POSTGRADUATE PAPER SUBMISSION
to the
32nd International Labour Process Conference 2014: The Missing Manager Stream.
Do you want us to make sense of this?
How Organisational Leaders can undervalue the critical role of Middle
Management sensemaking during periods of Strategic Change.
by
Sarah Kieran
PhD Candidate
University of Limerick
KEMMY BUSINESS SCHOOL
Department of Personnel & Employment Relations
Contact Details:
Sarah Kieran
F2-121
Graduate Research Centre
Kemmy Business School
University of Limerick
Castletroy
Limerick
+353 87 2323272
sarah.kieran@ul.ie
http://ie.linkedin.com/in/sarahclancykieran
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Abstract
The middle manager’s role in strategic change is crucial as they are the ‘filter’ by which change is
interpreted, accepted and operationalised. The critical nexus between the leadership’s desired strategic
message and middle managers’ interpretation and enactment of it, can best be summed up in the concept of
‘organisational sensemaking’, the dialectical process which guides the schema change necessary for
sustainable strategic change. This qualitative research was conducted with 15 leaders across three large
organisations; two multi-nationals in the medical devices sector and one semi-state in the utilities sector. The
in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted during periods of strategic change sought to explore leader
awareness of and perspectives on, middle management sensemaking, as well as how engagement with this
process can either enable or disable their middle managers’ contribution to strategic change. Findings show
that, despite a growing body of theory on the importance of the middle manager strategic contribution, many
leaders still neither value nor support the required sensemaking process needed to enable this contribution.
But, where they do, they see it as not only critical to strategic change but their organisation’s survival in a
competitive world.
If we cannot ‘advise’ organisations into engaging with their ‘missing managers’
maybe we can ‘scare’ them into it?
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Introduction
The concept of sensemaking offers a new perspective for thinking about how strategic change is managed. It
provides a different insight into how change is initiated (Gioia and Chittipeddi 1991), the unintended
outcomes of change (Balogun and Johnson 2005), resistance to change (Thomas and Hardy 2011) and,
central to this research, the critical role of middle management during change (Rouleau and Balogun 2011,
Wooldridge et al. 2008, Balogun 2006, Maitlis 2005, Balogun and Johnson 2004, Barr 1998, Gioia and
Thomas 1996, Isabella 1990). This study is guided by the critical assumptions that, though leaders have
greater authority to initiate and guide strategic change, managers are at the heart of the cognition shifts
(schema change) without which the change will simply not happen (Isabella 1990).
This paper presents the research findings of the first of four phases in the author’s PhD. Based on 15 indepth, semi structured interviews with the leadership of three organisations undergoing strategic change,
Phase I explored leadership awareness of the middle management sensemaking process and their perspective
on how they can enable or disable this process1.
Findings show that the leaders in two of these
organisations, though aware of the process and benefits of sensemaking as outlined in organisational theory,
gave it neither the time nor the effort needed to allow sensemaking outcomes feed into their strategic change
initiatives. In some cases, leaders even viewed middle management sensemaking as a negative entity within
the organisation. One organisation however viewed sensemaking extremely positively and saw it as critical
to both change efforts and their very existence in a highly competitive market. The leaders in this
organisation not only consistently engaged in sensegiving and sensemaking with their middle management,
but measured themselves on the time, effort and behaviours which support this process.
This paper seeks to compare these two approaches and proposes that, contrary to everything we know about
the role of the middle manager and the importance of the cognitive management of organisational change,
many organisational leaders do not actually want their management to make sense of strategic change but
merely ‘get on’ with its implementation. These research findings have a significant theoretical and business
impact as they challenge the popular and self-expressed position that leaders seek to fully engage with their
middle managers and value the critical inputs of their role to organisational success. However, though
middle management sensemaking will occur regardless of leadership support, it is only when leaders work
hard to unleash its potential that a real contribution is realised for the organisation. Findings clearly identify
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Phase II comprising of 6 focus groups with 6 middle management teams (n39), explores their understanding of
sensemaking and broader experiences of strategic change. Phase III involved these same managers completing a
qualitative, online diary every week for 12 weeks with the aim of capturing their lived experience of strategic change,
individual and collective sensemaking, and their interactions with leadership during this time. Data completion on
Phases I-IV was completed between June 2013 and March 2014. Analysis of Phases II and III is still on-going and
therefore outside the scope of this Conference Paper. Phase IV, still pending, will conduct a number of interviews to
explore some middle management critical incidents referred to in the online diaries.
