Why is change so difficult to
Why isin change
so difficult to
achieve
higher education
settings?
achieve in higher education
settings?
Sue Dopson
Professor Sue Dopson, Saïd Business School
Tuesday 12 April 2016
Richard Pascale
Ebbs, Flows and Residual Impact of Business
Fads, 1950 - 1995
Self Managing Teams
Core Competencies
Horizontal Organizations
Change as an annual event
Business Process Re-engineering
Continuous Improvement/Learning Organization
Empowerment
The Problem of Change
Workout
Visioning
Cycle Time/Speed
Benchmarking
One Minute Managing
Corporate Culture
Influence Index
Intrapreneuring
Just in Time/Kanban
Matrix
MBWA
Portfolio Management
Restructuring/Delayering
“Excellence”
Management by Objectives
Conglomeration
‘Theory Z’
T-Group Training
Brainstorming
Theory X and Theory Y
Satisfiers/Dissatisfiers
Managerial Grid
Quality Circles/TQM
Wellness
Decentralisation
Value Chain
Zero Base Budgeting
Strategic Business Units
‘Theory Z’
Experience Curve
Diversification
Decision Trees
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990 1995
Top ten critical change issues
1. An accepted need to change
2. A viable vision/alternative state
3. Change agents in place
4. Sponsorship from above
5. Realistic scale & pace of change
6. An integrated transition programme
7. A symbolic end to the status quo
8. A plan for likely resistance
9. Constant advocacy
10.A locally-owned benefits plan
The Problem of Change
Solving what kind of problem?
Sue Dopson
What would you do?
Thematic Clusters
Media
Social
Psychological
Economic
Food
Activity
Infrastructure
Developmental
Biological
Medical
Three Types of Problems
Critical problem - command/control:
Just do it (it doesn’t matter what you think)
Tame problem - management/technical:
Déjà vu (You’ve seen it before; you know what to do)
Wicked problem - leadership/adaptive:
Vu jàdé (You’ve never seen the problem before; you
need to get a collective view on what to do about it)
Critical Problems
Leadership Response: Command
Decisive action to remove the problem
 Portrayed as self-evident crisis
 General uncertainty; commander provides “answer”
 No time for discussion or dissent
 Coercion legitimized as necessary for public good
 Readily associated with command
Tame Problems
Leadership Response: Management
Reducing complexity to solve the problem
Problem as a puzzle
•
Complicated but unilinear solution
•
Management can (and has) previously solved similar problems
•
Manager’s role is to engage appropriate processes to solve problem
Examples: Solution
1. Heart surgery, complicated but achievable process
2. Mobile technology for farmers
3. Opening a new school
Heifetz: Technical leadership
Wicked Problems
Leadership Response: ambiguous mix of command &
management
Strategic issue to be addressed over long term
• Wicked problems are ambiguous and unique to the situation.
• It is impossible to write a well-defined problem statement – they can be
a symptom of another problem, for example.
• Choosing a solution to a wicked problem is a matter of judgment.
• Solutions to wicked problems generate unexpected consequences
which sometimes cannot be undone.
• Wicked problems do not have an exhaustive set of potential solutions.
• Wicked problems involve many stakeholders, who all have different
ideas about the problem, its causes, and solutions.
• Problem-solvers dealing with a wicked issue are held liable for the
consequences of any actions.
Flight 1549
3.24 pm cleared take-off from
La Guardia, climbing to
cleared altitude
CRITICAL
54 seconds later climbing
through 3,200 ft, hit a flock
of Canada geese
1.25 seconds later,
double engine failure
Checklist to shut down
engines, establish a glide
TAME
and return to La Guardia
CRITICAL
Checklist is from 35,000
ft not 3,200 ft! WICKED
Descending at 18ft per second, 3
minutes until impact…30 seconds to
decide what to do.
WICKED
Where to ditch? La Guardia? X
Teterboro? X
Hudson River?
3.31 pm, 6minute flight
had ended
Wicked Problems, Dumb Solutions
National Health Service… National Illness Service?
• 811,000 UK residents hospitalized from alcohol in 2008;
cost £2.7bn
• 96% of spending on treating illness
• Only 4% on keeping people well
Increasing
uncertainty about
solution to problem
LEAD:
Ask Questions
WICKED
TAME
CRITICAL
MANAGE
Organize Process
COMMAND:
Provide Answer
Increasing
requirement
for
collaborative
compliance/
resolution
Leadership Styles
Long-term
development
of people
“This is where
we’re going & why”
Visionary
“What do you
think?”
Participative
“Watch me...
this is how you do it.”
Coaching
LEADERSHIP
STYLES
Pace-Setting
Directing
Affiliative
Command
and Control
People first,
task second
Schein’s three levels of culture
Artifacts
Visible but often
undecipherable
Values
Greater level of
awareness
Assumptions
Taken for granted
invisible
Adapted from Organizational Culture and Leadership (p.14) by E.H. Schein.
Copyright 1985 Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers, San Francisco.
