A META-MODEL OF PLANNED CHANGE
REV
1/21/09
Michael F. Broom, Ph.D. and Edith W. Seashore, M.A.
This a model of managing change in human systems based on the classic perspective of
organizational development as developed by NTL Institute for Applied Behavioral Science.
That perspective holds that the tasks of an organization—from planning to production—
are accomplished with the highest level of productivity through processes that are
highlighted by a high quality of relationship among those responsible for those tasks. With
that in mind, the Meta-Model of Change Management is offered. It is a model that believes
in the empowerability of human systems and the people that live and work within them.
Accordingly, the Meta-Model calls for collaborative strategies and tactics aimed at open
communication, and consensual decision-making.
A model is a descriptive system of information, theories, inferences, and implications used
to represent and support understanding of some phenomenon. Meta-, in the sense used
here, is a context or framework. A meta-model could, then be understood as a framework
or context of a model—albeit, a model of a model. A meta-model of change management,
then, is a framework from which any number of more specific models of how to manage
change in human systems can be understood and developed.
Our model is a three dimensional matrix with the vertical axis describing eight disciplines
which, when each is consistently adhered to as disciplines, will support the success of any
particular change management effort. The horizontal axis describes the five iterative
stages of any change management project within which each of the disciplines must be
applied. And, the third dimension offers four levels of human systems—personal,
interpersonal, group, and organization/community—to which the first two dimensions can
be applied.
THE STAGES OF THE CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS
These stages of contracting, data gathering, action, evaluation, and disengagement are
not discrete. They overlap. They are iterative. They often must be orchestrated
simultaneously. Each can trigger the need for another. Data-gathering, intervention,
evaluation, and disengagement can all lead to re-contracting. Any stage can lead to any
other stage. The order presented is generic as if all things were equal, which they never
are in human systems.
1. CONTRACTING
People in any of several different roles undertake change management efforts. This
includes the person(s) with direct decision-making authority over a system or part of a
system as well as someone working or living within a system without direct decisionmaking authority. Someone from outside a system called in for that purpose could
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undertake change management efforts. Regardless of the role they may be in, we will call
those who undertake change projects change agents or change leaders. Again, regardless
of the role, change leaders must contract for change with the other members of the
system.
Contracting is the process of coming to agreement with those person or persons who are
key to the success of a change project. If the change agent is the person in decisionmaking authority, the agent must contract for change with those who live and work under
that authority. If the change agent works or lives within the system without decisionmaking authority, that person must contract first with the person in authority for the desired
change. Then, together, they can contract with the other key people in the system. In the
same vein, a person from outside the system must first contract with the owner of the
system, then, with the owner, contract with the other key persons. In the case of peer
reviewers, contracting usually occurs with the director of the museum and/or the head of
the governing authority before the on-site review takes place.
When organization-wide change is desired or when a local change will have organization–
wide impact, the change contract is best made at the highest level of management.
Contracting at this level leverages the greatest accountability—rewards and penalties—for
the desired change. Change occurs most efficiently from the point in the system that will
have the greatest impact for the least effort.
Effective change contracts specify at least three things:
a. Change goals that are clear, internally consistent, and that have a systemic and human
values orientation. The most effective change goals are fully consonant with the well
being of the system as a whole and its members.
b. The roles of project leader (the client) and process facilitator (consultant). That project
leader is the person who has primary responsibility for the system that is the target of
the change goals is important. It is just as important that the project understand that his
or her is just that—to lead—with the support of the process facilitator. The process
facilitator (consultant) must have the skills needed to support the leader in effective use
of the five stages and seven disciplines of the Meta-Model.
c. Collaborative, inclusive, consensus-building change processes. These processes
should be consonant with the human values orientation of the change goals and create
levels committed buy-in necessary to successful projects.
A critical element in the success of change management contracts is the depth of
relationship between the project leader and process facilitator that is generated in their
formulation. Relationships of mutual high equity built upon straight talk, curiosity, and
consensus decision-making create profound learning from the sometimes deeply personal
and emotional deliberations that are a part of the change process.
2. DATA GATHERING
Once the initial contract has been established, the prudent change agent insists on a datagathering stage. This process serves several purposes:
a. It provides needed information for the effective planning of further Change Actions.
b. It galvanizes organizational energy in preparation for “something happening.”
c. It provides an opportunity for some initial empowerment coaching of those from whom
data is gathered.
