feature
Mastering the art of
change
Ken Blanchard offers some strategies
for successfully leading change
I
t takes a whole team of
people to create a great
company but just one lousy
leader to take the whole
business down the pan.
Too many leaders’ egos are
far too big; they want to make
their mark by making changes
– maybe change is desperately
needed – but, because they try to
force results, the only outcomes
are lower productivity, time
and money wasted, and higher
employee turnover.
If people can’t see the need for
change, they don’t want it, won’t
stand for it and will go out of
their way
to avoid, if not
sabotage, it.
Research
carried out
44
TJ
by my colleagues Pat Zigarmi
and Judd Hoekstra at The Ken
Blanchard Companies last year
revealed the shocking fact that
up to 70 per cent of all change
initiatives fail; a figure so high
it means that most change
initiatives are doomed to failure
from the start.
Up to 70 per cent of all
change initiatives fail
January 2010 www.trainingjournal.com
So, the question becomes
why bother trying to change?
Wouldn’t it be better to stick
with the status quo? After
all, if the current situation
isn’t working, a disruptive,
unpredictable and stressful
change effort that ultimately
falls flat on its face is only going
to make things much worse.
The outlook for change is even
gloomier when you consider
another surprising figure
uncovered during our research:
29 per cent of change initiatives
are launched without any formal
structure whatsoever. That’s 29
per cent of leaders with blind
faith in the power of prayer to
Saint Jude, the patron saint of
desperate cases and lost causes.
These figures are doubly
worrying given the current
financial climate, when most
changes that organisations
are having to initiate aren’t
even ones they want to make.
Companies already facing tough
times are compounding their
chances of collapse. Yes, they
might need to cut back on
product or service offerings; yes,
they might have to downsize; yes,
they might have to adapt their
business models, but poorlyexecuted change can only deliver
a whole new set of far-reaching
and significant consequences in
the short- and longer-term –
consequences that are disruptive
at best, disastrous at worst.
There has never been a more
important time to ensure change
efforts intended to maintain
growth, expansion and morale are
properly managed. Almost every
company I talk to is facing some
kind of change implementation
because of competitive pressures,
economic challenges, skill
shortages, a necessity to grow
and expand, or the need for a
culture change. This is how I
believe change should be done.
Change fails for
predictable reasons
There are always a few people
who are up and raring to go with
change, but most are skeptical to
neutral at the start. People are
human; few of us like any kind
of change and our natural default
position when faced with it is to
stick our heads in the sand and
hope it will go away.
In the context of business,
everyone involved needs to
understand the business case for
feature
change or they will focus only on
what they have to lose, not what
they have to gain. The first step
on the road to successful change
is for leaders to recognise this;
just because you see the need for
change, don’t assume your people
will too.
Second, remember people
resist being controlled more
than they resist change. Don’t
confuse announcing the change
with implementing it. Too many
change efforts start with all
the managers getting together
behind closed doors and deciding
what should be done. They never
think of telling their people what
is going to happen and why, let
alone canvassing their opinions,
ideas or suggestions because
they are the people closest to the
front line and who just might be
able to see what ultimate impact
the change could have on the
customer.
This kind of top-down change
‘implementation’ is bound to
fail because of a lack of buy-in
due to low involvement on the
part of each individual involved.
Good leaders need to credit their
people with some intelligence
(why else did you hire them in
the first place?) and involve them
at every stage.
This move is crucial to the
successful, long-term outcome of
any change process. If you don’t
get buy-in from all your people,
they might comply with change
at the beginning but will revert
back to old behaviours when the
pressure to change is off. Change
will be seen as a time-specific
‘one-off ’ rather than a lasting
and positive programme for
development.
The six stages of concern
Getting buy-in from your
people means addressing their
predictable six stages of concern.
First, people want information;
not a pushy sales talk about the
change, just information and
answers to questions about what
the change will involve, why it
Twenty nine per cent
of change initiatives
are launched without
any formal structure
whatsoever
is needed, how fast the change
needs to be and why things can’t
stay as they are.
Next, things get personal.
What will happen to me
personally, because of this
change? What’s in it for me – or
not? Will I have the time to
implement the change and will
I need to learn any new skills?
These personal concerns are the
most crucial ones for change
leaders to address, individually,
right from the start. People
need clear answers to these
information and personal
change concerns well before
the change is started.
Once the change process is
in motion, implementation
concerns arise: questions
such as what do I need
to do, and when? What
help will I get? How
long will it take? How
will our structure and
systems change? Is what
we are experiencing
typical?
Fourthly
come impact
concerns: is
this making a
difference? Is it worth
it? Are we getting anywhere?
People want to know whether
their efforts are paying off. If
leaders have done a good job on
the first three concerns, they will
find people are more likely to
value, and see, the benefits of the
change themselves.
The next set of concerns that
need to be tackled are around
collaboration. Once employees
have seen the benefits of change,
they will want to share the good
news around and get any relevant
others involved.
The last stage of concern
revolves around refinement –
making continual improvements.
The leaders’ role is to facilitate
this process, modifying the
change approach where
appropriate to learn from lessons
of the past. This is the point at
which to ask ‘what ideas do you
have to make things even better?’
Change leadership strategies
Tackling all six stages of concern
requires leaders to master three
critical leadership
skills:
a) Diagnosis
To be able
and willing
to accurately
assess the
concerns
of people
being asked
to change
b) Flexibility
The ability to
use
a
www.trainingjournal.com January 2010
TJ
45
feature
variety of change leadership
strategies effectively
c) Partnering for performance
The willingness to see people
being asked to change as
partners on the journey, to let
them express their concerns
and help increase their
commitment to the changes
needed.
We have developed the
Blanchard Leading Through
Change programme in response
to the high rate of change failure
and have identified nine specific
leadership strategies to initiate,
implement, develop and sustain
change:
Strategy 1: Expand
involvement and influence
I believe the best way
to help change work
is to increase the
amount of influence
and involvement of the
people being asked to
change, resolving their
concerns as you go.
Unless this happens,
life is going to be
very tough for
those
responsible for implementing
change. This is a strategy that
is best used consistently and
relentlessly throughout the
change process
Outcome: Buy-in
Strategy 2: Explore possibilities
If there’s one thing worse that
a change effort failing, it’s the
wrong change effort succeeding!
However pressured leaders feel
they may be into rushing into
a decision, not taking the time
to explore alternatives could be
disastrous. By involving others
in this process – particularly
those who are customer-facing,
because that is where any change
must reap benefits – information
concerns are immediately
lowered and better solutions
identified.
Outcome: Options
Strategy 3: Select and align
the leadership team Effective
change requires teamwork, not
dictatorship.
Teams chosen to lead change
should represent a range of
people from within your
organisation – advocates of
change and skeptics; formal and
informal leaders – all working
towards a compelling, inspiring,
and unified voice in favour of
change.
Outcome: One voice
Strategy 4: Explain the business case
for change Don’t make this too
revolutionary! You don’t
want people to get the
impression that nothing
has been working to date.
The attitude you want to
project is one of building
on the past, rather
than rejecting it
completely.
Explain
why, and
what,
change is
needed in
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TJ
January 2010 www.trainingjournal.com
feature
response to new market
forces, regulations, advances in
technology competitive pressures
etc. Continue to build buy-in by
seeking colleagues’ views on what
they see in the internal/external
environment that drives the need
for change.
Outcome: Compelling case for
change
Strategy 5: Envision the future
Creating a clear vision means not
only getting people on board for
change, but also enabling them
to see their role once the change
has been implemented.
Put forward a vision of an
inspiring new future for your
organisation but don’t forget to
put individuals in the picture
frame too, so they can get excited
about their future role.
Outcome: Inspiring vision
Strategy 6: Experiment and ensure
alignment For change to succeed,
leaders must be able to break
through walls separating
departments, units and
personalities.
From the start, figure out
who is up for change and who
isn’t and address their concerns,
courting those who are neutral.
Create a step-by-step plan
for implementation and
assessment; make sure you can
provide the right and sufficient
resources; create the necessary
infrastructure for change;
account for what could go wrong,
and plan for ‘quick wins’ and
implementation problems.
Remember that it is typical
for performance and, potentially,
profits to dip as change is
introduced. A pilot programme
You can download a copy of the
white paper produced following
Pat Zigarmi and Judd Hoekstra’s
research on change – Leadership
Strategies for Making Change Stick
– at http://www.kenblanchard.com/
Business_Leadership/Effective_
Leadership_White_Papers
The best way to help
change work is to
increase the amount of
influence and involvement
of the people being asked
to change, resolving their
concerns as you go
Strategy 9: Embed and extend Our
helps identify and address
implementation problems.
Outcome: Collaborative effort
and infrastructure
Mastering the art of change
Strategy 7: Enable and encourage
It might be necessary to
use coaches to instruct and
encourage people through the
change, especially regarding
implementation concerns. Such
coaches might be those early
adopters and supporters of the
plans for change, those who
participated in any pilot schemes
and can speak about their
experiences.
