Chapter Summary

15-1Describe the elements of Lewin’s force field analysis model.

Lewin’s force field analysis model states that all systems have driving and restraining forces. Change
occurs through the process of unfreezing, changing, and refreezing. Unfreezing produces disequilibrium
between the driving and restraining forces. Refreezing realigns the organization’s systems and
structures with the desired behaviors.

15-2Discuss the reasons why people resist organizational change and how change agents should view
this resistance.

Restraining forces are manifested as employee resistance to change. The main reasons people resist
change are the negative valence of change, fear of the unknown, not-invented-here syndrome, breaking
routines, incongruent team dynamics, and Page 437 incongruent organizational systems. Resistance to
change should be viewed as a resource, not an inherent obstacle to change. Change agents need to view
resistance as task conflict rather than relationship conflict. Resistance is a signal that the change agent
has not sufficiently strengthened employee readiness for change. It is also a form of voice, so discussion
potentially improves procedural justice.

15-3Outline six strategies for minimizing resistance to change, and debate ways to effectively create
an urgency to change.

Organizational change requires employees to have an urgency for change. This typically occurs by
informing them about driving forces in the external environment. Urgency to change also develops by
putting employees in direct contact with customers. Leaders often need to create an urgency to change
before the external pressures are felt, and this can occur through a vision of a more appealing future.

Resistance to change may be minimized by keeping employees informed about what to expect from the
change effort (communicating); teaching employees valuable skills for the desired future (learning);
involving them in the change process; helping employees cope with the stress of change; negotiating
trade-offs with those who will clearly lose from the change effort; and using coercion (sparingly and as a
last resort).

15-4Discuss how leadership, coalitions, social networks, and pilot projects assist organizational
change.

Every successful change requires transformational leaders with a clear, well-articulated vision of the
desired future state. They also need the assistance of several people (a guiding coalition) who are
located throughout the organization. In addition, change occurs more informally through social
networks. Viral change operates through social networks using influencers.

Many organizational change initiatives begin with a pilot project. The success of the pilot project is then
diffused to other parts of the organization. This occurs by motivating employees to adopt the pilot
project’s methods, training people to know how to adopt these practices, helping clarify how the pilot
can be applied to different areas, and providing time and resources to support this diffusion.

15-5Describe and compare action research, appreciative inquiry, large group interventions, and
parallel learning structures as formal approaches to organizational change.

Action research is a highly participative, open systems approach to change management that combines
an action orientation (changing attitudes and behavior) with research orientation (testing theory). It is a
data-based, problem-oriented process that diagnoses the need for change, introduces the intervention,
and then evaluates and stabilizes the desired changes.

Appreciative inquiry embraces the positive organizational behavior principle by focusing participants on
the positive and possible. This approach to change also applies the constructionist, simultaneity, poetic,
and anticipatory principles. The four stages of appreciative inquiry include discovery, dreaming,
designing, and delivering.

Large group interventions are highly participative events that view organizations as open systems (i.e.,
involve as many employees and other stakeholders as possible) and adopt a future and positive focus of
change. Parallel learning structures rely on social structures developed alongside the formal hierarchy
with the purpose of increasing the organization’s learning. They are highly participative arrangements,
composed of people from most levels of the organization who follow the action research model to
produce meaningful organizational change.

15-6Discuss two cross-cultural and three ethical issues in organizational change.

One significant concern is that organizational change theories developed with a Western cultural
orientation potentially conflict with cultural values in some other countries. Also, organizational change
practices can raise one or more ethical concerns, including increasing management’s power over
employees, threatening individual privacy rights, and undermining individual self-esteem.

our Approaches to Organizational Change

LO 15-5

So far, this chapter has examined the dynamics of change that occur every day in organizations.
However, organizational change agents and consultants also apply various structured approaches to
organizational change. This section introduces four of the leading approaches: action research,
appreciative inquiry, large group interventions, and parallel learning structures.