Data is should be gathered about the following:
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a. What’s working in the targeted system?
b. What needs improvement within the system?
c. What has been done to attempt improvement?
d. What barriers occurred to such attempts?
e. Reactions to the change goals and reason for it.
The information being sought is the general themes and patterns extant about the state of
the system and its readiness for a particular change goal. This data will direct the
formation of the strategic and tactical plan for the change project. From this data, needs of
the system which could act as resistance to the change need to be considered in their own
right and can be planned for and engaged.
This is not the only time that data will be gathered during a change project. The data
gathering process is continual as discussed below under the principle of Sound and
Current Data.
3. INTERVENTION
Implicit in the idea of the empowerability of human systems is the assumption that through
improving relationships within the system the leaders and members of the system can
begin to identify and resolve their own issues and in the process create whatever change
they wish. This could mean improving the relationships and resolving conflicts between
system structures, between groups, and between individuals. At the intrapersonal level,
some change action is often needed to help resolve the internal conflicts that bedevil
many system executives and managers.
Interventions, then—as a stage in the total change process—are those actions designed
to improve relationships within the target system on behalf of opening communication, and
developing more informed and inclusive decision-making processes. Interventions include,
in their various forms, feedback to the system, team-building, strategic planning, training,
conflict management, and coaching.
Two important skills needed to design and carry out these interventions include group
facilitation and conflict management. Those two skill sets require deep use of our listening
and straight-talk capacities. A systems orientation wherein we act from a perspective that
keeps in mind impact on the entire system is essential. Of course, the ability to use
ourselves flexibly and congruently with any particular situation is fundamental. Use of self
and a system orientation are notable as the first two change management disciplines
described in the sections below.
4. EVALUATION
As much an ongoing process as a specific stage, the Evaluation stage informs the change
agent and the system about the results the change project or specific change actions have
had. In essence, evaluation is a feedback based data-gathering process— feedback which
will give the change leaders critical information about how the system has responded to a
change action and how they might design the next action to be more effective. This
concept is notably different from the use of feedback as a means— generally,
ineffective—of getting someone to change. Feedback is more useful as a means of
determining the quality of relationship that has or has not been stimulated by a particular
change action. Feedback is essentially an evaluation process that can also be used to
gather data about what can make a more effective next change action.
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Evaluative processes can be as simple as asking someone or a group how well something
worked and what might work better next time. More formal group processes can take a
form where everyone takes a turn responding to an evaluative question (such as, what did
you learn about managing change this weekend?). System-wide evaluations might be
done at the end of a change project and periodic intervals after that to see how much
staying power some systemic change might have. It is a good idea to have evaluative
feedback processes built into a system‘s ongoing routine to monitor the specific and
general wellbeing of that system.
5. DISENGAGEMENT
Little discussed in the change management literature is the process of completing or
ending a change project. A typical disengagement process for the participants in the
change project might include a closing evaluation session, statements of learnings
gleaned from the project, and celebration of whatever success was achieved.
In addition, the change leaders—task leader(s) and process facilitator(s) should get
together to formally agree that the project is completed or otherwise at an end. Additional
and more personal feedback might be shared in this meeting about what worked well,
what worked less well, and what might be done differently in a future project. Some
celebration would certainly be in order.
Appropriate closure and disengagement allow the system and the people in it to learn from
their experience in the project and to let go of what has been completed to move
effectively on to whatever is next.
THE DISCIPLINES OF MANAGING CHANGE IN HUMAN SYSTEMS
On behalf of creating effectiveness within each of the prescribed stages of change, the
following seven disciplines are offered. The disciplines directly support the notion of the
empowerability of human systems and the people that live and work within them.
Accordingly, they also support the use of collaborative strategies and tactics aimed at
open communication, and consensual decision-making.
1. USE OF SELF
The primary tool that anyone wishing to manage change in a human system uses is the
configuration of intellectual, emotional, and physical energies that that particular person
brings to the situation. That includes her personality, her various abilities (particularly her
ability to learn), and idiosyncrasies. Most of us have only begun to recognize and develop
full command of ourselves. Most of us respond to many situations automatically. These
automatic or habitual responses are the result of over-learning. Over-learning is the
extrapolation of an appropriate learning from past experiences and applying it too broadly
to every other set of similar situations. Over-learning gives us a ‘shotgun‘ approach to life
where the impact of many of our intentions fall far from our intended results.