Leaders must accent the
positive, treating mistakes, for
instance, as ‘learning moments’
rather than opportunities to
apportion blame.
Outcome: New skills and
commitment
Strategy 8: Execute and
endorse Hold both leaders and
employees accountable for
implementing change. Measure
its impact and share the results.
Deliver swift feedback and
collect and distribute success
stories.
Ask customers if they have
noticed anything different;
remove any obstacles to
successful implementation,
and ditch anything that no
longer makes sense or feels too
bureaucratic.
Outcome: Accountability and
early results
goal is sustainable change! And
it’s great to reach the goal! But
don’t stop there – kick the ball
in and anchor it to the back of
the net.
Share best practice; document
how change works in practice
(not theory); offer cross-training
and mentoring opportunities;
indentify new challenges. Most
important of all, celebrate
success!
Outcome: Reach and sustainable
results
There is no mystery about
change! The key to getting it
right is to take your time in the
planning process, investing in
people and pilots at the frontend to test-drive change to save
time and increase buy-in and
performance in the longer term.
Then speak with one voice about
the proposed change, ensuring
change is done with your people,
not to them.
Collaboration, teamwork,
and engagement help build
up interest and excitement; a
combined effort from those who
will effect change, as well as
those on whom it has an impact,
will drive the process through.
And if leaders can address
individuals’ concerns, and
develop strategies to resolve
them throughout the process,
the likelihood of initiating,
implementing and sustaining
successful change will be
increased dramatically.
Ken Blanchard is the founder of The
Ken Blanchard Companies. He can be
contacted via www.kenblanchard.com
www.trainingjournal.com January 2010
TJ
47
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Syst Pract Action Res (2015) 28:51–66
DOI 10.1007/s11213-014-9317-0
ORIGINAL PAPER
Using Kotter’s Eight Stage Process to Manage
an Organisational Change Program: Presentation
and Practice
Julien Pollack • Rachel Pollack
Published online: 23 March 2014
Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
Abstract Kotter’s eight stage process for creating a major change is one of the most widely
recognised models for change management, and yet there are few case studies in the academic
literature that enquire into how this process has been used in practice. This paper describes a
change manager’s action research enquiring into the use of this Process to manage a major
organisational change. The change was initiated in response to the organisation’s ageing
workforce, introducing a knowledge management program focusing on the interpersonal
aspects of knowledge retention. Although Kotter’s process emphasises a top-led model for
change, the change team found it was necessary to engage at many levels of the organisation
to implement the organisational change. The process is typically depicted as a linear sequence
of steps. However, this image of the change process was found to not represent the complexity
of the required action. Managing the change required the change team to facilitate multiple
concurrent instances of Kotter’s process throughout the organisation, to re-create change that
was locally relevant to participants in the change process.
Keywords Change management Organisational change Kotter’s eight
stage process Knowledge management Aging workforce Action research
Introduction
This research reports on action research (AR) into an organisational change program in the
Australian Finance and Insurance Sector. The use of Kotter’s eight stage process of creating a major change (Kotter 1996) is studied in detail, providing insight into the use of this
process that can be of benefit to other change managers seeking to apply it.
J. Pollack (&)
University of Technology, Sydney, PO Box 123 Broadway, Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia
e-mail: Julien.pollack@uts.edu.au
R. Pollack
Sydney, Australia
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The relevance of this research becomes clear on recognising the significant divide that
has been identified between the academic and practitioner change management communities. In 1993, it was identified that a boundary existed between theoreticians and practitioners (Buchanan 1993, p .684), with both being dismissive of each others’ work, and
that there was little connection between their contributions (1993, p. 685). More recently,
Saka (2003, p. 481) identified a similar division between how change management is
described and how it is practiced. This situation has apparently not changed, with Appelbaum et al. (2012), p. 764) calling for a greater emphasis on producing research in a
form that is usable by those who practice change management.
There appears to be little research that enquires into the practicalities of using change
management techniques to effect organizational change, either with regard to their suitability or appropriateness. Although there is a significant body of literature which provides
advice for practitioners, there remains little research on how to actually apply change
management techniques, or critically questions their effectiveness (Raineri 2011, p. 267); a
lack that this research helps to address.
Kotter’s (1996) eight stage process of creating a major change has been recognised as
one of the most well known approaches to organisational transformation (Mento et al.
2002, p .45), as the mainstream wisdom for leading change (Nitta et al. 2009, p .467), and
the most compelling formula for success in change management (Phelan 2005, p .47).
Kotter’s work became highly sought after by leaders of organizations who were planning
on implementing organizational change initiatives (Brisson-Banks 2010, p. 248). The
Process ‘‘…became an instantaneous success at the time it was advocated and it remains a
key reference in the field of change management’’ (Appelbaum et al. 2012, p. 765).
Given the popularity of Kotter’s eight stage process it may be reasonable to assume that
claims of a divide between research and practice are not relevant in this case. However, a
thorough study of the literature by Appelbaum et al. (2012) has revealed that this is not
necessarily true. Their review of the change management literature revealed that ‘‘…most
of the evidence found during the search points to data that has been compiled by Kotter
himself … In essence Kotter validated Kotter’’ (Appelbaum et al. 2012, p. 776). Academics appear to have used Kotter’s findings about change management as if verified and
tested. ‘‘Kotter’s change management model appears to derive its popularity more from its
direct and usable format than from any scientific consensus on the results’’ (Appelbaum
et al. 2012, p. 764).
A variety of reviews of the field of organisational change can be found in the literature
(e.g. Cao and McHugh 2005). Although some authors (e.g. Tsoukas and Papoulias 2005)
refer to an abundance of case studies examining organizational change, there are few case
studies of changes managed using Kotter’s Process (Appelbaum et al. 2012, p. 776). The
weight of research that references Kotter’s work does not investigate how the process can
be used, but instead either discusses Kotter’s writing in the context of the broader literature
on change management, or uses the process as a framework for conducting a post hoc
analysis of a change (e.g. Yauch and Steudel 2002; Sikorko 2008; Smith 2011; Casey et al.
2012; Nitta et al. 2009; Goede 2011; Gupta 2011).
Studies by Cole et al. (2006, p.363) and Paper et al. (2001), p.85) have found the actual
execution of a change to be one of the key factors in determining success or failure. Of the
various ways in which Kotter’s work has been used in the change management literature, it
is arguably AR, rather than literature reviews or post hoc analyses, that have the greater
potential to contribute to improved execution. Some case studies of changes managed
using Kotter’s process do stand out (e.g. Springer et al. 2012; Lintukangas et al. 2009; Day
and Atkinson 2004; Ansari and Bell 2009; Joffe and Glynn 2002), and it is to this small but
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Syst Pract Action Res (2015) 28:51–66
53
important literature to which this research contributes. This research critically examines
how Kotter’s (1996) eight stage process of creating a major change has been used to
manage an organisational change; a process that despite its popularity, has rarely been
studied in the academic literature.
The Eight Stage Process of Creating a Major Change
The eight stage process is ‘‘…as a vision for the change process’’ (Mento et al. 2002, p .45)
describing a series of steps to be taken to achieve mandated organisational changes. A wide
variety of models for managing organisational change exist in the literature (Sikorko 2008,
p. 307; Stewart and Kringas 2003, p .676; Buchanan 1993, p. 684; Smith 2011, p. 115;
Pillay et al. 2012, p .59), and is not the place of this research to analyse Kotter’s process in
relation to other models. Readers are instead referred to authors who have already done this
(e.g. Brisson-Banks 2010; Stewart and Kringas 2003). However, it is worthwhile to note
some ways in which the Process has been characterized: as placing a strong emphasis on
leadership (Pillay et al. 2012, p .61; Raineri 2011; Choi et al. 2011, p. 12) and viewing
change as top-led (Abraham et al. 2002, p. 36; Choi et al. 2011, p. 12; Day and Atkinson
2004, p. 258). Kotter’s approach has also been described as focusing on organisational
culture (Casey et al. 2012, p. 112), and of being typical of private sector change models
(Stewart and Kringas 2003). Disagreement also exists, with some (Pillay et al. 2012, p. 60)
describing the process as centrally planned change, while By (2005) has described it as
emphasising an emergent, rather than a planned, approach to change management.