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the practical behaviours and activities which leaders should engage in to encourage middle management
sensemaking.
The following pages provide a brief overview of theory on the role of the middle manager and sensemaking
to date, outline the research methodology employed and present the findings to support the proposition that
the theoretical view of the role of sensemaking is still far from being fully realised in today’s contemporary
business organisations.
The Middle Manager
Middle Managers’ unique position between leadership and operations, their appreciation of both the
strategic and routine, their line of sight to potential future organisational states and their detailed
understanding of operations, results in a role which is increasing in importance and complexity (Fronda and
Moriceau 2008, Balogun and Johnson 2004). Middle managers are entrepreneurs (Lassen et al. 2009,
Kuratko et al. 2005, Floyd and Lane 2000, Pettigrew 1992), innovators ( Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995, Kanter
1982), issue sellers (Dutton et al. 2001), emotional managers (Huy 2002, Labianca et al. 2000), developers
and implementers of business strategy (Wooldridge et al. 2008, Currie 1999, Floyd and Wooldridge 1992)
and are fundamental to the success and sustainability of organisational change (Fenton-O'Creevy 2001,
Dopson and Neumann 1998) as they operationalise the leadership’s vision through their sensemaking and
sensegiving (Huy 2011, Fronda and Moriceau 2008, Luscher and Lewis 2008, Balogun 2003, Labianca et al.
2000). Their ‘middleness’ in the organisation has been referred to as a canyon (Source: Root Learning Inc.).
It is from the middle of this canyon that they act as the lynchpin (Huy 2002) and ferryman (Fronda and
Moriceau 2008) of strategic change.
Figure 1: The Middle Management Canyon. Image courtesy of Root Learning Inc.
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The importance of middle management sensemaking cannot be underestimated. It has been shown to have
significant impact on organisational ability to achieve desired change outcomes (Huy 2010), adding insight
and value (Beck and Plowman 2009), mediating broader sensemaking at leadership and lower levels
(Balogun and Johnson 2004), contributing to decision making (Balogun and Pye 2008), actions and
performance (Thomas et al. 1993), issue selling (Dutton and Ashford 1993, Dutton et al. 2002), innovation
and entrepreneurship (Hill and Levenhagen 1995), learning (Boonstra 2004), the management of uncertainty
and rare events (Beck and Plowman 2009), strategic issue interpretation, strategic direction (Barr 1998,
Thomas and McDaniel 1990) and strategic action (Barr 1998, Dutton et al. 1983). This role can be fraught
with political tension (Raman 2009, Hoon 2007, Maitlis and Lawrence 2007), cognitive disorder, confusion,
anxiety, stress (Luscher and Lewis 2008, Gioia and Chittipeddi 1991), role conflict and workload issues
(Balogun 2003) as middle managers seek to make sense of and implement changes which they neither
designed nor envisaged. To achieve successful strategic change the organisation’s leadership need to
recognise this process of sensemaking and take steps to enable it (Fronda and Moriceau 2008, Balogun and
Johnson 2004).
Sensemaking
The theoretical foundations of sensemaking lie in an interpretive conception of the human being, social
reality and the organisation of work. The most valuable lens through which to appreciate its workings has
been deemed to be that of schema theory (Markus and Zajonc in Lindzey and Aronson 1985). Schemata
(Bartlett 1932) are drawn on to identify, interpret, understand and respond to events as they are encountered
or as expected in the future (Fiske and Taylor 1991). They are hierarchically organised (Taylor S.E. and
Crocker J. in Higgins et al. 1981, Bower et al. 1979), occur at individual, collective and organisational levels
(Labianca et al. 2000, Schein 1990, Bartunek and Moch 1987) and most notably, have a tendency to endure.