The way we define parts of ourselves as OK and parts as not OK is another hindrance to
effective use of self. Too often we deny the large portions of ourselves that we define as
not OK. We want to see ourselves as male, not female or female, not male. We want to
see ourselves as ‘nice,‘ never as ‘mean.’ In this manner, we deprive ourselves of the
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inherent flexibility that comes with the multiple aspects and attitudes that make up our
fundamental integrity. We often judge ourselves too harshly.
In the processes of effective change management we need all the personal flexibility we
can muster. How we use ourselves in one situation with one person is not likely to be very
effective in another, though similar situation or person. A part of that flexibility is the ability
to notice when we might be mistaking our assumptions for real data. This is a pervasive
pitfall in the world and in managing change in human systems.
Effective use of self calls for learning how to be aware of and direct our own thoughts, our
emotions, and our behavior. As we move toward mastery, we will be more and more able
to behave in such a manner that the systems within which we wish to manage change will
respond in ways consonant with our goals and intention.
2. SYSTEMS ORIENTATION
A fairly pervasive approach to change defines a goal, then sets out in as straight a tactical
line as possible to get there. Such an approach tries to ignore or run-over any intervening
or obstructing variables like the fact that several people don’t want the goal to be reached
or don’t appreciate the tactics being used. A systems orientation to change management
looks at human systems holistically. It understands that any change within a system will
reverberate throughout the entire system and impact even seemingly unrelated parts of
the system.
Using a systems orientation we…
a. Understand that systems are comprised of constellations of forces that must be aligned
for efficient and successful change projects.
b. Widen our perspective from our immediate goal to one that considers the entire system.
c. Orchestrate several coordinated change actions simultaneously.
d. Develop feedback loops sufficient to staying in touch with the impacts of our change
strategies and their specific actions.
Here are some things to think about to help you think systemically:
a. Universal Connectedness: everything is connected to everything else—things,
processes, thoughts, feelings, and actions. There is nothing happening that isn’t
connected to everything else.
b. Mutual Responsibility: for things to be the way they are everything must be the way it is;
therefore, responsibility is always mutual. Those who see themselves as “doing nothing”
are contributing to the way things are by “doing nothing” just as much as what
everybody else is doing.
c. Sufficient Sound and Current Data: needed to determine the boundaries of the system
that contains both the problem and the solution. Look to a larger system definition when
problems seem intractable.
d. Leverage Points: that accessible point in the system that will create the greatest impact
toward the desired change with the least effort or pain. The most important leverage
point is the person whose system it is. Build a high equity relationship with that person
to contribute to their success. If the system is yours build a support system you can
count on to help you create success.
e. A Powerful Reframe: a systemic perspective takes away the too popular notion of
single-point fault and blame allowing an easier transition to the infinite perspective. For
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example, pain reframed from a systemic perspective is a signal for healing rather a
trigger for anger and fear.
f. A Function of Consciousness: We are often consciousness of only a very limited part of
ourselves and a very limited part of all that is going on around us. An effective systemicorientation calls for being present to a much larger portion of ourselves and whatever is
going on around us. Only then will we begin to perceive systemic connectedness.
3. SOUND AND CURRENT DATA
An efficient and successful change process needs good information for effective planning
and decision-making. Such a principle, though obvious, is sorely needed as a reminder
against mistaking our assumptions for accurate information. Our needs for being “right,”
being seen as “smart,“ for not wanting to rock the boat or upset the boss often overwhelm
our need for sound and current data. Accordingly, many change efforts suffer from
insufficient and inaccurate information while others fall prey to power struggles having to
do with whose information is right and whose is wrong. A related pitfall occurs when the
need for conformity prohibits needed data from coming to the surface.
An environment of openness, straight-talk, truth, and honesty can be built from effective
conflict management and team-building processes. In these ways a safe environment can
be created which is the only environment in which sound and current data can openly
exist.
4. FEEDBACK
Feedback is information from our environment about how it is responding to us. It is sound
and current data that is available to us at all times though we are often paying insufficient
attention to notice it. Feedback allows us to evaluate how well the impact of our behavior
is congruent with our intentions. The more we can fine-tune our behavior to be in sync with
our intentions the greater will be our effectiveness as managers of change.
People often attempt to use feedback as a direct means of changing someone’s behavior.
In fact, it is not very good at that. Feedback offered from that intention is often heard as
criticism, which, as often as not, generates defensiveness and resistance rather than the
desired change. Corollarily, when someone says to you, “May I give you some feedback?”
Duck!