Kotter’s eight stage process of creating a major change as detailed in Leading Change
(1996) and later works can be summarised as follows:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Establishing a sense of urgency
Creating the guiding coalition
Develop a vision and strategy
Communicating the change vision
Empowering broad-based change
Generating short-term wins
Consolidating gains and producing more change
Anchoring new approaches in the culture
The efficacy of Kotter’s process has been broadly supported in the literature (e.g. Ansari
and Bell 2009, p. 160; Cegielski et al. 2006, p. 311). Despite its popularity, the process has
also been criticised. It has been claimed that this, and other, change management processes
describe what has to be done but provide little detail in how it should be achieved (Pfeifer
et al. 2005, p. 297), and that it is not sufficiently detailed to guide change management in
all situations (Appelbaum et al. 2012, p. 775). Conversely, the Process has also been
criticised as not general enough for some kinds of change (Ansari and Bell 2009, p. 157),
and of being overly planned, and therefore not representation of the realities of organisational life (Hay et al. 2001, p. 243). However, these criticisms need to be tempered by
Sikorko (2008) observation that ‘‘…no single model can provide a one-size-fits-all solution
to organisational change.’’
Springer et al. (2012)provides a detailed case study which reviews the use of the process
to implement a cultural change at the Boise State University School of Nursing. The case
provides detail about the changes that were implemented within the organisation, but does
not focus on how the process was used to facilitate this change. This case study leaves the
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reader with the impression use of Kotter’s Process was uncontentious. Perhaps this was the
case, although without specific comment to this effect it is not possible to say.
The Process was also used to facilitate change in an aerospace industry study presented
by Day and Atkinson (2004). In this case, the process was used as a planning tool and to
communicate the nature of the change to procurement functions in the early stages of the
change program. However, the practitioners in this case study had limited success using the
process as a guide for future action, finding the process to be of ‘‘…limited use over and
above the raising of personal awareness about the range of factors that are to be considered
throughout a change programme…’’ (Day and Atkinson 2004, p. 266).
Kotter’s process was also used in the implementation of a Shell Gabon strategic cost
initiative in the initial planning phases of the change program (Ansari and Bell 2009).
However, the change team found that not all stages of Kotter’s process suited their
environment, needing to add other conceptual frameworks. Joffe and Glynn (2002) also
present a study of the use of Kotter’s process in the pharmaceutical industry, while
Lintukangas et al. (2009) present a case study of a forestry company which aimed to follow
Kotter’s process in implementing an organisational change. However, neither of these
latter two cases provide significant critical reflection on the use of the process, and so are of
limited use in understanding how the process can be applied in practice.
Methodology and Structure of the Paper
This research was conducted at UGF (a pseudonym), an Australian organisation in the
Finance and Insurance Sector with over 10,000 employees and offices worldwide. The
change manager used Kotter’s eight-stage process of creating a major change to guide and
structure change management action, and the use of this process forms the focus for this
research.
This research was managed using AR. There are a wide variety of forms of AR,
although it would be fair to say that most could be described as cyclic and reflective
methodologies (Swepson 2003, p. 102), which are primarily focused on intervention, rather
than observation (Midgley 2003, p. 81). AR is an approach to research which allows a
researcher to engage in an organisation, and simultaneously create knowledge about that
process (Olsen and Myers 1999, p. 323).
AR is particularly appropriate for organisational settings, where the need to produce
organisational outcomes may be more significant in securing ongoing research participation than the promise of research outcomes. AR requires involvement in problem situations
and a ‘‘… readiness to use the experience itself as a research object about which lessons
can be learned by conscious reflection’’ (Checkland and Scholes 1990, p. 16). AR has also
been identified as appropriate for organisational change research, as it assists in developing
an understanding of the ways that social systems change (Lau 1999, p. 149), and has been
used to study a wide variety of business problems, including: organisational change and
transformation; marketing; product development; manufacturing; engineering; information
systems and e-commerce; accounting; small business; and management development
(Sankaran and Tay 2003, pp. 1–2).
Flood (1999, p. 53) has noted the development of a unique form of AR as one of the key
strands in Checkland’s work. Checkland’s FMA model has been identified as one of the
most widely used forms of AR (Champion 2007, p. 455), and it is this model which has
been followed in this research. The main components of this model are a research
framework (F); a methodology (M); and an area of application (A). Simply, particular ‘‘…
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55
linked ideas F are used in a methodology M to investigate an area of interest A’’
(Checkland and Howell 1998, p. 13). Being explicit about these three elements may lead to
learning not only about the area of application, but also about the adequacy of the
methodology and the research framework (Checkland and Howell 1998, p. 13). Indeed, the
majority of learning resulting from the research presented in this paper is at the level of
methodology.
Clear distinction between a framework of ideas and a methodology for the organised
application of those ideas differentiates this approach to AR from others (Checkland 2003,
p. 291). Most other AR ‘‘… omits the need for a declared-in-advance intellectual framework of ideas, a framework in terms of which what constitutes ‘knowledge’ about the
situation researched will be defined and expressed’’ (Checkland and Holwell 1998,
pp. 22–3). What constitutes knowledge in a problem situation should not be taken as given.
In defining F, the researcher is in effect defining the epistemology of the research and
defining what will count as knowledge (p. 24). Declaring the intellectual framework for an
AR project can be thought of as a way of contextualising the research in relation to the
range of possible forms of knowledge extant, allowing any research findings to be
appropriately judged and understood.
It is perhaps because of clear identification of the components of research that
Checkland’s FMA model has been found to add rigour (Sarah et al. 2002, p. 537) and
provide clarity (p. 539). The FMA model has been used to study organisational change
(Molineux and Haslett 2002), and readers are referred to West and Stansfield (2001, p. 251)
for an in-depth review of the use of the FMA model.
In terms of the FMA model, this research can be summarised as follows:
• F: Interpretivist epistemology and the academic literature on organizational change
• M: Kotter’s eight stage process of creating a major change
• A: Action taken at UGF
Data for this paper was gathered through semi-structured interviews between the
authors as a way of facilitating reflection, one of whom was the change manager for the
Knowledge Management Program at UGF. At the time of initial submission of this
research for publication, the organisational change had been running for over 2 years.
The remainder of this paper will be structured according to Kotter’s process. Each stage
will be discussed in terms of principles for action as described in the literature, before
actions taken at UGF are examined. Observations and conclusions about the overall use of
the process will then follow.
Stage 1: Establishing a Sense of Urgency
The first stage in Kotter’s eight stage process is to create a sense of urgency; an awareness
of the need for the organisation to change. Kotter notes the failure to create a sense of
urgency to be the single biggest error made when trying to change organisations (Kotter
2008, p. viii), and has written a whole book, A Sense of Urgency, exclusively focusing on
this stage.
Establishing a sense of urgency is crucial to gaining needed cooperation. With
complacency high, transformations usually go nowhere because few people are even
interested in working on the change problem. With urgency low, it’s difficult to put
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together a group with enough power and credibility to guide the effort (Kotter 1996,
p. 36).
Complacency, rather than a desire for change, has been identified as more likely to be
the norm in established organisations (Kotter 2008, p. 15). Considerable effort may be
required to motivate organisational personnel to invest their time and effort and to put up
with the inconveniences of change (Ansari and Bell 2009, p. 157).
Although in Australia the Financial and Insurance Services sector has a relatively
younger workforce than many other sectors (Department of Education, Employment and
Workplace Relations 2010, p. 12), the issues that could result from a failure to respond to
their aging workforce were apparent to the senior management team at UGF. It was
identified that aging workforce issues could negatively impact upon core business areas if
left unaddressed. In particular, senior product roles were identified as under threat, due to a
lack of younger personnel able to fill these roles.
An aging workforce is typically represented as a threat; as a ‘‘… demographic time
bomb…’’ (Crampton et al. 1996, p. 243), a ‘‘…baby-boom-retirement tsunami…’’
(Leonard and Swap 2004, p. 90), or ‘‘…a threat to sustaining competitive advantage’’
(DeLong 2004, p. 19). However, the risks associated with an aging workforce are typically
faced equally by all companies within that industry sector. Risks can be considered to
include both threat and opportunity (Hillson 2003). There is an opportunity for competitive
advantage for those companies who respond most effectively to these issues.
Senior management at UGF established a Knowledge Management Program to mitigate
retirement knowledge loss. The initial focus in the Knowledge Management Program was
on exploring the risks associated with continuing with business as usual, and why change
was needed. Change management personnel reported that the need for change was easy to
sell as a message, due to widespread awareness of the looming demographic shift, but that
it was important to raise awareness that this was an issue that the company was looking to
do something about.
Stage 2: Creating the Guiding Coalition
The second stage in Kotter’s process involves forming a group who have enough power to
lead the change (Kotter 1996, p. 21). Guiding coalitions for the Knowledge Management
Program were created at multiple levels. Most prominently, the executive management
coalition was championed by the CEO and direct reports, and provided ongoing strategic
direction for the program.
The General Management Advisory Group, the second coalition, was also formed to
provide project governance. It has been identified that it is often problematic to identify
isolated factors that are responsible for the successful implementation of changes in organisations (Van der Meer 1999). However, Helm and Remington (2005) have identified
that the role of program sponsor is vital. This is particularly true in complex organisational
change programs (Remington and Pollack 2007). The involvement of these groups of
senior personnel met the need for a strong guiding coalition for the program, something
that Kotter (1996) identifies as essential.