Conceptually, sensemaking is a social process of meaning construction and reconstruction as organisational
members seek to understand, interpret and create sense of events so that they can develop a meaningful
schema or interpretive framework through which they can respond (Bartunek et al. 2006, Gioia and
Chittipeddi 1991). Popularised by the work of Karl Weick (Weick 1995) it can be defined as the ‘turning of
circumstances into a situation that is comprehended explicitly in words and that serves as a springboard
into action’ (Weick et al. 2005, Taylor and Van Every 2000 Page 207). At its simplest level sensemaking is
triggered when an event interrupts the routine of an organisation creating uncertainty and ambiguity (Weber
and Manning 2001, Weick 1995). It is the emotion, either felt or expressed (Maitlis and Sonenshein 2010)
caused by the event which acts as the trigger (George and Jones 2001, Weick 1993). Leadership
sensemaking may be triggered by perceived opportunities and threats (Dutton and Jackson 1987), uncertain
organisational issues (Maitlis and Lawrence 2007), the occurrence of unclear and non-routine events (Weick
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1995) and the encountering of strategic and political issues (Gioia and Thomas 1996). Middle management
sensemaking is triggered by the importance of an issue or event at a personal, team or organisational level
especially when they deem the leadership response to an event to be insufficient or incompetent in some
respect (Maitlis and Sonenshein 2010). The sensemaking which occurs in response to organisational change
is particularly powerful (Maitlis and Sonenshein 2010). Much of the research in the area to date has sought
to develop a staged model of sensemaking (Weick et al. 2005, Barr 1998, Gioia and Chittipeddi 1991,
Isabella 1990) with Gioia and Chittipeddi’s (1991) three phases of scanning, interpretation and action widely
accepted as the core components of sensemaking (Weick 1995, Daft and Weick 1984). Interpretation
involves interplay with sensegiving, a concept defined as ‘the process of attempting to influence the
sensemaking and meaning construction of others toward a preferred redefinition of organisational reality’
(Gioia and Chittipeddi 1991). Sensemaking is essentially a dialectic processes (Bartunek 1984), on-going
and cyclical (Daft and Weick 1984, Weber and Manning 2001, Sims and Gioia 1986) in nature, with
sensemaking and sensegiving often difficult to distinguish from each other; ‘coincident’, interdependent,
non-sequential, reciprocal, and of varying source, directionality (Gioia et al. 1994, Gioia and Chittipeddi
1991) and length (Barr 1998) with the output, real strategic action, not occurring until all stages of the
sensemaking process have been completed (Barr 1998, Dutton et al. 1983). More recently, a more granular
understanding of the patterns of social interaction and action among stakeholders (leaders and managers) has
identified four forms of organisational sensemaking (Maitlis 2005); guided, restricted, fragmented and
minimal. However, research to date has largely concentrated on the role of leadership and the development
of staged, process models of sensemaking based on retrospective accounts of strategic change. Though
recent contributions from theorists such as Maitlis and Rouleau have progressed understandings in terms of
the triggers and enablers of sensemaking and others such as Balogun and Bartunek have explored the role of
middle management it is generally accepted that the underlying activities of individual and collective middle
management sensemaking, though critical to strategic organisational change, are still not fully understood.
Research Methodology
The aim of this research (Phase I of IV) was to explore the leadership context in which middle management
sensemaking occurs. The questions guiding the research were: 1) what is the level of awareness and
perspective of middle management sensemaking among organisational leadership and 2) how do
organisational leaders enable or disable this sensemaking process? Research was conducted in three of Ireland’s
leading organisations. Organisation A is a multinational medical devices corporation and the research site was the
global headquarters in Ireland. Having divested itself of many heavy-manufacturing product lines it is now focussing
purely on medical devices and is currently strategically realigning its organisation, operation and culture. Organisation
B is one of Ireland’s most high profile indigenous brands currently facing huge sectorial challenges due to significant
changes in regulation, product composition and consumer behaviour all of which necessitate considerable internal
restructuring, and operational and cultural change. Organisation C is also an international medical devices corporation,
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the research site in this instance was its Irish manufacturing plant which operates in an environment of significant
continuous change. Research comprised of 15 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 15 leaders; the CEO, HR
Director, two Business Unit Directors and one HR Specialist in each organisation with responsibility for
organisational development. Interviews were conducted by the author, on-site, between March and November 2013.
Interviews were transcribed and analysed using NVivo software.
Findings and Discussion
Analysis of the data reveals a stark contrast between Organisations A and B, and C. Where Organisations A
and B significantly struggle to capture the benefits of, or even appreciate the value of middle management
sensemaking, the leaders of Organisation C work extremely hard at nurturing and unleashing the potential of
middle management sensemaking to the point of developing metrics for and holding each other accountable
for the planning and communication activities which support the sensemaking process. Where Organisations
A and B struggle to varying degrees with their own teamwork, sensemaking and role as sensegivers,
Organisation C places huge significance on their own role as a team, taking time on an on-going basis to
make sense of their environment prior to planning out the sensegiving opportunities in which they will
engage with middle managers. Organisation A claims to value sensemaking but feels they do not have the
time to ‘indulge’ in the process, believing that the levels of time and effort required would negatively impact
their speed of delivery to the market. Organisation B has attempted to engage with middle management at
the outset of their strategic change programme but it was short-lived. Though some leaders again claim to
value the process of sensemaking, they cannot see how to effectively engage their middle management
community. However, other leaders in the organisation view sensemaking quite negatively as gossip and
resistance to change. For both Organisation A and B, though some acknowledgement of the role of middle
management sensemaking was shown, they either feel it is not a) worth the leadership and management
effort, b) is vital to their business or c) is achievable with their middle managers. For Organisation C,
sensegiving and sensemaking is a core process for their business, without which they feel they could not
survive.