BAHR550-7
Culture
Espoused Values
Cultural Web
Stories &
Myths
Rituals &
Routines
Symbols
The
Paradigm
Control
Systems
Power
Structures
Organizational
Structures
Johnson, 1988
OGKP (Conception: 2001)
Science
Medicine
Social science
Management / policy
Health Secretary
Dept of Trade
& Industry
Senior Dept
civil servant
of
Health
Civil servant
Senior
civil servant
Civil servant
Other GKPs
Pathology Prof
Old University
Genetics Prof
Genetics Prof
Cardiology
Genetics Prof
Prof
Genetics Prof
Epidemiology
Prof
Ethics Prof
Social Science Institute
Lab Director
Lab Director
NHS Science Labs
Research Institute
Community Affiliations
Community
Institutional Affiliation
Epistemic Affiliation
Medical Scientists
University
Medicine
NHS Medical Scientists
NHS Hospital
Medicine
Research Scientists
University
Biomedicine
NHS Scientists
NHS Labs
Biomedicine
Social Scientists
University
Social Science
Policy Community
DH (& various)
Policy (various)
Commissioning
NHS PCT
Management
OGKP (end 2007)
DTI
Primary Care
Other
Labs
DoH
Commissioners
(SHA)
Civil Servant
Network
Director
Old
Genetics
Prof
Prof
Genetics Prof
(OGKP Chair)
Consultant
Genetics Prof
Geneticist
(PI WP2)
Consultant
Cardiology Prof
Geneticist
(PI WP1)
University
Business
School
Social Science
InstituteLawyer
Economist
Scientist (New PI WP3)
Scientist
NHS Science Labs
Science
Medicine
Social science
Management / policy
Other GKPs
Prof Ethics
Research Inst
Lab Director
Lab Director
AGGR
Confli
ct
Commissioner
Misunde
rstanding
Pathology
GeneticsProf
Genetics Prof
(Old PI WP3)
Other University
Sociologist
Innovation Unit
VCs
GIG - Patients
Executive Committee in bold
GKP Supervisory Board
underlined
Epistemic Clash Research vs. NHS Labs
“The way we work in the research lab is try & get everything as fast
as possible because it’s a competitive world … [we] need … visible
productivity… to scrape over the surface for the big prize…The
clinical genetics lab is incredibly compulsive & obsessive… do
everything in duplicate & never get that wrong. That’s very
reassuring, but the problem is that if you are compulsive &
obsessive, it just takes too long.” Medical Scientist
“They [NHS scientists] feel they are providing a service & being
careful & we [research scientists] are feckless people who wander in
at 11 o’clock & go home at three & look for glory.” Research
Scientist
NHS Labs reluctant to share information due to concerns about
competition with other Labs
Epistemic Clash Science vs. Social Science
• Economist able to communicate with scientists (shared
quantitative epistemology) & helped to prove SCD test as
cost-effective (producing further funding)
• Sociologist’s work weird & of no benefit
• “Our world is very black & white so when a sociologist
talks to me about barriers in networks it does not mean
much to me.” Research Scientist
• “These weird sort of sociology people… we were just
providing material for them to write interesting papers.”
NHS Scientist
Change would be easy if not for resistance
Ignorance
Failure to understand problem
Comparison
Solution disliked, thinks alternative better
Disbelief
Feeling that the solution will not work
Personal Loss
Unacceptable personal costs; investments in present
Inadequacy
Insufficient rewards from change
Anxiety
Afraid of not coping in new situation
Power Loss
Erosion of influence/control
Contamination
Distaste of new values/practices
Inhibition
Low willingness to change
Mistrust
Disquiet about motives for change
Alienation
Low shared values/high alternative interests
Exhaustion
Cannot face further changes at present
Success
Lack of perceived need
5 Strategies for Change
Education
Incentives
Participation
Coersion
Experts
What to do: be flexible
Try a number of solutions:
• iterate
• recalibrate
• iterate
• recalibrate
What to do: small wins
“Some problems appear so large people give up. Go for
small wins.”
Karl Weick, Small Wins
What to do: stand on the balcony
What to do: Bricolage
Making creative and resourceful use of whatever materials
are at hand, regardless of their original purpose
Sir Geoffrey Vickers
Background
(a) Victoria Cross, Classics at Oxford, City Solicitor, Director of
Economic Intelligence, Board of National Coal Board (800,000
employees)
(b) Para-academic, prolific writer, Visiting Professor at Lancaster
University, aged 85
Approach
‘I have spent my life in practising the law and helping to administer
public and private affairs; and I have thus had opportunity to observe
and take part in the making of policy. The more I have seen of this,
the more insistent has been the challenge to understand it both as a
mental activity and as a social process, for it seems strange and
dangerous that something so familiar and apparently important
should remain so obscure. My enquiry into it has led me further than
I expected. I have had to question sciences in which I am not
professionally qualified and sometimes to supply my own answers,
when theirs seems so ambiguous, inconsistent or absent. I present
the result with humility but without apology. Even the dogs may eat
of the crumbs which fall from the rich man’s table; and in these days,
when the rich in knowledge eat such specialized food at such
separate tables, only the dogs have a chance of a balanced diet’.
Reflections