A third prominent coalition was formed at a technical level of the organisation. One of
the projects within the program involved the development of a mentoring network, using a
risk based approach to knowledge management consistent with the approach reported on
by Sherman (2008). The change manager put considerable effort into bonding the senior
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57
personnel invited to be coaches into a group. It was made clear that the success of the
program depended upon their involvement and drive for change. The group received
personalised communication from the sponsor EGM and CEO, and would go on to have
guiding influence beyond the limits of their project.
Stage 3: Develop a Vision and Strategy
UGF was described by the change manager as an organisation that culturally understands
and responds to risk. One of the key strengths of the organisation lay in the knowledge of
talented senior technical personnel. The organisation was already in a strong market
position. However, long-term contextual changes threatened this key strength. Upon
retirement employees take the unique skills, knowledge, experience and relationships that
they embody with them as they walk out the door. This is a commonly acknowledged
threat (e.g. Malone 2002, p. 112; DeLong 2004; Burke and Ng 2006, p. 88). Transfer of
knowledge from an older generation of experienced personnel to the generations following
was considered vital to UGF maintaining performance. This is consistent with the literature. Burke and Ng (2006) noted that those organisations that effectively transfer knowledge between generations will be the least susceptible to issues associated with retiring
workers (p. 88). Knowledge transfer programs are acknowledged as a significant response
to an aging workforce in a wide variety of research (IAEA 2004, pp. 18–9; Krail 2005,
p. 35; Sherman 2008, p. 45). The vision for the program was to minimise this large risk to
the organisation’s competitive advantage, and was mostly defined in negative terms, as the
need to avoid the consequences of inaction.
The strategy to address this issue involved launching a wide variety of projects,
including: a mentoring project; developing communities of practice; role redefinition to
allow for accelerated specialist development; the introduction of a graduate program;
introduction of software supported discussion forums and analysis tools; development of
seminars focused on knowledge sharing; and a retirement preparation project focusing on
retention and workload issues. It was found that developing a vision and gaining acceptance for projects was relatively uncontentious. This can be attributed to broad and
common acceptance of the need to change. Of the four types of organisational change
identified by Cao et al. (2004, p. 105), this program would come to emphasise change of
cultures and values.
Stage 4: Communicating the Change Vision
The fourth Stage in Kotter’s Process is to communicate the vision for change. However,
Kotter notes that managers underestimate the amount of communication required to
develop a consistent understanding, an effort which may be hampered by inconsistent
messages, and lead to a stalled change implementation (1996, p. 85). Other research has
observed that ‘‘…in any company there is twice as much discussion about the weather than
about new strategies’’ (Pfeifer et al. 2005, p. 302). Ansari and Bell (2009, p. 159) have
identified the need to communicate the change as one of the two most important stages in
Kotter’s process.
Kotter identifies the error of ‘‘…under communicating the vision by a factor of 10 (or
100 or even 1,000)…’’ (1996, p. 9). In this organisational change at UGF more time and
effort was devoted to spreading the message and developing the visibility of the program
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than any other program activity. However, adequately communicating the program vision
proved to involve more than repetition; something which is consistent with Sikorko (2008)
findings about change communication.
The change team focused on two broad groups of activities in communicating the
vision: visible senior support; and harnessing existing activities. Senior leaders were
regularly enlisted to talk about the need for change, and this was found to be an effective
strategy in developing senior support. For instance, on one occasion it was noted that an
executive appeared bored with the progress reports he had received. However, when he
was given slides and asked to present on the topic he became interested. In front of an
audience, he was animated and engaged, and afterwards requested more material to
present. This approach of engaging senior leaders through presentation to their teams and
to other product areas was reported as effective. It was also reported that the change team
needed to take the initiative to find new forums at which senior leaders could present,
rather than assuming this would happen without prompting. Despite CEO endorsement of
the Program, initiative could not be assumed.
The change team built on already planed activities within the organisation, often taking
senior managers’ presentation slides on other topics to draw out links to the program,
rewriting parts of the presentations to provide examples of the importance of the change,
including for the CEO. One example included the annual CEO and Executive road-show,
which was adapted to feature a strong emphasis on the program. The change team also
approached the EGM of HR and suggested that he may also want to discuss the program at
the road-show. This gave the EGM of HR an opportunity to join a politically expedient
movement, and helped to promote the program in multiple forums; at the road-show itself,
and later again when the EGM of HR reported to his leadership team.
Developing relationships with the organisation’s communications department also
proved significant. Good news articles about the program, such as updates about recent
coaching workshops, would be posted on the intranet. The change team nurtured positive
relationships with the communications department, which helped to keep news about the
Program at the top of the intranet news list for longer and with greater prominence.
Stage 5: Empowering Broad-based Change
The fifth stage in Kotter’s process involves removing obstacles to change, changing
structures or systems that undermine the vision, and encouraging innovative ideas (Kotter
1996, p. 21). As relationships with the communications team helped in the previous stage,
relationships with HR and other business units helped to remove structural barriers to
empowerment. For instance, unit business plans were centrally controlled for some units,
and locally controlled for others. The change team talked to each unit individually and to
the group overseeing central control of business plans to have aspects of the program
included in all business plans. Relationships with key personnel in HR helped to ensure
approval, and when it was approved the relationships with the communications team
helped to ensure that the program priorities featured prominently in unit plan
documentation.
Many of the blocks removed were at the project, rather than the program, level and can
be most clearly illustrated through reference to the mentoring project. To ensure coach
performance, all coaches attended training. The need for coaching training is consistent
with observations in the literature (Lubit 2001 p. 176). It has been identified that many
organisations have lost the ability to coach upcoming generations (Crawford et al. 2006,
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59
p. 727). Coaches were also provided with a resource to assist with ongoing coaching on
coaching.
The sponsor encouraged coaches, protégés, and participants to experiment, with the
intention of empowering them to take independent action. Coaches were allowed to define
their coaching roles to suit their interests and skills. For instance, at one community of
practice it was revealed that a coach had taken his protégés on a field trip. Another coach
felt that their protégés’ negotiation skills needed to be further developed, and engaged an
external training provider. These actions were neither suggested nor pre-sanctioned, but
when revealed were actively supported.
Emphasis was also placed on ensuring that the coaches knew they had senior management support. At one point, a coach approached the change team identifying that a
protégé’s manager was making participation in the program difficult. The change manager
didn’t have the line authority to remove the block, but had access to those who could, and
did, resolve such issues.
The existing role design for many protégés also did not align with the program goals,
with many protégé’s in generalist product roles that did not allow for rapid specialist
development. The GM who oversaw many protégés was opposed to changing their role
description, so the change team started talking to everyone they could to garner support.
Coaches were surveyed and approximately 80 % identified specialisation as the better
option. It became clear that public opinion was for role specialisation and so the GM
redefined roles for the protégés.
Stage 6: Generating Short-term Wins
Short-term wins help to demonstrate the viability of change and to build momentum.
Kotter (1996, p. 123) identifies that short-term wins need to be visible; unambiguously
successful; and clearly related to the direction of change. Although not all researchers
consider short-term significant in all change programs (Ansari and Bell 2009, p. 159), they
did play a significant part in the management of the Knowledge Management Program. The
change team’s role involved less of the direct creation of short-term wins than in advertising the successes of those wins.
Survey results were one way that the progress was advertised within UGF. For instance,
although at the time of writing it was too early to prove the impact of the mentoring project
on the speed of development of specialist product knowledge, the project has been lauded
as successes. Survey responses indicated a positive perception of the impact on development speed. For instance, 94 % of coaches had noticed a positive change in protégés’
confidence and knowledge. Survey results were also used in the case study documented by
Springer et al. (2012, p. 84), although in that case they were used to develop a sense of
urgency rather than to communicate short-term wins.
Another tactic used to raise awareness of program progress was through storytelling.
Kotter (2008, p. 54) has stated that ‘‘Neurologists say that our brains are programmed
much more for stories than for PowerPoint slides and abstract ideas’’, and has referred to
‘‘…the incredible power of good stories to influence behaviors over time…’’ (Kotter 2005,
p. 142). Indeed, Kotter’s Our Iceberg is Melting (2005) is almost entirely delivered through
story. The significance of using metaphors and compelling stories to develop awareness of
the need for change or to explain a specific initiative has also been identified by Roberto
and Levesque (2005, p. 56).
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The change team sought out examples of positive change throughout UGF that illustrated the successes of the Program, including structuring stories based on Denning’s
framework for the springboard story (Denning, 2001), a story structure designed to
facilitate and encourage organisational change. Senior leaders were then supplied with a
drip-feed of new scripted stories for upcoming organisational events.