To expand on these high level findings three core themes were identified which have been further divided
into 8 sub-themes. In the following pages key findings will be highlighted under each sub-theme with the
contrasts between the three organisations outlined.
Core Themes:
1. Change context for leaders.
2. Leadership sensemaking and sensegiving experiences.
3. Acknowledged and unacknowledged, enabling and disabling leadership change management.
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Theme One:
Sub-Themes:
Change
Pace of Change:
context for
Despite well-resourced and best-practice driven change programmes, interviews with the
Leaders.
leadership of all three organisations highlighted their on-going struggle to manage
continuous change leading to sustainable results and intended performance outcomes. A
number of factors behind this struggle stem from the over-whelming pace of change.
Organisations are faced with considerable market challenges which range from the
constraints and cumbersome nature of national and international regulation, juxtaposed
with the need to respond rapidly to continuous changing consumer behaviour,
technological advances and competitor offerings. This pace of change is already well
documented in strategic change literature and is nothing new for large corporate
organisations. It is the leadership team’s response to this environment however which is of
value in this study. Where Organisation C’s leadership pull together to tackle the issues,
Organisation A and B’s leadership have, to varying degrees, appeared to fracture, the
consequences of which is felt strongly at leadership and management levels. Both A and
B’s leadership were experiencing periods of what could be described as a mix of strategic
confusion and lethargy. Interviews exposed conflicting leadership views, open hostility to
peers and many cases of disagreement with all or some elements of the planned change
strategies. In Organisation A there was strong evidence of on-going disagreements on
elements of the plan and in Organisation B there was widespread agreement that the
existing 5 year plan had become irrelevant over one year ago but was still not being
reviewed.
“We are moving so fast, we finish one thing and take a breath and then legal will say
we are nearly finished on that acquisition and before you know it we have to start all
over again with a new site or a new supplier or a new product patent and the
consequences of that reach into every corner of the business and there is no chance to
take a breath. We were laughing here one day saying it is like the final stages of
labour. There is no break between contractions at this stage. We cannot get our breath.
But there is still no sign of a baby coming out either!” Organisation A.
“But when it comes to clarity of purpose in terms of what is happening and what is this
place all about? I think that the whole variety of things whether it is the pursuit of a
new business with consequences for some of the old ….whether it is the state view of
what are these assets for ….or the troika looking in over your shoulder saying ‘why
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don’t you sell that’ or even government thinking ‘yeah well why don’t we sell that’ you
know take it and do something else with it or create employment …..there has been a
big change in the last few years and we have to just as a team I think we have to
confront that and ask ourselves some fundamental questions”. Organisation B.
Despite spending considerable time and effort on the intitial processes guiding
organisational change such as strategic workshops, the production and presentation of
business visions, goals and values, and communications with employees through
conferences, workshops and alignment with other HRM systems such as performance
Management, both Organisations A and B openly acknowledged that these efforts cease
after a time and as a result neither are successfully initiating or sustaining real change.
Significant costs associated with the engineering and production of formal change
programmes, including international and public communications, are not translating into
the behaviours or activities required to deliver business change.
“We have used expensive consultants to help us create our business plan and we spent
months of consultation with teams at the beginning of the year….across the business and
while it was happening there was great enthusiasm for it all, a great buzz. But it is up and
running now a couple of months and if I am completely honest I don’t see my direct reports
doing anything differently. I am still having to hand-hold them and direct them more than I
want to or should need to. That should not be my job”. Organisation A.
“It can be like pulling teeth round here some days. I get very frustrated with them. And
now we are supposed to be reviewing phase I of the strategic programme and I feel like
calling a total stop to it and saying how can we feel we can progress to phase II when we
still haven’t made those basic behavioural changes that we said we would make? We are
supposed to be collaborating and we are still acting as independent units so how the hell
can we push on to phase II like this? We are kidding ourselves that we are making
progress but I think for HR they have a tick in the box and a brochure so they think we are
done.” Organisation B.
