1. Lecture 2 Images of Managing Change
Change Management
Lecture 2
Images of Managing Change

2. Images of Managing Controlling… Shaping… Top-down view of management
Fayol’s theory of management: planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating and controlling.
Shaping…
Participative style of management
Improving the capabilities of people within the organization

3. Images of Change Outcomes
Intended Change:
Change is a result of planned action
Partially Intended Change:
Change may need to be re-modified after it is initially implemented
Unintended Change:
Forces beyond the control of the change manager

4. Images of Change Managers
Images of Managing
Controlling (activities)
Shaping . . .
(capabilities)
Images of Change Outcomes
Intended
DIRECTOR
COACH
Partially Intended
NAVIGATOR
INTERPRETER
Unintended
CARETAKER
NURTURER

5. Images of Change Managers
Director
Based on an image of management as control and of change outcomes as being achievable.
Supported by the n-step models and contingency theory.
Coach
Relies upon building in the right set of values, skills and “drills” that are deemed to be the best ones that organizational members will be able to draw on in order to achieve desired organizational outcomes.
Related to organizational development approaches.

6. Images of Change Managers
Navigator
Control is still seen to be at the heart of management action, although a variety of factors external to managers mean that while they may achieve some intended change outcomes, others will occur over which they have little control.
Supported by the contextualist and processual theories of change.
Interpreter
The manager creates meaning for other organizational members, helping them to make sense of various organizational events and actions.
Supported by the sense-making theory of organizational change and concept of ‘enactment’

7. Images of Change Managers
Caretaker
The change manager’s ability to control is severely impeded by a variety of internal and external forces beyond the scope of the manager. The caretaker is seen as shepherding their organizations along as best they can.
Supported by life-cycle, population-ecology and institutional theories.
Nurturer
Even small changes may have a large impact on organizations and managers are not able to control the outcome of these changes. However, they may nurture their organizations, facilitating organizational qualities that enable positive self-organizing to occur.
Related to chaos and Confucian/Taoist theories.

8. Questions
To what extent are you more comfortable with one or other of the six images?
Why is this the case?
What are the strengths and limitations of the images that you have identified as most relevant to you?
What skills do you think are associated with each image?
Are there areas of personal skill development that are needed for you to feel more comfortable in using other images?
Have you ever been in an organization that was dominated by particular images?
What barriers to alternative images existed in this organization? What strategies could overcome these barriers?

9. Key Uses of Multiple Images
Surfacing our assumptions about change
Images simplify & illuminate but also obscure
Assessing dominant images of change
To what degree are some images seen as natural and not open to negotiation in certain organizations
Using multiple images in change
Image-in-use might depend on the type of change
Image-in-use might depend on the context
Image-in-use might depend on the phase of change
Multiple change images can also co-exist
Skilled change managers are able to swap images or even manage multiple images simultaneously

10. Success Typical questions about change:
Was it managed well?
What went right?
What went wrong?
Did we get the outcome we were after?
Do these questions assume a certain image of change?
How does each image assess success?
Which images have “non-traditional” success measures?
“Judgments of success are conditional on who is doing the assessment and when the judgments are made” Is this true?

11. Group Exercise Take your group’s stories from last session
Which images of change did you come across?
How did these images affect the way the various actors approached change?
Do the images used vary by the type, context, or phase of change?
What broad conclusions can you form?

12. Green Mountain Case Questions:
Which of the six change images were held by:
Gunter?
The hospitality literature?
The consultant?
How did these assumptions influence prescriptions for dealing with “the turnover problem”
What does it mean to say the problem was ‘dis-solved’?
Choose another change image and apply it to “the turnover problem” What new insights arise?
Does considering different images of change help us (I hesitate to add ‘solve the problem’)?