The change team found that some coaches started to comment that change was too hard
to continue; that they didn’t feel they had made progress. Many of the changes that had
already occurred were intangible and easy to forget. Communicating short-term wins were
useful in soothing flagging spirits, but finding ways of communicating intangible and
diffuse wins often required considerable effort.
Stages 7 and 8: Consolidating Gains and Producing More Change, and Anchoring
New Approaches in the Culture
At the time of interview, the Knowledge Management Program was in the seventh stage of
Kotter’s process. The program had gained considerable momentum through the short-term
wins, the involvement of the program’s guiding coalitions of senior personnel, and the
persistent use all possible communication channels to increase the visibility of the
Program.
The change team now had to deal with the consequences of their success. Due to
increased access to senior management and a perception that they were on a fast-tracked
development path, participants in some projects were perceived as members of an
‘exclusive club’. In the early stages of the Program this had contributed to an aura of
success. However, the ‘exclusive club’ approach would not suit the larger and more
inclusive group involved in the next stage of growth. The change team were coming to
terms with the need to change their personal conceptualisation of the Program.
During stage seven other projects that were contributing to aligned goals and relatable
projects that were in the early stages of initiation were brought under the program banner.
It was reported that effort was required to keep the program true to the vision during this
stage of growth and to resist the manoeuvres of other parties from subverting, or changing,
the program approach. For instance, some parties were interested in changing the focus
from developing interpersonal networks of knowledge sharing to an IT-focus on developing knowledge repositories. However, it has been identified in the literature that tacit
knowledge is not easily codified and that ‘‘While it’s true that merely describing experiences to people (or telling them what to do or giving them rules) may create some mental
receptors upon which to hang experience, the tacit dimensions of an expert’s deep smarts
have to be re-created to take hold’’ (Leonard and Swap 2004, p. 94). At UGF, knowledge
was being re-created through protégés’ vicarious experience of mentors’ stories, and access
to world-views developed over decades in the industry. A move towards a greater emphasis
on IT investment over interpersonal network development was resisted.
Stages seven and eight of this change process were reported as likely to take a long time
to complete. It has been noted that large scale change can take a long time to complete, and
that this is particularly true in larger organisations (Kotter 1996, p. 132). New messages
were being sought to maintain organisational interest in the change. ‘‘Whenever you let up
before the job is done, critical momentum can be lost and regression may follow. Until
changed practices attain a new equilibrium and have been driven into the culture, they can
be very fragile’’ (Kotter 1996, p. 133). As noted by Appelbaum et al. (2012) Stages 7 and 8
are complicated to evaluate. It will likely be many years before definitive statements can be
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made about how well the Knowledge Management Program was embedded in the culture
of UGF.
Discussion of the Use of Kotter’s Process
It is difficult to make categorical statements about the efficacy of an approach to change,
due to the complexity of their use in practice (Appelbaum et al. 2012, p. 776). ‘‘This is one
of the inherent problems with organisational change management; nobody can know what
would have happened if a different course of action (or no action at all) had been taken …’’
(Reissner et al. 2011, p. 427). With regard to evaluating the use of a process, Checkland
and Scholes (1990, p. 299) have noted that ‘‘…there is in principle no way in which it
could be proved or disproved that this was the best way to do it, or that a more competent
use … would have achieved the results more quickly.’’ These statement are generally true
for any assessment of change management involving the implementation of a process by
unique practitioners in a unique context. However, it is possible to make observations of
the interpretation of the approach which may be of benefit to future practitioners.
Kotter’s Process has been described as ‘‘…structured linear steps’’ (Day and Atkinson
2004, p. 257), an ‘‘… ‘n’ step change…’’ process (p. 265), ‘‘…a linear progression…’’
(Nitta et al. 2009, p. 483) or ‘‘…a sequential procedure…’’ (Pfeifer et al. 2005, p. 297).
Indeed, Kotter (1996) identifies the ‘‘…importance of sequence…’’ (p. 23) and that
‘‘…skipping even a single step or getting too far ahead without a solid base almost always
creates problems’’ (p. 23). Other writers have criticised linear approaches as they ‘‘…they
lack flexibility to deal with the vast assortment of problems and issues that may be
experienced during change’’ (Sikorko 2008, p. 308), and that a traditional reading of
Kotter’s work does not account for how democratic organisational change can be (Reissner
et al. 2011, p. 426).
It is clear from the number of authors that have interpreted Kotter’s work in this way,
that his writing gives the impression that organisational change involves one sequence of
movement through the eight Stages. However, Kotter does acknowledge that earlier stages
may have to be revisited, suggesting the possibility of some break to the sequence.
Although this research paper has related the change at UGF in linear fashion, use of the
Process in practice was found to be significantly more complex than a single linear series
of steps. The distinguishing characteristic is not whether the change was linear or cyclic, or
whether it was top-down or bottom-up change. The distinction being made is between
viewing change as one cohesive Process or the sum of many coordinated Processes.
At UGF, there were many different stakeholder groups involved in delivering the
change; from the many guiding coalitions to project teams delivering individual pieces of
work. These different groups started the change process at different times, and multiple
concurrent instances of the Process were needed. To engage with stakeholders it was
necessary to treat them individually, not as part of a one-size-fits-all package. Kotter’s
description of the process does not make explicit allowance for this. Nonetheless, the eight
stage process was found to be an accurate description of the change process at the individual group level. This is depicted in Fig. 1.
Different stakeholder groups also moved through the stages at different speeds. For
instance, little effort was needed to develop a sense of urgency in the coalition of EGMs.
By contrast, ten months after the Program had started, the change team met with a group of
managers five levels below the CEO who had not yet had much involvement in the
Program. It was clear that the managers were not engaged. Although the organisation was
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Fig. 1 Multiple concurrent change processes through the organisation
celebrating the short term wins from other parts of the Program, this group did not
understand the urgency. In order to engage this group, it was necessary to start the change
process again separately. This involved bringing in senior managers to discuss the need for
change, forming this group into their own coalition to lead their manifestation of the
change, and defining a vision for what the change meant for them. Senior management’s
vision for the change needed to be re-created at a local level for this group to own their part
of the change process.
This can also be seen in discussion of Stage 2. One interpretation of this stage suggests
the need to create a single guiding coalition. Kotter’s work tends to only refer to a guiding
coalition in the singular, and is silent on the possibility of using multiple distributed
guiding coalitions. However, Day and Atkinson criticise the idea of a guiding coalition as
unable to address a ‘‘…multiplicity of agendas…’’ (2004, p. 265), and it is possible that a
single coalition would not have been able to address all agendas in the Program at UGF.
However, in this Program multiple guiding coalitions were created at different organisational levels and in different areas of the organisation. One executive coalition set the
original strategy, and a second significant coalition addressed governance issues, while a
third took ownership of two prominent projects. In addition, as the Program developed, still
more groups provided leadership for the parts of the Program that were relevant to them,
with the change management team providing a guiding force to maintain alignment
between these different groups. Each coalition was given responsibility for pushing change
at a level that was appropriate to their scope of work. This finding echoes an observation
made by Sikorko (2008).
‘‘…what eventuated was that several ‘‘guiding coalitions’’ were established, not
necessarily at the same time and with different yet complementary charges that were
appropriate to the need at the particular point of time in the change process. Kotter
makes no allowance for such complexities.’’ (Sikorko 2008, p. 310)
Kotter’s work remains ambiguous and relatively silent with respect to the issue of
whether change should be managed as a single instance of his Process or as multiple
instances distributed throughout an organisation. His silence on this issue may be deliberate, with the intention of preserving a simple account of the process of organisational
change. While this simplicity may have aided in communicating the change process, it may
also have given the impression that change in a large organisation can, or should, be
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63
Fig. 2 Overlapping focus on different stages during the change
managed as a single iteration through the Process, with all parts of the organisation moving
in unison. Such an approach that would have been problematic at UGF where different
stakeholder groups started the Process at different times, and progressed through it at
different speeds.
At an organisational level, when roughly summing the effort applied by all stakeholder
groups at UGF, each of which were at different stages of progress through the Process, the
organisation could be depicted as moving through the eight stage process in a linear way
(See Fig. 2). This suggests that it is important to think of the change process at both the
organisational level and at the level of separate stakeholder groups. Kotter’s eight stage
process is linear, but for large-scale change that top-level appearance of linear sequence
may be made up of many small stakeholder groups moving in parallel, with the sequence
representing an overlapping change in focus over time. This also suggests that an effective
change team will need the flexibility to be able to work on many stages of change at once,
depending on the stakeholder group they are engaging with at that time.
Conclusion
This paper has discussed the case of an organisational change using Kotter’s eight stage
process for creating a major change at UGF, a company in the Australian Finance and
Insurance Sector. Kotter’s process was found to be an effective way of managing the
change, although some adaptation was required to suit the process to the needs of the
organisation. Kotter’s work has been interpreted by other authors as suggesting that the
process should be used as a simple set of linear steps. However, it was found that in
practice the use of the process was significantly more complex.