However when pressed to consider what ‘things’ the leadership team were doing to drive
strategic change above and beyond the formulation and communication of the change
programme most leaders were unable to articulate any clear actions. Findings also show
evidence of burnout among some leaders. Both Organisations A and B’s leaders shared
experiences of stress, anxiety and disinterest in elements of the business.
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“Honestly I am not so sure I buy into it all anymore. Its change after change after change.
I think that is what business is all about now and as a Director in this type of business that
is what your key focus has to be. Meet the weekly targets despite the ground constantly
moving under your feet and I am not sure that is how I want to spend my time anymore. I
am supposed to be convincing my teams to engage with it and that is not easy when you
don’t feel engaged with it yourself half the time or you know you are only pretending to
be”. Organisation A.
Organisation C is operating in an exactly similar environment but their CEO is credited
with creating a focus on teamwork, planning and communication which guides the
leadership and organisation through the change:
“We agreed the metrics for the KBIs as a Team and we meet daily if on site for 15 minutes,
weekly as a team, monthly with the extended management team, we also want to ensure we
are organic so meet informally and socially on set/regular basis and then we participate in
all the departmental and supervisory meetings at set times/dates so that we are crossfunctional and everyone knows who we are. We measure all of that and hold each other
accountable on it at all times. We are not perfect but he (the CEO) has set a strong scene
of teamwork and planning and collaboration and the time we give to that and our
communications down the chain is our main focus and effort day in and day out and it pays
off, we are as in control as we could possibly be given the pace of change we have to meet
month on month, week on week, day on day.” Organisation C
Over-Engineering of Change Programmes:
The over-engineering of change programmes was mentioned by all leaders in
Organisations A and B, including HR Directors, but it was generally accepted that the way
to initiate change was through best-practice methods of bottom-up and top-down
workshops resulting in, what were termed by some as, aggressive, full-on, over-the-top and
intense internal marketing communications and practices.
However, all leaders
acknowledged that these efforts were not sustained and were not producing the desired
behavioural changes among their middle managers. Some felt this was in part driven by
the organisation’s inability to capture the breadth and depth of the change required in a
simple communications strategy while others believed the final vision statement did not
reflect the real change required. In one case the leader interviewed completely disagreed
with one of Organisation A’s core values.
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“What is employee engagement anyway? We have agreed that what we need around here
is team collaboration, a project approach to our work and stakeholder Management. That
is what we should be saying over and over and not engagement. Is that staff parties? Is it
everyone being happy? No. It’s about real team work and clear processes for producing
actions from the business plan and we are really struggling to get that into people’s
heads”. Organisation A.
“I mean what does that really mean anyway (pointing to framed picture in room)? Does
the Quality Controller in X care about that? No. Why should they want to move to a new
finance system which doesn’t do a quarter of what their current one does just so that
someone here can push a button and immediately get a centralised report? Do they care
about that? No. Should they? No, I don’t think they should, they should be caring about
quality of our product over there and not a stupid system. This ‘naming core value’ thing
won’t work”. Organisation A.
Though Organisation C had a comparable level of promotions and material around their
vision etc., the difference appeared to be in the fact that it was sustained and they were
‘living’ this vision, mission and values. As such it was not deemed excessive but central to
their change strategy.
“We all have T Card in our office which outline the meetings we need to attend each day
and we carry that day’s card in our pocket for everyone to see. When we get to the meeting
our presence is noted and the meeting card and they are collected at the end of each week.
We are living our values, honouring our commitments and everyone feels that”
Organisation C.
Unrealistic Expectations of Change Programmes:
There was acknowledgement by Organisation’s A and B that they had high expectations of
their change initiation efforts. As the pace of change is so fast the expectation is that one
element of the change can be ‘completed’ and they can move on to the next in a
programmed fashion. There was a clear expectation in Organisation A that once designed
and communicated to middle management, the leadership team’s job was done. When
prompted by the author there was some acknowledgement that the leaderships’
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expectations for speedy behavioural change was somewhat unrealistic yet tangible
solutions and approaches to drive behavioural change beyond ‘initialising’ were not
forthcoming. Organisation B was more mixed in relation to expectations for change. On
the one hand those leaders in the organisation for some time felt change should be
incremental and ‘within reason’ while on the other hand newer leaders to the organisation
felt the pace of change was too slow, both views were criticised within the leadership team.
For Organisation C the pace of change was equally fast and at times, they felt,
unreasonable but, simultaneously, they felt they could manage the pace well overall.