Action Research Approach

Along with introducing the force field model, Kurt Lewin recommended an action research approach to
the change process. The philosophy of action research is that meaningful change is a combination of
action orientation (changing attitudes and behavior) and research orientation (testing theory).61 On one
hand, the change process needs to be action-oriented because the ultimate goal is to change the
workplace. An action orientation involves diagnosing current problems and applying interventions that
resolve those problems. On the other hand, the change process is a research study because change
agents apply a conceptual framework (such as team dynamics or organizational culture) to a real
situation. As with any good research, the change process involves collecting data to diagnose problems
more effectively and to systematically evaluate how well the theory works in practice.62

Within this dual framework of action and research, the action research approach adopts an open
systems view. It recognizes that organizations have many interdependent parts, so change agents need
to anticipate both the intended and the unintended consequences of their interventions. Action
research is also a highly participative process because open systems change requires both the
knowledge and the commitment of members within that system. Indeed, employees are essentially co-
researchers as well as participants in the intervention. Overall, action research is a data-based, problem-
oriented process that diagnoses the need for change, introduces the intervention, and then evaluates
and stabilizes the desired changes. The main phases of action research are illustrated in Exhibit 15.4:63

EXHIBIT 15.4 The Action Research Process

A flow chart

Access the text alternative for Exhibit 15.4

Form client–consultant relationship. Action research usually assumes that the change agent originates
outside the system (such as a consultant), so the process begins by forming the client–consultant
relationship. Consultants need to determine the client’s readiness for change, including whether people
are motivated to participate in the process, are open to meaningful change, and possess the abilities to
complete the process.

Diagnose the need for change. Action research is a problem-oriented activity that carefully diagnoses
the problem to determine the appropriate direction for the change effort. Organizational diagnosis
relies on systematic analysis of the situation. It involves gathering and analyzing data about an ongoing
system, including interviews and surveys of employees and other stakeholders. Organizational diagnosis
also involves employees so they improve, understand, and support the appropriate change method, the
schedule for the actions involved, and the expected standards of successful change. Page 431

Introduce intervention. This stage in the action research model applies one or more actions to correct
the problem. It may include any of the prescriptions mentioned in this book, such as building more
effective teams, managing conflict, building a better organizational structure, or changing the corporate
culture. An important issue is how quickly the changes should occur.64 Some experts recommend
incremental change, in which the organization fine-tunes the system and takes small steps toward a
desired state. Others claim that rapid change is often required, in which the system is overhauled
decisively and quickly.

Evaluate and stabilize change. Action research recommends evaluating the effectiveness of the
intervention against the standards established in the diagnostic stage. Unfortunately, even when these
standards are clearly stated, the effectiveness of an intervention might not be apparent for several years
or might be difficult to separate from other factors. If the activity has the desired effect, the change
agent and participants need to stabilize the new conditions. This refers to the refreezing process that
was described earlier in this chapter. Rewards, information systems, team norms, and other conditions
are redesigned so they support the new values and behaviors.

debating point

What’s the Best Speed for Organizational Change?

One of the great debates among organizational change experts is how quickly the change should occur.
One view is that slow, incremental change is better because it gives employees more time to adjust to
the new realities, to keep up with what needs to be learned, and to manage their stress in this process.
Incremental change is also preferred because it gives change champions more time to change course if
the current direction seems to be more dysfunctional than ideal.

Ergon Energy discovered the importance of incremental change. Government legislation required
companies to upgrade their record-keeping system, but the Australian energy provider decided to make
the changes incrementally because employees had already experienced constant change over the
previous couple of years. “Even resilient staff such as those employed at Ergon Energy have a change
tolerance level,” explains Petá Sweeney, a consultant who worked with Ergon staff during this transition.
“Consequently this led deliberately to discounting a revolutionary ‘big bang’ approach to record-keeping
improvements.” Sweeney reports that changing incrementally significantly improved employee
engagement in the process. “Staff are more willing to participate in the change journey as well as
offering suggestions for improvements. They do so knowing that changes will take place gradually and
allow for time to fully bed down new practices and that effective enterprise wide changes require their
help.”65

In spite of these apparent virtues of incremental change, some experts claim that rapid change is usually
much better. They do not claim that change needs to be radical or even rapid all of the time. Rather,
they suggest that most change initiatives need to be, on average, much quicker than incremental. One
argument is that companies operate in such a fast-paced environment that any speed less than “rapid”
is risky; an incremental change initiative will put them further behind to the point that any change
seems futile.

