Consulting and change

Box 4.4 Ten overlapping management styles, from no participation to complete participation

(1)None: There is no participation or involvement. People express surprise if the “boss” asks them a problem-solving question. People are paid to “work”, not “think”. Managers “send down” decisions.

(2)Persuasive autocracy: There is some recognition that an effort to “sell” the project or the solution has been considered and will be incorporated “if there is time and money”.

(3)Consultative: Responsible managers ask people many questions and seek to obtain as many ideas as possible, but establishing criteria, weightings and details are left entirely to managers.

(4)Reactive control: The organizations involve others in measuring, comparing and assessing the performance of a satisfactory system. Citizen groups, regulatory boards, peer review, and so on, are means whereby participation is obtained. Policy formulation matters arise only occasionally.

(5)Bargaining: More adversarial or at least structured formal involvement is built into normal operations.

(6)Anticipatory control: The organization consciously scans the horizon to become aware of possible future occurrences. Groups are allowed to report intelligence that could indicate developments. They can also develop alternatives for responding and “controlling” the future.

(7)Joint determination: Although decisions are usually joint, there is a relatively continuous interchange of ideas among those charged with the responsibilities for operating a system and those working in it. Management operates this way because it thinks it is desirable, and workers have no assurance of its continuation. Most other stakeholders may not be included in the participatory effort.

(8)Supportive collaboration: Efforts are likely to be more formalized, with some decision responsibilities spelled out (for example, advisory group, citizens’ commissions).

(9)Permanent work groups: Employees and managers meet regularly (usually during working hours) and seek to solve all types of problems that emerge in any area of concern.

(10)Complete self-determination: A joint worker/management board of directors or several joint groups share key decision-making responsibility (budgets, new products, acquisition and divestiture, personnel policies and practices, and so on).

Source: G. Nadler and S. Hibino: Breakthrough thinking: The seven principles of creative problem solving

(Rocklin, CA, Prima Publishing, 1994), pp. 283–284.

stakeholders include people and authorities in the local community, suppliers of equipment, systems and raw materials, banks and other providers of financial services, and so on. Not only can they provide useful advice, but they are likely to make contributions reflecting the nature and importance of their stakes.

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Managing the change process

Change requires leadership, and it is natural that this should be provided by the managers who are principally responsible for running the organization. This leadership is necessary even if an important role in the change process is assigned to a consultant and if the approach taken is highly participative. If senior management shows no interest and the handling of particular changes is relegated to lower management or a functional department, this signals to the organization that management has other priorities and does not care much about the changes that are being prepared.

It is, of course, understandable that management must deal both with restructuring, reorganization, launching new products, mergers with other companies and similar major change measures and processes, and with the routine everyday activities of the organization. There may be competition for scarce resources: some key people may be wanted both for preparing a major change and for running current business. A consultant can be used to facilitate the manager’s task, but not to manage change on the manager’s behalf.

This being said, management has to determine the specific change measures requiring its leadership, and decide on the intensity and style of its direct involvement. The complexity of the changes that are being prepared, and their importance to the organization’s future, are key criteria. In a large organization, senior managers cannot be personally involved in all changes, but there are certain changes which they must manage personally, or for which they must find a suitable way, explicit or symbolic, of providing and demonstrating support. Reinforcing messages from the leaders are a key stimulus in a change effort.

The style of leadership should be consistent with the organizational culture, the approach to change that has been chosen, the urgency of the changes to be made and the sophistication of the people involved. Thus, a directive style of leadership will be appropriate for situations of urgency and a relatively unsophisticated and inexperienced audience. In contrast, a low-profile delegating style can be used if responsibility can be given to followers who understand the framework within which the changes need to be planned and put into effect.4

The role of innovators and change agents

A change effort requires a successful start. Making a correct decision about what to change and assigning responsibilities are not enough. There must be people who have critical and innovative minds, enjoy experimenting, can visualize the future, believe that change is possible, and influence others, not by talking about change, but by demonstrating what can be achieved. These innovators, prime movers, champions or intrapreneurs, as they are sometimes called, may be in managerial jobs, but equally may be design engineers, marketing specialists, project coordinators, experienced workers, supervisors, and others.

Organizations that are keen to change must encourage innovation, experiments and entrepreneurship. To management this means not only tolerating

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Consulting and change

departures from routine and tradition, and accepting that this entails some risk, but deliberately employing innovators, giving them some freedom of action, observing their work, and referring to their example in showing what the organization is able to achieve.

Innovative and entrepreneurial individuals and teams often play a prominent role in successful organizational change. They are the organization’s principal change agents, and it is often in their units that change will start. Some of them will become managers of new units responsible for new product lines or services, coordinators of change projects, or trainers and internal consultants helping other individuals and groups to make the necessary changes.

There are two basic types of change agent: those whose interest is and remains predominantly technical, and who may produce excellent technical ideas without being able to convert them into business opportunities; and those who are mainly entrepreneurs and leaders, and can help to generate and implement changes that require the active involvement of many people, individually or in groups.

A strategy for organizational change may rely entirely on internal capabilities and on managerial and specialist staff members who can play the role of change agents. An alternative is to bring in a change agent from outside as a consultant. This is an important managerial decision affecting the whole approach to the change process. The consultant will not only be contributing technical competence and an alternative viewpoint, but, as we know, will be influencing, by his or her presence and by action taken (or not taken), the behaviour of those concerned in change. The consultant may well influence the behaviour of the very person who has invited him or her. The main factors to consider are:

●the consultant’s profile (knowledge, experience and personality: he or she must be acceptable to and respected by people who are being helped to change);

●the mode of consulting to choose in order to assist change (as discussed in Chapter 3, there are various modes; the question is, which mode is likely to generate the desired effects in a particular human system).

Organizational culture supportive of change

It is easier to keep pace with environmental change and generate effective changes from within if change has a prominent place in the organizational culture and if it is not handled as something exceptional, requiring a special campaign and special arrangements in every single case.

High-technology companies in electronics and other fields now operate in an atmosphere of constant change, and people understand that this is a salient characteristic of the sector with which they have to live. The required pace of change in many other fields is not as high. Every organization should define what is the necessary and optimum pace of change in its sector, and try to adopt it as a common value shared by management and staff. This helps to balance change and stability, minimize hectic unplanned changes and avoid change for its own sake.

People should know what preoccupies management and where they should focus efforts to improve individual and group performance, in order to avoid

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