“I don’t want them to slow down. They cannot afford to do that. We are too busy around
here. They need to see it and get it and get on with it, which is why they are operating at a
Management level”. Organisation A.
“I guess, I suppose we do have high expectations, you are right about that. But what
choice do we have? We don’t have time to sit around and gaze at the stars? There was too
much of that round here in the past. You know at 10.00am everyone gets up and goes
across to the canteen, I mean everyone. I was shocked when I came here first. How do you
stop that? You can’t say on one hand don’t go for coffee at 10.00am and then in the next
breath say now let’s all take a day out to think about this.” Organisation B.
“ There is a constant battle between the old and the new, old ways versus new ways and
neither is right. For the older areas they see change as what is achievable not what is
necessary and in some newer areas they are changing so fast they don’t know what they
are doing. I don’t think we are near getting the balance right and it’s not that everything
old is bad and everything new is good – we have to move through both and benefit from
both viewpoints.” Organisation B.
“ Well, change is what we know and accept here. You would think that the improvements
we made had squeezed the last drop of efficiency out of things and then when you revisit it
again six months later, lo and behold you find you can get another drop out of it and that is
what is needed to keep our customers – we can see that and we communicate that and we
say, as demands grows so does technology and so does our ability as a team.”
Organisation C.
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Theme Two:
Sub-Themes:
Leadership
Leadership Sensemaking:
sensemaking
Findings show significant evidence of a lack of understanding of the cognitive
and
management of strategic change at a leadership level. Leadership teams in Organisations
sensegiving
A and B were generally not focussing on their personal and collective sensemaking effort.
experiences.
For many, the questions posed by the author in this regard remained unanswered. Though
some effort had been made by both leadership teams to make sense of the planned
changes during the strategic planning process, this appeared to have been quite superficial
at a collective level.
The sensemaking of change which did occur was more at an
individual, personal level with regard to the personal impact of change to roles,
remuneration and career prospects.
Organisation C however were very aware and
responsive on the topic of sensemaking for the leadership team, seeing it as the first key
change step before engaging with the broader organisation.
“Are we really connecting with the need for change? Are we connecting with each other
as a leadership team? I think not is the simple answer. No. We are hiding from each other
maybe. There is a hidden undercurrent of hostility in some cases. You know like group say
they want the business units to be independent but they don’t really, not really. They don’t
want the tail to wag the dog so to speak. And we haven’t addressed that. We did go
through this appreciative inquiry thing but nobody was honest about what was really
going on and until that is dealt with, until that is on the table we cannot really change and
move forward as a group, as an organisation”. Organisation B.
“Well you know we regularly take time out and just say well what does this mean for us
and how do you think we could respond and where might this all take us and we have
those conversations regularly and then at some point you have to make a decision and
move forward but if they are not the right decisions, and we are not always right, we are
not afraid to start asking new questions and you know it’s the questions that are asked
that lead to the interesting conversations that lead to the successes. If you have the right
question often the answer becomes very clear. And we listen to the questions right down
through the organisation. We trust that all our people right down to our associates are
competent and engaged and knowledgeable about their piece in the jigsaw and sometimes
the hard questions that make the most sense come from the floor and believe me they are
not afraid to ask them.” Organisation C.
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Leadership Sensegiving:
When it came to sensegiving activities most leaders in Organisations A and B resorted to
the examples of the change marketing strategy as opposed to more tangible activities
undertaken directly with their middle managers.
Furthermore, there was a general
consensus among most leaders that middle managers should not need to be guided through
change. There was one notable exception of a leader in Organisation A who appreciated
the need to role model change behaviours, to provide on-going examples and references of
good change practice, and to provide individual and collective opportunities to openly
discuss the impact of the change on business activities.
For the most part these
sensegiving practices appeared to have been developed in their previous role with another
organisation. In general however, responses to prompts on sensegiving brought forward
examples of leadership support in other guises such as help prioritising workloads or
planning projects. The general consensus in Organisation A was that, though reflection
and review and discussion would be beneficial it was a ‘nice to have’ rather than a must.
For Organisation B the view, widely held, was that some leadership sensegiving activities
were engaged with but these were more about ‘socialising’ the change plan and preventing
‘surprises’ down the line rather than seeking a fuller engagement with middle
management. Again, at the opposite end of the sensegiving spectrum, Organisation C
engaged in sensegiving activities on a constant basis.
“There is this thing where the middle managers want to be led. I ask myself is any one of
them going to step up to the plate and take ownership of this?” Organisation A.