Although the change started with the UGF leadership team, developing momentum
within the leadership team was not sufficient to create the change. Many other stakeholder
groups needed to be separately engaged by the change team, first through developing a
sense of urgency within these teams, then forming a group to lead the change, and defining
what the change would locally mean to them. The Process of creating change was found to
be linear, but throughout the organisation it was comprised of multiple instances of the
Process, each with overlapping stages, and each moving at their own speed, with the
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change management team providing support to maintain strategic alignment between these
processes.
This research has contributed to a much needed link between change management
theory and practice. It has also contributed to the small literature which enquires how
Kotter’s Process can be applied in practice, providing some validation of one of the more
popular change models; one which has hereto been the subject of little external practice
based research. This research has provided one example, but more are needed to enquire
into how others have applied Kotter’s Process in practice so that practitioners have greater
opportunity to learn from others’ experience in changing their organisations.
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Journal of Change Management, 2015
Vol. 15, No. 2, 92 –116, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14697017.2014.969755
Understanding Resistance to Change –
Building on Coch and French
BERNARD BURNES
Stirling Management School, University of Stirling, UK
A BSTRACT The aim of this article is to explore the nature of resistance to change (RTC) and the
notion that employees are the prime source of such resistance. It takes a historical perspective on the
subject, beginning with an examination of Coch and French’s [1948. Overcoming resistance to
change. Human Relations, 1, 512 –532] influential work on resistance, especially their assertion
that resistance does not arise from the individual, but from the context in which the change takes
place. The article explains that their work was part of a long-running series of studies of change
by Kurt Lewin. This leads on to a review of the development of the resistance literature since
their article was published. This is followed by an examination of four theories of resistance,
which shows that they are consistent with and help develop Coch and French’s work. The article
concludes by arguing that taking a ‘long view’ enables us to see why their work provided not
only the foundations for our understanding of RTC, but also how it can be built on to produce a
rounded and robust view of RTC.
K EY W ORDS :
Coch and French, resistance, change, Lewin
Introduction
Over the last two decades, there have been increasing calls to take a historical perspective on the study of organizations and the development of organization theories (Schreyögg, Sydow, & Holtmann, 2011; Üsdiken & Kieser, 2004).
Whether this is referred to as a ‘historic turn’ (Clark & Rowlinson, 2004) or
taking the ‘long view’ (Burnes & Cooke, 2012), the meaning is the same: we
need to look at how ideas and practices develop and change over the long term
rather than just examining them at one point in time. This article seeks to apply
this approach to the study of resistance to change (RTC).
Correspondence Address: Bernard Burnes, Stirling Management School, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9
4LA, UK. Email: bernard.burnes@stir.ac.uk
# 2014 Taylor & Francis
Understanding Resistance to Change
93
We live in an era where change is seen as essential if organizations are to
survive (Dunphy, Griffiths, & Benn, 2007; Kanter, 2008; Sackmann, Eggenhofer-Rehart, & Friesl, 2009). Such is the importance now given to change that it
is seen as the prime responsibility of those who lead organizations, as the rise
of the transformational leader shows (Bass, 1995; Burns, 1978; Yukl, 2010).
However, it is often claimed that some 70% of change initiatives fail (Beer &
Nohria, 2000; Burnes, 2011; Hammer & Champy, 1993; Kotter, 1996; Rogers,
Meehan, & Tanner, 2006; Senturia, Flees, & Maceda, 2008). Many reasons
have been put forward for such a high level of failure (Burnes & Jackson,
2011), but employee resistance has been one of the most frequently cited
(Erwin & Garman, 2010; Geisler, 2001; Lucas, 2002; Maurer, 1996; Oreg,
2006; Pardo del Val & Martı́nez Fuentes, 2003; Rafferty, Jimmieson, & Achilles,
2013; Waddell & Sohal, 1998). It should be noted that we are not seeking to challenge those who argue that change is not always for the best or that resistance can
play a positive role in the change process (Ford & Ford, 2010; Piderit, 2000;
Thomas & Hardy, 2011; Waddell & Sohal, 1998). Instead, our aim is to understand the nature of RTC and investigate the notion that employees are the
prime source of such resistance.
Certainly, there are many who argue that employee RTC is innate, pervasive,
irrational and dysfunctional (Choi & Ruona, 2011; Ford, Ford, & D’Amelio,
2008; Hon, Bloom, & Crant, 2011; Self & Schraeder, 2009). In their review of
the literature, Dent and Goldberg (1999, p. 25) noted that this view ‘is found in
nearly every textbook about management or organizational behaviour’. As Oreg
(2003, p. 680) maintains, it is not just that individuals and groups resist changes
that threaten their interests, some ‘seem to resist even changes that are consonant
with their interests’.
Peiperl (2005, p. 348) defines resistance as:
. . . active or passive responses on the part of a person or group that militate against a
particular change, a program of changes, or change in general.
In reviewing the literature on resistance, Erwin and Garman (2010, p. 42) found
that there was widespread agreement with Peiperl’s view, noting that
. . . resistance is viewed as multi-dimensional involving how individuals behave in
response to change (behavioral dimension), what they think about the change (cognitive dimension), and how they feel about the change (affective dimension).
Certainly, looking at the literature on resistance, the focus seems to be firmly on
the individual as the source of resistance (Erwin & Garman, 2010; Judge, Thoresen, Pucik, & Welbourne, 1999; Mumford, Baughman, Threlfall, & Uhlman,
1993; Oreg, 2003; Thomas & Hardy, 2011). However, if we go back to the foundations of the subject, a different picture emerges, which – as we will show –
challenges this view of resistance. As Bouckenooghe (2010) notes, the earliest
and one of the most widely cited studies on the topic of resistance is Coch and
French’s (1948) article ‘Overcoming resistance to change’. This offers a view
of resistance that is diametrically at odds with the widely held view that resistance
94
B. Burnes
to change arises from employees (Hardy & Thomas, 2011), and instead focuses on
the organizational context.
Over the years, Coch and French’s article has attracted much attention from
both critics and supporters alike (Bartlem & Lock, 1981; Dent & Goldberg,
1999; Gardner, 1977), and still achieves a level of citation that most academics
would give their eye teeth for (see Google Scholar). Unfortunately, there is a tendency for influential articles such as this to be cited without being read and even to
support arguments incompatible with their contents (Davis & Songer, 2008;
Gravenhorst, 2003; Latour, 1987; MacRoberts & MacRoberts, 1996). Certainly,
the Coch and French’s article seems often to be cited in a totemic fashion, with
the onus on the reader to be conversant with the article rather than for the citer
to explain its key findings. For example, Ijaz and Vitalis (2011, p. 113), in an
article entitled Resistance to organizational change: Putting the jigsaw together,
state: ‘With the foundation laid by Coch and French (1948), the concept of resistance to organizational change began to take shape, and questions about its existence were asked.’ However, though Ijaz and Vitalis (2011, p. 116) also refer to
Coch and French’s article as ‘this pioneer work’, they do not say what this
‘foundation’ is or why it is a ‘pioneer work’. It is also widely cited in the employee
participation literature, but usually without mentioning in what circumstances
Coch and French advocated participation or their Action Research approach to
achieving it (see Camman, 1976; Nurick, 1982). Many writers assume that the
reader is familiar with the text, merely putting ‘e.g. (Coch & French, 1948)’ in
brackets at the end of a sentence in order to indicate that it provides support for
the point they are making, whatever that might be (see Avila, Galindo, &
Mendez, 2012; Mulki, Jaramillo, Malhotra, & Locanderd, 2012).
This is not to denigrate the work of those who cite Coch and French in this way:
after all, this is standard academic practice. However, in this case, where the work
cited is crucial to an understanding of the topic under discussion, the reader is
likely to be left no wiser as to what Coch and French did, what was important
about it, or how it might inform the current debate about resistance to change.
In particular, they are unlikely to realize that Coch and French’s work was not
a one-off study of resistance to change, but part of a long-running series of ‘experiments’, in both organizational and social settings, conducted by Kurt Lewin in the
1930s and 1940s (Burnes, 2007; Marrow, 1969). Lewin’s work created the basis of
the organization development (OD) movement, which has been the dominant
approach to organizational change for more than 60 years (Burnes & Cooke,
2012). Consequently, the significance of Overcoming resistance to change does
not just arise from the research findings it reports, but also from the wider body
of work to which it contributes and which in turn provides additional support
for its findings.