As important as feedback is, managing it effectively calls for understanding two principles:
A. Feedback always says something about the giver, not necessarily anything about the
receiver. Consequently, let your initial response be curiosity about what’s going on with
the giver, then decide what your next course of action might be.
B. What is done with feedback is solely in the hands of the receiver. Consequently, be
curious about why you are choosing to react the way you are, and then choose a
response that might more effectively get you what you want.
Kurt Lewin offered the formula: behavior is a function of people in an environment
BP+E). Too often we manage our behavior solely on data from our internal belief
systems. Effective change management calls for paying close attention to the feedback
from our environment (including of course the people in it) so that we can adjust our
behavior to get the response we wish from those around us.
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5. INFINITE POWER
Traditional change management approaches often call for identifying the person or people
who are not in accord with a change project and fixing or replacing them with people who
are. This process typically leads to a series of finite, win/lose power struggles that change
little and waste much systemic energy on non-productive activities. Noting that win/lose
processes will in the long run always generate lose/lose results, an alternative approach
would be to focus on infinite, win/win change goals and strategies.
An important aspect of playing infinitely is to focus on changing the quality of relationships
within the target system rather than trying to change or fix members who do not seem in
accord with a proposed change. This is directly related to the processes of conflict
management and team-building mentioned in previous sections.
Focusing on changing the quality of relationships rather than trying to fix or change people
or groups of people minimizes the need for power struggles. Open, collaborative decisionmaking processes are enabled during which most individual needs can be met while
focusing on developing strategies and tactics aimed at the change goals.
6. LEARN FROM DIFFERENCES
Differences are the only sources of learning we have. When used for learning, differences
are the progenitor of synergy wherein the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Too
often, however, differences are used too finitely to determine who wins and who loses.
Accordingly, they are the source of wasteful power struggles or creativity-deadening
conformity aimed at avoiding power struggles. Too often, organizations overvalue
conformity—those with critical information or new or differing ideas are warned not to
“rock-the-boat” making sound and current data a rare commodity. The Bay of Pigs and
Challenger disasters are but two highly dramatic examples of this phenomenon. New,
differing, and needed ideas are too often stifled by our need to be safe within finite
organizational cultures.
The ability to learn from differences is a critical use-of-self skill for change leaders. It will
support them in maintaining the systemic, non-judgmental perspective necessary to use
the differences within their systems for the learning and synergy needed to collaboratively
invent an effective change process. Given our socialized propensity toward operating from
the finite perspective, this is more easily said than done. The infinite perspective helps as
it allows change managers the support of strong and long-lasting partnerships and teams.
Such support is doubly critical when the stress of change has moves us swiftly back to the
traditional, conformity-oriented way of operating. With support a speedy return to learning
from differences can then be provided as needed.
7. EMPOWERMENT
The client and his/her system have the power they need to manage change within their
system once their energies are released through effective, infinitely-oriented processes
that support learning from differences though good conflict management and team
building skills. The potential success of many change projects is often minimized by
system authorities or change agents who believe that they must make the change happen
rather than empowering the systems, the groups of the systems, and the individuals of the
groups to make the change.
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Critical aspects of empowerment are the experiences of choice and influence. As I
experience my behavior having influence, I will begin to experience choice about how I
respond to my environment. Consequently, I begin to experience myself as powerful. The
more powerful I feel the more I will contribute my skill and energy to those who support my
experience of choice and influence.
Personal empowerment without effective leadership, conflict management and team
building, however, can lead to chaos. Groups are the fundamental unit of human systems.
Successful systemic change, then, calls for personal empowerment within the context of
group empowerment—both within the context of decision-making parameters that support
the success of all. Accordingly, our definition of empowerment is supporting self and
others to self-discover their ability to experience choice about how they respond to their
environment on behalf of increasing the well being of themselves and their environment.
8. SUPPORT SYSTEMS
The ability to develop support systems is crucial to effective change management for two
reasons. First, systemic planned change will occur when the support for that change
reaches critical mass among the members of that system. The success of your planned
change efforts depends on our ability to develop empowering partnerships across a full
range of differences using the infinite perspective of power.
Second, applying eight disciplines to five stages of change management is a daunting
task. Those who choose to take on this task must develop strong support systems.
Change in human systems is never created alone. Support systems are required. An initial
support system might be one or two confidants. This small informal group might evolve
into a larger group willing to take direct action and contribute to the critical mass that is
crucial to success. W cannot manage systemic change alone. Develop support systems to
help you strategize and operationalize your change strategy and to support you in using
yourself effectively.
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Appendix
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