“ Well we held a number of information sessions and we continue to do so because we
don’t want there to be any surprises or shocks but these are not negotiations processes,
we know where we need to go”. Organisation B.
“We communicate everything significant in four different ways; Directly in groups,
directly as an individual, in formal memos and visually on corridors and in rooms. To be
honest there is no way you couldn’t communicate up and down through the organisation it
is our core means of doing business and not in a superficial way, in a real, up and down
and back up and down again.” Organisation C
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Awareness of Middle Management Sensemaking:
For Organisations A and B, it was accepted that middle management needed to make
sense of things but only to a certain extent. For Organisation A the view was that the
business could not afford to take the time to review or gather feedback to any great
degree. It was accepted that this would likely lead to some errors and issues with quality
or inefficiencies in project management but these were considered to be problems which
could be managed and this was a better alternative to the ‘time lost’ through sensemaking.
For Organisation B there was a view that in many cases middle management did not want
to make sense of things as everything to do with the change plan was viewed negatively,
consequently it did not add any real value. Interestingly, the concept of middle
management sensemaking in Organisation B generated many negative connotations
among those interviewed with words like gossip, tittle-tattle and stubbornness used on a
number of occasions when describing middle management’s response to change plans.
For Organisation C, as stated a number of times already, the role of sensemaking was at
the heart of their culture.
“I cannot honestly say that, if I reflect on it properly, that we are very good at listening to
the views of middle management. We did have a process of engagement a couple of years
back. A series of workshops to develop our vision and values and we had good outputs
from those but they are largely irrelevant now. They (middle managers) know that and we
know they know that and I suppose we need to listen to them and engage with them. We
don’t seem to have the drive or energy to re-engage with them at the moment and that is
not good”. Organisation A.
“When you try to initiate a change it can be like a cancer spreading among the staff. I can
see it in the body language of my team and I try not to rise to it. I take them through the
ideas and the plan and we go through a consultation process ….of sorts…..well we know
the outcome we want….this is not a negotiation here you know….we take their views on
board of course but at the end of the day we know where we have to go and you have to
stick with that and ignore the chatter”. Organisation B.
15
Theme Three:
Sub-Themes:
Acknowledged
Leaders as role models:
and Un-
There was very little evidence of leadership teams reflecting on how they would
acknowledged
embrace the change and how they could role model behaviours for their teams across
enabling and
Organisations A and B, with the notable exception of Organisation B’s CEO. When
disabling
further questioned there was an acknowledgement that as leadership teams they were
leadership
seriously challenged by some of the change concepts e.g. team work and project
change
management which they expected of their direct reports, with one or two notable
management.
exceptions. For Organisation C however role modelling change was considered core to
their management.
“I don’t really consider myself part of a team at a leadership level. I am focussed on
my own agenda here in this business unit and that is enough for me. That is what I was
brought in for. It’s the CEO’s job to sort out the leadership team. I couldn’t take on
the task of trying to collaborate across the business. I know as I say it out loud that it
doesn’t sound good but I am not taking that on. It would be too hard. They are too set
in their ways. I have enough trying to get my people here to pull together”.
Organisation B.
“The first thing I did when I came here was change the entire layout of the CEO suite.
There were locked doors, a personal tea lady, shag pile carpets and all that. Totally of
a different era and sending out the wrong message. If we are to get working as a team
then I am part of that team. We were using a hotel for meetings because we were short
of space but I had a whole floor. Where we are now used to be my office and look at
the size of it. It was crazy. I believe my changes which happened in the first month sent
a strong message that things were changing at every level”. Organisation B.
“Directors clock in and out each day, we don’t have designated car spaces, we move
around the canteen each day, we have shadow boards, we have T-Cards, we are
accountable to everyone” Organisation C
16
Leadership Teamwork.
A significant finding in Organisations A and B was a very obvious lack of ‘team’ at the
leadership tables. For Organisation A, though relations appeared to be positive, there
was a strong view that each function was independent and that leaders did not
necessarily play a cross-functional role other than where projects required crossfunctional input. For Organisation B, silos, lack of joined up thinking and at times open
hostility between leaders was in evidence. For both Organisations A and B, the
outcomes of this lack of team work resulted in inconsistencies in how they translated
the organisations vision, a lack of buy-in to some elements of the vision and mission
and, most seriously, a lack of support for the efforts of areas outside of their own.
Again, in contrast, Organisation C placed a strong emphasis on team work at a
leadership level.
