Reframing:
Choice-Collaboration-Change
Pamela Zarkowski
ADEA Dean’s Conference
The Political Environment for Dental Education
November 11, 2012
Reframing
• …”help managers and leaders enrich the ideas and
approaches they bring to their work.”
Artistry
Choice
Leadership
Reframing
• Frames: mental models, maps, mind-sets,
schema and cognitive lens… frames are
windows, tools, lenses, orientations, and
perspectives.
Reframing
…uses knowledge and intuition to find sensible and effective
ways to channel organizations in productive directions
Bolman, LG & Deal T. E.
Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice and Leadership. 2004
Four Frames
•
•
•
•
Structural
Human Resource
Political
Symbolic
Four Frames
• Structural: architecture of
organization, differentiation
and integration, design of
units/subunits, goals, policies
& efficiency, chain of
command.
• Human resource:
understanding of people,
strengths & foibles, reasons,
emotions, desires & human
needs, values relationships
and feelings.
Political: coping with
conflict, competition for
scarce resources, struggles
for power and advantage,
values realism and
pragmatism.
Symbolic: meaning and
faith, how to shape culture
and provide purpose and
meaning to work, shared
mission and identity.
Reframing—
An Application of
Paradigms
• The same situation can be
viewed in at least four
different ways.
• Reframing is an art—
neither exact or precise,
but creative, flexible, and
subject to interpretation.
Structural
Human
Resource
Political
Symbolic
Metaphor for
organization
Factory or
machine
Family
Jungle
Carnival, temple,
theater
Central
concepts
Rules, roles,
goals, policies,
technology,
environment
Needs, skills,
relationships
Power, conflict,
competition,
organizational
politics
Culture,
meaning,
metaphor, ritual,
ceremony,
stories, heroes
Image of
Leadership
Social
architecture
Empowerment
Advocacy
Inspiration
Leader is
Analyst,
Architect
Catalyst,
Servant
Advocate,
Negotiator
Prophet,
Poet
Basic
Leadership
challenge
Attune structure
to task,
technology,
environment
Align
organization &
human needs
Develop agenda
and power base
Create faith,
beauty &
meaning
Process
Structural
Human
Resource
Political
Symbolic
Strategic
planning
Creating strategies
to set objectives &
coordinate
resources
Gatherings to
promote
participation
Arena to air conflict
and realign power
Ritual to signal
responsibility
Decision
making
Rational sequence
to produce right
decision
Open process to
produce
commitment
Opportunity to gain
and exercise power
Ritual to confirm
values & create
opportunities for
bonding
Reorganizing
Realign roles &
responsibilities to fit
tasks and
environments
Maintain balance
between human
needs & formal
roles
Redistribute power
and form new
coalitions
Maintain an image
of accountability
and responsiveness;
negotiate new social
order
Evaluating
Way to distribute
rewards or penalties
and control
performance
Process for helping
individuals grow and
improve
Opportunity to
exercise power
Occasion to play
roles in shared
drama
Process
Structural
Human
Resource
Political
Symbolic
Approaching
conflict
Maintain
organizational
goals by having
authorities resolve
conflict
Develop
relationships by
having individuals
resolve conflict
Develop power by
bargaining, forcing
or manipulating
others to win
Develop shared
values and use
conflict to
negotiate meaning
Goal setting
Keep organization
headed in the right
direction
Keep people
involved and
communication
open
Provide opportunity
for individuals &
groups to make
interests known
Develop symbols
and shared values
Communication
Transmit facts and
information
Exchange
information, needs,
and feelings
Influence or
manipulate others
Tell stories
Meetings
Formal occasions
to make decisions
Informal occasions
for involvements,
sharing, feelings
Competitive
occasions to win
points
Sacred occasions
to celebrate and
transform culture
Motivation
Economic
incentives
Growth and self
actualization
Coercions,
manipulation, and
seduction
Symbols and
celebrations
FRAME
REACTIONS TO CHANGE
ESSENTIAL
STRATEGIES
Structural
Loss of direction, clarity and
stability, confusion, chaos
Communicating, realigning and
renegotiating formal patterns and
policies
Human Resource
Anxiety, uncertainty, feelings of
incompetence, neediness
Training to develop new skills,
participation and involvement,
psychological support
Political
Disempowerment, conflict
between winners and losers
Creating arenas where issues can
be renegotiated and new coalitions
formed
Symbolic
Loss of meaning and purpose,
clinging to the past
Creating transition rituals:
mourning the past, celebrating the
future
Reflections
• Change agents fail when they rely mostly on reason
and structure while neglecting human, political and
symbolic elements.
Successful Change
Initiatives
• Creating a sense of urgency.
• Pulling together a guiding team with the
needed skills, credibility, connections and
authority to move things along.
• Creating an uplifting vision and strategy.
• Communicating the vision and strategy
through a combination of words, deeds and
symbols.
Successful Change
Initiatives
• Removing obstacles, or empowering people to
move forward.
• Producing visible symbols of progress through short
term victories.
• Sticking with the process and refusing to quit when
things get tough.
• Nurturing and shaping a new culture to support the
emerging innovative ways.
• Kotter, John, Leading Change: why Transformation Efforts
Fail. Harvard Business Review, March April 1995
Kotter’s
Stage of
Change
Structural
Sense of
urgency
Guiding a
team
Develop a
coordination
strategy
Uplifting
vision &
strategy
Build
implementation
plan
Human
Resource
Political
Symbolic
Involve people
throughout the
organization,
seek input
Network with Tell a
key players,
compelling
use power base story
Run team
building
exercises for
guiding team
Stack team
with credible,
influential
members
Put
commanding
officer on team
Map political
terrain
Craft a hopeful
vision of future
rooted in
organization
history
Kotter’s Stage of
Change
Structural
Human
Political
Symbolic
Reframing
Kotter’s
Change
Stages
Resource
Communicate vision & Create
strategy through words, structures to
deeds and symbols
support change
process
Hold meetings to
communicate
direction, get
feedback
Remove obstacles &
empower people to
move forward
Remove or alter
structures &
procedures that
support the old
ways
Providing
training,
resources and
support
Early wins
Plan for short
term victories
Create
arenas; build
alliances,
defuse
opposition
Visible
leadership
involvement,
kickoff
ceremonies
Stage public
exposure of
counterrevolutionaries
Invest
resources &
power to
ensure early
wins
Celebrate &
communicate
early signs of
progress
Kotter’s Stage
of Change
Structural
Keep going
when the
going gets
tough
Keep people
on plan
New culture
to support
new ways
Align
structure to
new culture
Human
Resource
Political
Symbolic
Hold revival
meetings
Create a
culture team;
broad
involvement
in developing
culture
Mourn the
past; celebrate
the heroes of
the revolution;
share stories
of the journey
Small Work Group
• Collaborative Plan Worksheet
• Frames Analysis
o Address Priorities in each Frame
FRAMES ANALYSIS
GOAL: _________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
Priorities to address in each frame:
Structural
Human Resource
Political
Symbolic
COLLABORATION PLAN
GOAL: ______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
OUTCOME MEASURES: ______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
RESOURCES NEEDED: ______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
Action Steps
Person Responsible
Target Date
pamela.zarkowski@udmercy.edu