Organizational Change
Paul C. Godfrey
Marriott School of Management
Change: Three key cognitive phases
Unfreezing
• Admission that
current state isn’t
working
Change
• Develop new
behaviors
• Clear break with
past actions or
processes
• Trial and error
process—
uncertain and
serendipitous
• Organizational and
formal
• Failures and
successes
• Creating Alignment
Re-freezing
• Codification of new
behaviors/
processes
• Embed new
behaviors in
training or
compensation
• Signals the “end”
of the change
effort
The change process
Generate
urgency
Build
Coalition
Create
Vision
Share
Vision
Empower
Action
ShortTerm
Wins
Consolidate
Gains
Institutionalize
Changes
The Silent Phase
(Unfreezing)
½ -1 ½ years
The Active Phase
(Change)
1-2 years
Completion
(Refreezing)
4-7 years
Sequencing Change
Strategic Intent
Precise
Broad
Substance
Hard
Soft
Scale
Small
Large
Scope
Isolated
Org. Wide
Speed
Fast
Slow
Sequence
Hard-Soft
Soft-Hard
Style
Top-Down
Bottom-Up
Change: Three key emotional phases
Unfreezing
Change
Ending
Neutral Zone
• Disengagement
• Anxiety up,
motivation down
• Dismantling
• Disidentification
• Disenchantment
• Disorientation
• Other weaknesses
emerge
• Confusion/
creativity
Re-freezing
New Beginning
• Settling in
• Sense of security,
permanence
• Ability to “move
forward”
The transition is not so clean . . .
people need to do all three at the same time.
“The purely intellectual task, the part that
could be done by a strategy consultant, is
difficult enough, but that often is the minor
part of the overall exercise. The emotional
work is even tougher: letting go of the
status quo, letting go of other future
options, coming to grips with the
sacrifices, coming to trust others, etc.”
John Kotter, Leading Change, p. 88
Some useful “rules”
• Endings always come before beginnings
• Endings usually recycle old ending scripts
• There is no timetable
• Your ending is not my ending
Planning for better endings
• Identify who will be losing what
• Accept the reality of subjective losses
– Don’t tell people to “suck it up”
– Listen and don’t stop the conversation
• Acknowledge losses openly and with sympathy
• Treat the past with respect
– Don’t denigrate the past
– Acknowledge that the past got us to the present
– Let people take a piece of the past with them
• Show that the ending ensures the continuity of
what really matters
The importance of communication
• Consciously overcommunicate
– Giving out uncomfortable information models how to do it
• People don’t listen to what they don’t want to
hear
• Define what is over and what isn’t
– If people don’t know the difference they become paralyzed
Two Cautions
• Remember the
marathon effect
• Measure twice, cut
once
A final thought
The first task of change management is to help
people understand the desired change and make it
happen
The first task of transition management is to
convince people to leave home.