A second argument is that rapid change creates a collective sense of momentum, whereas inertia
eventually catches up with incremental change.66 In other words, employees feel the sense of progress
when change occurs quickly. This forward movement generates its own energy that helps motivate
employees toward the future objectives. Incremental change, by comparison, is sluggish and lethargic. A
related argument is that any organizational change requires plenty of energy, particularly from the
leaders who must continually communicate, role model, coach, and otherwise support and influence
employees toward the new state of affairs.67 This energy is finite, and it is more likely to run out when
the change is spread over a long rather than a short period of time.

Third, incremental change doesn’t necessarily give employees more time to adjust; instead, it typically
gives them more time to dig in their heels! Rapid change, on the other hand, happens at such speed that
employees don’t have the opportunity to find ways to hold back, retrench, or even think about
strategies to oppose the change effort. Finally, proponents of incremental change point to its benefits
for minimizing stress, yet there is reason to believe that it often has the opposite effect. Changing slowly
can feel like a slow train wreck—the more you see it coming, the more painful it feels. Quicker change,
particularly when there are support systems to help employees through the process, may be less painful
than incremental change.

The action research approach has dominated organizational change thinking since it was introduced in
the 1940s. However, some experts are concerned that the problem-oriented nature of action research—
in which something is wrong that must be fixed—focuses on Page 432 the negative dynamics of the
group or system rather than its positive opportunities and potential. This concern with action research
has led to the development of a more positive approach to organizational change, called appreciative
inquiry.68

Appreciative Inquiry Approach

Appreciative inquiry tries to break out of the problem-solving mentality of traditional change
management practices by reframing relationships around the positive and the possible. It searches for
organizational (or team) strengths and capabilities and then applies that knowledge for further success
and well-being. Appreciative inquiry is therefore deeply grounded in the emerging philosophy of positive
organizational behavior, which suggests that focusing on the positive rather than the negative aspects of
life will improve organizational success and individual well-being. In other words, this approach
emphasizes building on strengths rather than trying to directly correct problems.69

Appreciative inquiry typically examines successful events, organizations, and work units. This focus
becomes a form of behavioral modeling, but it also increases open dialogue by redirecting the group’s
attention away from its own problems. Appreciative inquiry is especially useful when participants are
aware of their problems or already suffer from negativity in their relationships. The positive orientation
of appreciative inquiry enables groups to overcome these negative tensions and build a more hopeful
perspective of their future by focusing on what is possible.70
Appreciative inquiry’s positive focus is illustrated by the intervention conducted a few years ago at
Heidelberg USA. The American arm of the world’s largest printing press manufacturer (Heidelberger
Druckmaschinen AG) experienced morale-busting product setbacks as well as downsizing due to the
economic recession. To rebuild employee morale and engagement, Heidelberg held a two-day
appreciative inquiry summit involving one-third of its staff. Organized into diverse groups from across
the organization, participants envisioned what Heidelberg would ideally look like in the future. From
these sessions emerged a new vision and greater autonomy for employees to serve customers.
“Appreciative inquiry can energize an organization even in tough times because it begins the
conversation with possibilities instead of problems,” says a senior executive at Heidelberg USA.71

Appreciative Inquiry Principles

Appreciative inquiry embraces five key principles (see Exhibit 15.5).72 One of these is the positive
principle, which we have just described. A second principle, called the constructionist principle, takes
the position that conversations don’t describe reality; they shape that reality. The understanding we
form of an event, group, or situation depends on the questions we ask and the language we use.
Therefore, appreciative inquiry uses words and language carefully because it is sensitive to the thoughts
and feelings behind that communication. This relates to a third principle, called the simultaneity
principle, which states that inquiry and change are simultaneous, not sequential. The moment we ask
questions of others, we are changing those people. Furthermore, the questions we ask determine the
information we receive, which in turn affects which change intervention we choose. The key learning
point from this principle is to be mindful of effects that the inquiry has on the direction of the change
process.

EXHIBIT 15.5 Five Principles of Appreciative Inquiry

Appreciative Inquiry Principle Description

Positive principle Focusing on positive events and potential produces more positive, effective, and
enduring change.

