Dynamics of
Large Scale
Organisational Change
Jean Neumann
[Thanks to Mohrman, Marris, Cummings & Worley]
What is Change Management?
 Organisational change
 Any kind of change, including technical and managerial innovations,
organisational decline or evolution of system over time
 Not necessarily related to explicit values
 Change management
 Attempts to control or regulate organisational changes planned or not
 Usually focussed on economic potential or competitive advantage
 Organisational development
 Using social science to plan development, improvement and
reinforcement of strategies, structures and processes for organisational
effectiveness
 Often supports values of human potential, participation and
development
Comprehensive Organisational
Change
Complexity
of Change
Pervasiveness
of Change
Depth of
Change
+Lasting change in the
character of the organization
that significantly alters its
performance
*Mohrman defines by three
dimensions
Dimensions of Comprehensive
Organisational Change
 Complex changes

Refer primarily to the size of social system being changed and the size
of the change effort necessary to alter character and performance
 Deep changes

Entail shifts in members’ basic beliefs, values and behaviour and in the
way the organisation is understood
 Pervasive changes

Implicate a major proportion of the organisation’s elements and
subdivisions in the change
Types of Organisational Changes
Incremental
Anticipatory
Tuning
Extensiveness
Strategic
Reorienting
Motivation
Adaptive
Reactive
Reconstructive
Typical Inter-related Change Initiatives for
Reorienting or Reconstructive Changes
(Neumann, Holti & Standing, 1995)
Business
& Organisational
Strategy
Work Design
& Related
Training
Industrial
Relations
& Personnel
Practice
Overall Change
Strategy
Business
Planning &
Accounting
Systems
Quality
& Operational
Systems
4 Classic Dilemmas of
Large Scale Change
 Use a template versus grow a hybrid
 Clear pattern, sense of predictable control vs. customised outcome with high
involvement and commitment
 Ignores uniqueness, repeats mistakes vs. less predictable outcome, provokes anxiety
 Reform in parts versus transform everything
 Control over introduction, success builds interest vs. most lasting change, working
towards consistency
 Sequential competition, builds resistance vs. inadequate change methods and longterm disruption
 Change attitudes versus change structures
 Familiar, uses existing staff vs. more lasting, targets jobs, pay, decision-making
 Too slow, little evidence that it works vs. can be too fast, generates fear and upset
 Direct rapid change versus evolve slow participation
 Minimizes period of upset, expected from managers vs. involves people in decisions
that shape their lives, educates for the future and changes norms
 Hanging around waiting, resentment, anger vs. increased resources, intolerable shifts
in direction and predictability
Essential Uncertainty of Large Scale
Organisational Change
 Linear Action
 Comprehensive organisational change requires planning and sequencing
(subsequent and simultaneous) and taking linear action, that is actions in
sequence through time and space with some confidence of outcome.
AND
 Non-linear Developments
 Attitudinal and behavioural change results from people changing
themselves and those ‘things’ that add up to ‘organisation’. This type of
change is by definition non-linear and, thus, full of uncertainty.
 Dynamics of large scale organisational changes are
rooted in this essential uncertainty
Uncertainty Goes with the Large Scale
Organisational Change Territory
 The more comprehensive the change
The more aspects of our environment, on which we rely for certainty, will
change.
 Most methods for comprehensive change
 Usually mean that the majority wait around for the minority to take a
decision or to act.
 Strong psychological and political feelings
 Reactions to the actual or potential content of changes, plus the
‘waiting around’ element of large systems change methods, stirs and
then fuels anxiety.
 The longer the timeframe for implementing change
 The more people tend to both desire and fear re-formation of aspects of
their identity that may result from or be required by the comprehensive
change.
Managing Uncertainty is Normal Human
Behaviour (But We Don’t Like It)
 Uncertainty =
 The fact or condition of not knowing, of being in a changeable or erratic situation,
or things being unreliable.
 By definition uncertainty means having to act without knowing the outcome, which
makes us feel anxious.
 When we feel uncertain
 Our first instinct is to search for more information upon which to act and to
understand what is happening.
 We need to make ourselves secure with what we can control.
 As the uncertainty continues
 We tend to alternate between feelings of personal inadequacy and anger at the
changes and at how others are managing those changes (i.e. anger at being made
to feel personally inadequate).
We Often Compete to Minimise Our
Uncertainty at Others’ Expense
 The more uncertain the comprehensive change becomes,
the more we compete to conserve as much as we have
and to minimise our losses
 We need to make others’ behaviour predictable,
 While retaining freedom to act once we know what others are up to.
 Add to this normal human behaviour, the organisational
dimensions of roles, hierarchies and power
 The most powerful maintain or regain their balance by forcing the weaker to
bear the burden of adjustment.
 Typical organisational defences for competitive
management of uncertainty emerge early from core
decision-takers
 Labour-management negotiated rules and procedures
 Differentiation: contracting out, temporary workers, etc.
 Insulation of HQ from operations
We Tend to React to Large Scale
Uncertainty by Making It Worse
 We react defensively
 Move closer to those people with whom they have something in common
 Distance from those people with whom they disagree
 Hold (rigidly) certain positions and opinions related to the change
 Take up complementary (matching) positions
 We unproductively manage our distress by some version
of psychological withdrawal
 E.g. self-mastery; self-failure
 E.g. hostility; irresponsible behaviour
 We persistently avoid resolution of emotional and political
concerns
 People withdraw from engaging with the relationships that are perceived to
be too uncertain to handle
 Turn inward to create an attitude toward external threats which reduces
one’s vulnerability to them
Successful Change Requires Reciprocal
Management of Uncertainty
 Reciprocal management of uncertainty
 Means to give and receive mutually.
 Mutual discovery for introducing predictability and new meaning.
 Minimum critical specifications = objectives
 General enough for revision, experimentation, customisation
 Specific enough to guide meaningful, cooperative action in which people
can create a future for themselves
 Mechanisms for reciprocity
 Long-term development requires constant revision as events unfold
 An iterative process of review, revision and re-planning is needed.
 Participation and involvement are necessary
 Only a third of any particular organisational population are inclined to
participate when given the chance.
 Mutual, often institutionalised, defences get in the way.
Paradoxically
 When we feel most defensive and vulnerable we
have to risk openness.
 Openness, like defensiveness, tends to be selfconfirming.
 Those who are fortunate enough to have found
circumstances which encourage their sense of
control and understanding are likely to go on
increasing their grasp.
 The competitive assertion of autonomy and control
constrains the lives of those subordinated to it. As
its effect intensifies, people at every level of power
inflict that on those below them.