In order to address the issue of resistance, this article begins by examining Coch
and French’s work, first by setting it within the broader context of Lewin’s
research on change and then by examining the work itself. This leads on to a
review of how the resistance debate has developed since the 1940s. This is followed by an examination of four important theories of resistance which have
been developed over the past 60 years – cognitive dissonance, depth of intervention, psychological contract and dispositional resistance – which shows how these
Understanding Resistance to Change
95
relate to and support Coch and French’s work. The article concludes by arguing
that taking a ‘long view’ enables us to see why their work provided not only
the foundations for our understanding of resistance to change but also how it
can be built on to produce a rounded and robust view of resistance to change.
Lewin and Harwood
Kurt Lewin is considered to be the founding father of OD and one of the leading
social scientists of his day (Ash, 1992; Benne, 1976; Burnes, 2004; Burnes &
Cooke, 2012; Dent, 2002; Freedman, 1999; Marrow, 1969; Schein, 1988). His
three major contributions to OD are as follows:
. Planned change – comprising four interrelated elements: field theory, group
dynamics, action research and the three-step model of change (Burnes, 2004);
. Showing how psychological theories and techniques developed and used in
laboratory experiments to study group behaviour could be applied to studying
and changing group behaviour in the real world (Dent, 2002; Highhouse, 2007);
. A set of radical values and ‘utopian aspirations’ (Mirvis, 2006, p. 77) that
emphasize the need to promote democratic values and participation in order
to tackle social and organizational conflict (Lewin, 1946; Marrow, 1969).
As Table 1 shows, between 1939 and 1947 when he died, Lewin conducted a range
of studies and action research projects designed to develop and refine his philosophy and approach to change. Though many of these studies addressed change in
diverse social settings, the main arena for developing the organizational dimension of his approach to change was the Harwood Manufacturing Corporation,
the selfsame organization where Coch and French conducted their research
under Lewin’s guidance (Marrow, 1969).
As Dent (2002) commented on the work conducted at Harwood:
. . . although this comprehensive effort is much less well-known than the Hawthorne
studies, the research which came out of it has perhaps had a greater impact on group
decision-making processes, self-management, leadership development, meeting
management, stereotyping and resistance to change, among others (p. 272).
The Harwood plant was established in Marion, Virginia in 1939 to make pyjamas.
The link between Harwood and Lewin was Alfred Marrow. Harwood had been
founded by Marrow’s grandfather and his father was President of the Corporation,
a role to which Marrow succeeded in 1940. Marrow, who would go on to have a
distinguished career as an industrialist, academic and public servant, first met
Lewin in 1934, just after he arrived in the USA as a refugee scholar from Nazi
Germany. Marrow was seeking advice on his Ph.D., and this initial meeting led
to a long-term friendship, with, after Lewin’s death, Marrow becoming his biographer and chief promoter (French, 1979; Marrow, 1969). In 1939, Marrow invited
Lewin to help Harwood address the problems the plant was having with high
labour turnover. The result, as Table 1 shows, was that the Harwood studies
formed a central plank in the development of Lewin’s approach to change;
96
Dateb
Study/event
Location
1938/1939
Autocracy–democracy
Iowa
1939
Employee turnover
Harwood
1940/1941? Group decision-making
Harwood
1941?
Iowa
1942
Training in democratic
leadership
Food habits
1942?
Self-management
Harwood
1944/1945
Leadership training
Harwood
1944/1945
Commission on
Community
Interrelations (CCI)
Research Center for
Group Dynamics
New York
1946
Changing stereotypes
Harwood
1946
Connecticut State InterRacial Commission
NTL
New Britain,
Connecticut
Bethel, Maine
1945
1947
Iowa
MIT
Linking figures
Focus
Concepts
Lewin, Lippitt The effects of different
Participation and group
and White
leadership styles on children’s
decision-making
behaviour
Lewin
Employee retention
Changing supervisory
behaviour
Bavelas
Democratic participation and
Participation and group
productivity
decision-making
Bavelas and
Improving leadership behaviours Sensitivity training
Lewin
and techniques
Lewin and
Changing the food-buying habits Participation and group
Bavelas
of housewives
decision-making
Bavelas
Increasing workers’ control over Group decision-making
the pace of work
French
Improving the interpersonal skills Role play
and effectiveness of
supervisors
Lewin,
The problems and conflicts of
Action research
Marrow and
group and community life
Lippitt
Lewin,
Understanding and changing
Action research
Marrow and
group behaviour
French
French
Changing attitudes to older
Information gathering,
workers
discussion and
reflection
Lewin and
Leadership training
Sensitivity training/role
Lippitt
play
Coch, French Leadership training
T-groups (sensitivity
and Lippitt
training/role play)
Citation
Lewin, Lippitt,
and White
(1939)
Marrow (1969)
Marrow (1969)
Bavelas and
Lewin (1942)
Lewin (1943)
Marrow (1969)
French (1945)
Marrow (1969)
Marrow (1969)
Marrow (1957),
1972)
Marrow (1969)
Marrow (1967,
1969)
B. Burnes
Table 1. Kurt Lewin – key projects and events 1939–1947a (Burnes, 2007)
1947
Overcoming resistance to Harwood
change
Coch and
French
The impact of different
approaches to change on
productivity
Participative change/
force field analysis
Coch and French
(1948)
a
Understanding Resistance to Change
Marrow (1969) has attempted to list Lewin’s research activities. The list is staggeringly long. This table focuses only upon those Harwood and non-Harwood studies and events
which appear to share common concepts, techniques and people, and which, when considered together, show the means by which Lewin moved the focus of his research from
laboratory studies to real-life change situations, and the progressive development of his planned approach to change.
b
Though the order in which the major Harwood studies took place can be established from the writings of Marrow, it is not always clear which year individual studies were
undertaken. Where there is some doubt a ‘?’ is put after the date. The same nomenclature is used for the Bavelas and Lewin (1942) study which was published in 1942, but
appears to have taken place in 1941.
97
98
B. Burnes
Lewin played a central role in initiating and directing a new approach to participative management at Harwood, of which Coch and French’s work was just one
element. This is not to minimize their work, but to emphasize that their findings in
terms of resistance to change stand on a broader foundation than just the work
reported in their 1948 article, and that this broader foundation provides added
credibility to their findings. Having provided the context for Coch and French’s
work, we can now proceed to examine it in more detail.
Coch and French: ‘Overcoming resistance to change’
Lester Coch and John French came from very different backgrounds before
joining Harwood and had very different careers after leaving. Lester Coch was
born in New York in 1921 and died in 2005. He studied engineering at university,
but left before finishing his degree to join the US infantry at the outbreak of the
Second World War. For the latter part of his military service, he was a prisoner
of war in Germany. After his liberation, he went to work at Harwood as Personnel
Manager for a short period before going on to have a successful career as an engineer with a number of patents to his name.1 John French was born in Boston in 1913
and died in 1995. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1940. He
worked closely with Lewin from the late 1930s through to Lewin’s death in
1947. Through Lewin, he became Plant Psychologist at Harwood between 1943
and 1948. After leaving Harwood, he went to work at the Research Center for
Group Dynamics, which was established by Lewin at MIT in 1946, and then
moved to Michigan University after his death. French had a distinguished academic career, especially in terms of his later work with Bertram Raven on
bases of social power, but it was his collaboration with Lewin at Harwood
which provided the foundations and continuing inspiration for much of his
work (House, 1993; Marrow, 1969).
In explaining the motivation for their work, Coch and French (1948, p. 531)
state that: ‘A majority of all grievances presented at Harwood have always
stemmed from a change situation.’ Given that the factory employed over 500 production workers, whose methods of work and job tasks changed several times a
year, this was a major problem for the company (Marrow, 1972). Workers complained bitterly about being transferred from jobs they knew well and could do
quickly to new ones where their productivity was far lower. Their earnings and
morale would plunge, and some workers would be reduced to tears by the
changes whilst others would react very aggressively. Some experienced machinists never regained their previous levels of output. The company wanted to
find a way of introducing change that did not lead to a decrease in productivity
and a high staff turnover. As mentioned earlier, staff turnover was the reason
why Lewin’s assistance was sought in the first place, and how the company
came to employ a Plant Psychologist, first Alex Bavelas and later John French
(Marrow, 1969). The results of Lewin’s Harwood studies, which in essence
were attempts to test the efficacy of industrial democracy, were reported in a
number of publications (see Table 1). The Coch and French’s article reports the
various experiments in democratic participation designed specifically to address
Harwood’s problems with resistance to change.
Understanding Resistance to Change
99
Dent and Goldberg (1999, p. 25) observe that the notion of ‘resistance to
change’ is credited to Kurt Lewin and that he ‘introduced the term as a systems
concept, as a force affecting managers and employees equally’. The theoretical
underpinnings of Lewin’s approach to resistance derive from field theory in
physics and Gestalt psychology, both of which stress the importance of context
in shaping individual actions (Burnes & Cooke, 2013). Lewin’s (1947a, 1947b)
‘field theory’ maintains that individual and group behaviour is the product of a
complex system or field of forces that surround individuals and form a force
field or life space which generates a ‘quasi-stationary equilibrium’. Lewin
argued that changes in behaviour only occur when the field changes, either by a
decrease in the power of restraining forces or an increase in the power of
driving forces.