Constructionist principle How we perceive and understand the change process depends on the
questions we ask and language we use throughout that process.

Simultaneity principle Inquiry and change are simultaneous, not sequential.

Poetic principle Organizations are open books, so we have choices in how they may be perceived,
framed, and described.

Anticipatory principle People are motivated and guided by the vision they see and believe in for the
future.

Sources: Based on D.L. Cooperrider and D.K. Whitney, Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Revolution in
Change (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2005), Chap. 7; D.K. Whitney and A. Trosten-Bloom, The Power
of Appreciative Inquiry: A Practical Guide to Positive Change, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler,
2010), Chap. 3.
A fourth principle, called the poetic principle, states that organizations are open books, so we have
choices in how they may be perceived, framed, and described. The poetic principle is reflected in the
notion that a glass of water can be viewed as half full or half empty. Therefore, appreciative inquiry
actively frames reality in a way that provides constructive value for future development. The
anticipatory principle, the fifth principle of appreciative inquiry, emphasizes the importance of a positive
collective vision of the future state. People are motivated and guided by the vision they see and believe
in. Images that are mundane or disempowering will affect current effort Page 433 and behavior
differently than will images that are inspiring and engaging. We noted the importance of visions earlier
in this chapter (change agents) and in our discussion of transformational leadership (Chapter 12).

The Four-D Model of Appreciative Inquiry

These five principles lay the foundation for appreciative inquiry’s “Four-D” process. The model’s name
refers to its four stages, shown in Exhibit 15.6. Appreciative inquiry begins with discovery—identifying
the positive elements of the observed events or organization.73 This might involve documenting
positive customer experiences elsewhere in the organization. Or it might include interviewing members
of another organization to discover its fundamental strengths. As participants discuss their findings, they
shift into the dreaming stage by envisioning what might be possible in an ideal organization. By pointing
out a hypothetical ideal organization or situation, participants feel safer revealing their hopes and
aspirations than they would if they were discussing their own organization or predicament.

EXHIBIT 15.6 The Four-D Model of Appreciative Inquiry

A flow chart

Sources: Based on F.J. Barrett and D.L. Cooperrider, “Generative Metaphor Intervention: A New
Approach for Working with Systems Divided by Conflict and Caught in Defensive Perception,” Journal of
Applied Behavioral Science 26 (1990): 229; D. Whitney and C. Schau, “Appreciative Inquiry: An
Innovative Process for Organization Change,” Employment Relations Today 25 (Spring 1998): 11–21; D.L.
Cooperrider and D.K. Whitney, Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Revolution in Change (San Francisco:
Berrett-Koehler, 2005), Chap. 3.

As participants make their private thoughts public to the group, the process shifts into the third stage,
called designing. Designing involves dialogue in which participants listen with selfless receptivity to each
other’s models and assumptions and eventually form a collective model for thinking within the team. In
effect, they create a common image of what should be. As this model takes shape, group members shift
the focus back to their own situation. In the final stage of appreciative inquiry, called delivering (also
known as destiny), Page 434 participants establish specific objectives and direction for their own
organization on the basis of their model of what will be.

Appreciative inquiry was introduced almost three decades ago, but it really gained popularity only
within the past decade. Appreciative inquiry success stories of organizational change have been
reported in a variety of industries, including Heidelberg USA, Toronto Western Hospital, British
Broadcasting Corporation, and Hunter Douglas.

Appreciative inquiry has much to offer, but it is not always the best approach to changing teams or
organizations and, indeed, has not always been successful. This approach depends on participants’
ability to let go of the problem-oriented approach, including the “blame game” of determining who may
have been responsible for past failures. It also requires leaders who are willing to accept appreciative
inquiry’s less structured process.74 Another concern is that research has not yet examined the
contingencies of this approach.75 In other words, we don’t yet know under what conditions
appreciative inquiry is a useful approach to organizational change and under what conditions it is less
effective. Overall, appreciative inquiry can be an effective approach to organizational change, but we are
still discovering its potential and limitations.

global connections 15.4

Appreciative Inquiry Guides Leadership at Toronto Western Hospital

A photo of hospital employees having a discussion

© Digital Vision/Alamy RF

Toronto Western Hospital (TWH) held an appreciative inquiry (AI) retreat at which staff discussed the
Canadian hospital’s past successes and crafted a vision for its future. TWH’s executive team believed the
AI philosophy should guide daily leadership behavior, so they developed and taught a positive
leadership program, which has since been completed by more than 150 leaders at the hospital.

