once a week
• He entered the office, rarely said more then hello and then only to the people he passed, before going into meetings with the team leader
• At the time only one of the team leads was actually an employee, the other had been brought in as a financial consultant (this was not a financial unit)
• Two long-term technicians who had functioned as team leads previously had been replaced by the current team leads
• The contractor had been in the department before and was disliked by most of the group because of questionable competency and ethics
• Group members felt the other team lead lack knowledge and experience to perform the position

Situation two: This situation comes from a job interview for a contract position. The company is a major retail organization. The interview was with two 20 year employees. The organization had recently changed CEOs. Their new CEO has stated that he wished to double the organizations size in two years. The organization is 20 years old and has a lot of long-term employees.

The situation facing the change initiative is bulleted below:

• Historically and currently the organization has a silo structure with limited cross-function between departments.
• The CEO is new
• The employees are mostly long-term
• The two senior employees conducting the interview describe the new CEO as wonderful
• The CEO is know for walking around the building and stopping to talk to employees and visitors

The organization faces several new regulations which impact operations

Why use Change Management

Why use Change Management? Change within organizations has always been around, but the pace of change has become accelerated in the last 50 plus years. There are numerous factors that force organizations to change; these include external factors like changing markets, global competition and technological advances, or internal factors like changing senior management. Change is inevitable in today business, so organizations that can handle change have a competitive advantage over their competitors.

Change Management provides a structured approach to change that allows organizations to discover change opportunities and better manage change initiatives. When utilized properly, Change Management allows organizations to move from their current legacy or ad hoc systems that can hinder efficient operations to a more flexible and unified system that better leverages the opportunities available.

Change Management (OD) vs. Change Management (Operational)

There are two types of Change Management programs; they are systematic organizational-wide change initiatives and specific internal Change Management/Change Control programs. Each use similar tools but have different goals and priorities. The systematic change initiative involves an organizational-wide transformation effort, while the Change Management/Change Control initiative involves providing tools and processes to control daily operational or project specific changes. Both types of Change Management are important to the organization success. Especially if developing an internal Change Management/Change Control program is included within the organizational transformation program.

For this blog the concentrate will be on the Change Management as it relates to systematic organizational transformation, though information on developing internal change controls will be made available in the links.

Understanding Change Management

To understand Change Management, first we need to know what Change Management means. There are many different definitions of Change Management. For the purpose of this Blog, Change Management can be defined as the controlled transformation of an organization from its current operational state to a future operational state.

There are currently at least two schools of thought on Change and Change Management. The first school of thought is based on Lewin’s Three Stage Model. The Three Stage Model uses the concept of Unfreeze, Change, Refreeze, which basically has the Organization moving from stability {Unfreeze from status quo} through change back to stability {new status quo}. (See link Lewin’s Three Stage Model for more information on the Three Stage Model).

The second school of thought, as articulated, in Herding Cats: Human Change Management and An Improvisational Model of Change Management, sees Change Management as an ongoing process not a temporary state. In this school of thought the desired future state is not a state, instead it is a stage in the ongoing evolution of the Organization. Organizations needs to stop viewing change as a project with a distinct beginning, middle and end as exemplified by the Three Stage Model. Instead of Refreezing and ending the change initiative, Organizations need develop structured Change Management as an ongoing operational process. This will allow the Organization to continuously adapt to the internal and external changes it faces.

While I was trained in the Three Stage Model of Change Management, I find myself in agreement with the emerging view that Organizational Change Management is an ongoing process allowing the Organization to evolve in the face of an ever-changing environment.

Thoughts on Change

Throughout history various cultures have utilized the Wheel as a metaphor for change or transformation. In Medieval times there was the Wheel of Life that illustrated the transformation through loss and suffering to happiness. The Buddhists still use a Wheel of Samsara to depict their Path to Transmigration or Enlightenment. The Chinese have the I Ching, the Book of Change which uses the circle is one of the patterns in its practice. As seen, the wheel has long been associated with change and transformation because it is a good way of illustrating that change is constant and ongoing. The Wheel turns bring you to a different stage then turns again and again.

Change is constant in our lives, though most of us do not think about it. The sun rises, and then it sets. It is hot one day, cool the next. We wake in the morning, move from home to work then return home and go to bed. We change ingredients into meals or move from home to a restaurant. We go through the stages of birth through death and multiple other changes as we pass through our lives. Most of the time, we never realize that change is occurring and that we are reacting to it. We grab an umbrella if it rains, or put on sunscreen if it’s sunny. Change only becomes an issue if it is coupled with the unknown or the loss of something. Organizational Change often encompasses both these elements. People fear the loss of routine, the knowledge of their jobs, the security of their place and even the security of their livelihood. This is the challenge of Change Management and often is its greatest point of failure. Change Management would be easy if it was just a case of identifying a future state and mapping out how to reach that state. Instead Change Management comes up against the human element and their fears of loss. If this is not handled well, the whole change initiative is likely to fail.

Three key elements needed to successfully negotiate an Organizational Change are Communications, Relationship Building and Leadership. These are often the hardest areas to control and leverage in the change.

Introduction

Change Management is one of the most important disciplines of today’s business environment. As the forces of commerce continuously evolve around us, businesses must keep ahead of the curve or suffer. Over the last fifty years, change has become the slippery slope that business must negotiate or they crash on the rocks below.

There is a wealth of material available on Change Management, though most of it concentrates on the technical aspects, i.e. models, mapping and toolboxes. (Please see links for access to some of this material.) This blog will concentrate on three key elements that comprise a large portion of the human aspect of business and the business of change. These are Communications, Relationship Building and both Formal and Informal Leadership.

A combination of research, personal observations and discussion will be utilize to explore how to improve the use of Communications, Relationship Building and both types of Leadership within the Change Management structures.