“They are looking at the other Leaders and my pal in the unit over there and he is still
doing things the same way so I think they think they will outlive me. They are looking
for me to fall and everything will get back to normal, to what they were before and its
almost as if they are waiting for that to happen because in some respect I am a sole
voice in the wilderness”. Organisation B.
“We agreed the metrics for the KBIs as a Team and we meet daily if on site for 15
minutes, weekly as a team, monthly with the extended management team, we also want
to ensure we are organic so meet informally and socially on set/regular basis and then
we participate in all the departmental and supervisory meetings at set times/dates so
that we are cross-functional and everyone knows who we are. We measure all of that
and hold each other accountable on it at all times” Organisation C
Inability to persevere with the change agenda:
Another finding which emerged, though somewhat unacknowledged by the
interviewees, is that of an inability of leaders to persevere with change in Organisation
A and B. Either one change initiative gets hijacked by the next or the leadership team
appear to run out of steam at some point. Many elements of the change plan in both
Organisations A and B appeared to become diluted over time and are eventually
disregarded.
“And yeah I was just looking at my diary last week and for 3 months I had the
17
extended leadership team session kept pushing out and then I looked at my diary
last week and I thought you know that is not going to happen and people have had
that in their diary and it never happened and people will be thinking you know we
mentioned we would do something and we had something planned and we didn’t do
it and people will get together and start talking and you know have all sorts of
theories and none of them will be right but you know I expect myself it’s because
we like everybody else have to have certainty so that day we were going to SET IT
OUT and WRITE IT DOWN and DO this but it was still all up in the air so we felt
we better not bring ‘the children in’ and expose them to that uncertainty so we
didn’t progress it and then you know everybody gets upset about ". Organisation B.
“We have been focussing on this burning platform for the last couple of years, the
crisis of what we need to be doing to get the business back on its feet and then suddenly
we get side-tracked and it’s a good news story and the burning platform is forgotten.
You can see the relief in people’s faces, in their body language and that is not right.
That should not have been allowed happen. The platform is still burning but we are
ignoring it now”. Organisation B.
Conclusions and Implications
Despite a significant body of empirical evidence underpinning the strategic value of engaging middle
management in the process of strategic change, and despite all organisational leaders being aware of these
best-practices, two of the three organisations in this study are still struggling to either appreciate the value
of, or put in the effort required to unleash the potential of, middle management sensemaking.
All leaders
involved in this study were under considerable pressure due to the continuous pace of change, but for two of
the organisations, they appear unable to translate the strategic change agenda into anything more than a
high-gloss change programme. There is very little evidence of collective leadership sensemaking which
appears to result in a lack of buy-in to the vision or change plan as well as a lack of a team-based approach
from the ‘top table’. The time, effort and perseverance required by some leaders to fully engage with the
sensemaking process is either not within their capabilities, not considered a good investment or is something
which they are unable to sustain to a point that they can see its value. The lack of leadership teamwork, lack
of a clear commitment to the organisation’s vision, and lack of planning and communication which would
enable middle management sensemaking, all seem to be significant factors in both Organisations’
acknowledgement that they are struggling to meet their strategic change objectives. In stark contrast
however for Organisation C, where a CEO establishes a clear vision for the leadership team and enforces a
18
measurable and accountable set of behaviours and practices around sensegiving and sensemaking, the full
benefit of middle management sensemaking is felt at all levels of the organisation. Though still required to
cope with significant levels of change, leadership team work, metric-driven and planning-driven
sensegiving, and excessive communication and feedback opportunities for middle management are seen to
be the driving force of an organisation’s success.
The implications of this study are far reaching. For theorists we must ask ourselves why we have yet to
‘reach’ the leadership community to a point that the effort required to unleash the potential of middle
management sensemaking is considered worthwhile. For organisations, we must ask ourselves why, when
we appear to have some understanding of the strategic role of middle managers, the leadership capabilities
required to unleash this potential seem, for many, unachievable. Due to its real-time, diary-based data, it is
hoped that the analysis of Phases II-IV of this author’s PhD research will provide new understandings of the
micro-practices of and the value of middle management sensemaking which can be more readily translated
into practice. It is also hoped to show that, if indicative findings of focus groups and diaries bear out in a
more detailed analysis, where this sensemaking is not fully engaged with, the ‘underground sensemaking’
which results has the power to derail the change agenda in the short term and damage the organisation’s
performance in the longer term.
If we cannot ‘advise’ organisations into engaging with their ‘missing managers’
maybe we can ‘scare’ them into it?
19
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