Kathy Sabo, executive lead at TWH when the positive leadership program was launched, says the
program teaches hospital leaders to “embed [AI] in our daily work differently than we do now—not just
focused on a particular initiative but how do we enact it daily.” The program has improved TWH’s
balanced scorecard results, patient satisfaction, and staff engagement. “We’ve seen really positive
outcomes in how people apply the [AI] theory, how they behave as leaders, how that has impacted their
staff,” observes Sabo, who recently retired.76

Large Group Intervention Approach

Appreciative inquiry can occur in small teams, but it is often designed to involve a large number of
people, such as the hundreds of employees who participated in the process at Heidelberg USA. As such,
appreciative inquiry is often identified as one of several large group organizational change interventions.
Large group interventions adopt a “whole systems” perspective of the change process.77 This means
that they view organizations as open systems (see Chapter 1) and assume that change will be more
successful when as many employees and other stakeholders as possible associated with the
organizational system are included in the process.78 Large group interventions are highly participative
events because participants discuss their experiences, expectations, and ideas with others, typically in
small groups within the large collective setting.

Similar to appreciative inquiry, large group interventions adopt a future-oriented positive focus rather
than a past-oriented problem focus. Future search conferences, for instance, are large group
interventions typically held over a few days in which participants identify emerging trends and develop
strategies for the organization to realize potential under those future conditions. In addition to this
strategy development, large group interventions Page 435 generate a collective vision or sense making
about the organization and its future. This “meaning-making” process is important for the organization’s
evolving identity and how participants relate to that identity.

Large group interventions have occurred in a variety of companies and industries. Emerson & Cuming’s
chemical manufacturing facility in Canton, Massachusetts, held a large group summit in which
managers, supervisors, and production employees were organized into five stakeholder teams to
identify initiatives that would improve the plant’s safety, efficiency, and cooperation. Lawrence Public
Schools in Kansas conducted a large group session involving parents, teachers, students, community
partners, and other stakeholders to help the board allocate resources more effectively. “The goals that
were developed at the future search conference reflect what the community envisioned for its school
district,” said Randy Weseman, who was superintendent at the time. Those goals subsequently became
the foundation of the board’s strategic decision making.79

Future search meetings and similar large group change events potentially minimize resistance to change
and assist the quality of the change process, but they also have limitations.80 One problem is that
involving so many people invariably limits the opportunity to contribute and increases the risk that a few
people will dominate the process. In addition, these events focus on finding common ground, and this
may prevent the participants from discovering substantive differences that interfere with future
progress. A third problem involves the high expectations generated from these events about an ideal
future state that are difficult to satisfy in practice. Employees become even more cynical and resistant to
change if they do not see meaningful decisions and actions resulting from these meetings.

Parallel Learning Structure Approach

Parallel learning structures are highly participative arrangements composed of people across
organizational levels who apply the action research model to produce meaningful organizational change.
They are social structures developed alongside the formal hierarchy with the purpose of increasing the
organization’s learning.81 Ideally, participants in parallel learning structures are sufficiently free from
the constraints of the larger organization that they can effectively solve organizational issues.
Royal Dutch/Shell relied on a parallel learning structure to introduce a more customer-focused
organization.82 Rather than try to change the entire organization at once, executives held weeklong
“retail boot camps” with teams from six countries, consisting of frontline people (such as gas station
managers, truck drivers, and marketing professionals). Participants learned about competitive trends in
their regions and were taught powerful marketing tools to identify new opportunities. The teams then
returned home to study their markets and develop proposals for improvement. Four months later, boot
camp teams returned for a second workshop, at which each proposal was critiqued by Royal/Dutch Shell
executives. Each team had 60 days to put its ideas into action; then the teams returned for a third
workshop to analyze what worked and what didn’t. This parallel learning process did much more than
introduce new marketing ideas. It created enthusiasm in participants that spread contagiously to their
coworkers, including managers above them, when they returned to their home countries.