When Coch and French (1948) began to examine resistance to change at
Harwood, they sought to identify and reduce those forces that acted to increase
workers’ resistance and promote those that acted to reduce it. Coch and French
selected four groups to take part in the study – one control group and three experimental groups. Group 1 was the control group, and changes to their work practices were undertaken in the normal Harwood fashion, namely that they were
called into the office, told that changes would take place, and given the opportunity to ask questions. Group 2 was given more detailed information and was
allowed to nominate representatives to participate in designing the new jobs
and setting the new production rates. In line with Lewin’s Action Research
approach to change, all the members of Groups 3 and 4 participated in the
design of the new jobs and the setting of the new rates. The result was that the productivity after the changes was ‘directly proportional to the amount of participation, and that the rates of [labour] turnover and aggression are inversely
proportional to the amount of participation’ (Coch & French, 1948, p. 524).
They also sought to examine the role of personality factors, such as aggressiveness, in resistance. They state that their research showed ‘conclusively that the
results obtained depended on the experimental treatment [i.e. the degree of participation] rather than on personality factors’ (Coch & French, 1948, p. 524). In a later
article, seeking to explain the results further, French and Zander (1949, p. 75)
drew attention to ‘the dynamic concept of force, field of forces, and conflict of
forces’. They maintain that by allowing the workers to participate in the design
of new methods and the pace of work, they were strengthening those forces that
tended to increase workers’ confidence in themselves and weakening those
forces that tended to undermine it.
Coch and French (1948) observed that many of the techniques used in their
study were developed at the first session of the National Training Laboratory
(NTL) held in 1947. However, the NTL session drew on the 1944 –1945 leadership training programme French had conducted at Harwood (Marrow, 1969). It
also drew on the methods developed in the leadership training programme
Lewin conducted for the Connecticut State Inter-Racial Commission in 1946
(the New Britain workshops). This in turn was an extension of Lewin et al.
(1939) autocracy – democracy leadership studies, which showed, amongst other
things, that if leaders wished to change the behaviour of their followers, they
might first have to change their own behaviour. This, of course, is what happened
100
B. Burnes
at Harwood. In order to change workers’ behaviour in terms of how they reacted to
change, Coch and French had to get Harwood’s leaders to change how they
managed change situations. A further and central element of Lewin’s work is
also apparent in Coch and French’s article: the importance of choice. Lewin
argued, and others since have also shown, that individuals and groups are more
likely to be committed to change if they feel that they have a genuine choice
over what changes take place and how they are managed (Burnes & Cooke,
2012; Carpenter, 2013; Diamond, 1992; McMillan & Connor, 2005; Oreg,
Vakola, & Armenakis, 2011; Tversky & Kahneman, 1981).
In showing the relationship between their work and Lewin’s, we can see why Coch
and French (1948, p. 512) observe that they drew ‘repeatedly from the works and
concepts of Kurt Lewin for both the action and theoretical phases of this study’.
This is further emphasized by their labelling their work as ‘action research’, an
approach to change developed by Lewin (Marrow, 1969). This confirms the point
made earlier in this article that Coch and French’s work has to be seen within the
wider context of Lewin’s work (Burnes, 2007; Burnes & Cooke, 2012).
Returning to Ijaz and Vitalis’s (2011) assertions, it is now possible to understand
why the Coch and French’s article is a ‘pioneer work’ which laid the ‘foundation’
for understanding resistance to change. It produced two key findings:
(1) Resistance does not arise from the individual, but from the context in which
the change takes place. As Dent and Goldberg (1999, p. 25) note, Lewin
saw it as ‘a systems concept’. For Lewin (1947a, 1947b), as mentioned
earlier, individual and group behaviour is the product of a complex system
or field of forces that surround individuals and form a force field or life space.
(2) The way to change the forces in the field to achieve a desired outcome is not to
attempt to impose change, but to encourage participative decision-making
through Action Research.
Coch and French’s work is commonly seen as providing the basis for our understanding of resistance to change (Dent & Goldberg, 1999). Also, it is supported by
Lewin’s wider body of work, which has dominated the field of change since the
1940s (Burnes & Cooke, 2012). This raises the question of why, since its publication, its basic argument has been lost. Instead of resistance being seen as
arising from the nature of the organization’s context, it is individual employees
who are seen as the main barrier to change (Erwin & Garman, 2010).
In addressing this question, the next section will argue that the cause lies in the
aftermath of Lewin’s death in 1947. It will show that his inheritors and supporters
in the OD movement lost interest in field theory element of his work and tended to
focus less on the influence of the contextual factors and more on group dynamics
and individual psychology, which in turn became the accepted dominant explanation for resistance.
After Coch and French
The year before the publication of the Coch and French’s article, Lewin died.
Though Lewin’s work on group dynamics, action research and his three-step
Understanding Resistance to Change
101
model of change was taken up by other scholars and became the basis of OD
(Burnes & Cooke, 2012), interest in field theory declined and, as Gold (1992,
p. 67) observed, ‘the general understanding of field theory by social scientists
has grown increasingly vague’. Field theory declined for two reasons. First, it
was a work in progress and only Lewin appeared to understand fully the
complex mathematics on which it was based. As his biographer noted, it was ‘difficult reading’ and ‘few psychologists were willing to devote the time to the
careful study of his complex system of concepts’ (Marrow, 1969, p. 116).
Second, after his death, Lewin’s collaborators and supporters were busy developing another aspect of his work – T-groups. These emerged from the famous
New Britain workshops in 1946 and formed the rationale for the creation of the
NTL in 1947 (Freedman, 1999). They were also the dominant force behind the
fledgling OD movement. Indeed, up to the early 1970s, OD and T-groups were
almost synonymous (Highhouse, 2002). In essence, T-groups (also called sensitivity training) are about enabling individuals to understand and change their
own behaviour – ‘therapy for normals’ as it was often labelled (Schein, 1995,
p. ix). Consequently, those who might have developed Lewin’s situational perspective on resistance were instead looking inside the individual for solutions to
the problem of change and, by and large, ignoring the organizational context.
Only with the collapse of T-groups in the 1970s did the OD movement as
whole turn its attention once again to the wider context in which change took
place, but even then, it had difficulties in breaking away from the individualgroup perspective on change (Beer & Walton, 1987; Burnes & Cooke, 2012).
In the years since Coch and French, as Dent and Goldberg (1999) find, the
concept of resistance has moved from being seen as an organizational shortcoming
which requires system changes to overcome it, to one which arises from individual
and group self-interest and/or their psychological makeup. This can be seen by
looking at the literature on resistance since then. Shortly after the publication of
the Coch and French’s article, Zander (1950) argued that resistance reflects
attempts by individuals to protect themselves from change. This is worth noting
because Zander was a close associate of Lewin and, with French as a co-author,
he had written about the Coch and French work (French & Zander, 1949).
Zander’s emphasis on the individual rather than the organization shows the
change of focus occurring amongst Lewinians.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the individual perspective on resistance grew.
For example, Dent and Goldberg (1999, p. 37) examined three studies of resistance to change in this period (Dreese, 1955; Flower, 1962; Lawrence, 1954)
and observe that: ‘Each author who identifies resistance lists a symptom of the
supervisor or the way the change was implemented but blames subordinates for
the problems.’ In addition, Lawrence (1954) challenged the validity of Coch
and French’s findings by challenging their research methods and the way they
interpreted events at Harwood.
In the 1970s, Kotter and Schlesinger (1979) conducted research on choosing
strategies for change. One of their main conclusions was that these had to be tailored to overcoming resistance to change by employees. They argued that resistance arose for four reasons: ‘These are a desire not to lose something of value, a
misunderstanding of the change and its implications, a belief that the change does
102
B. Burnes
not make sense for the organization, and a low tolerance for change.’ Similarly,
Diamond’s (1986) study of resistance focuses on human psychology and argues
that resistance to change is innate to human beings.
Nor was there any diminution of this view in the 1990s and 2000s: if anything, it
increased. Greiner (1992) found that it was a common assumption amongst senior
managers that resistance arises from the individual and not the system. Mumford
et al. (1993) argued that personality characteristics influence people’s ability to
adapt to change. Along similar lines, Coghlan (1993, p. 10) maintained that ‘resistance to change by individuals in organizations is a natural phenomenon’ and Lau
and Woodman (1995) argued that reactions to organizational change are significantly affected by personality. Judge et al. (1999) also drew attention to the importance of personality factors when examining how managers cope with change.
Perhaps the most significant theoretical development work in relation to personality and change is Oreg’s (2003) work on dispositional resistance, which maintains
that we are all disposed to resist change, though some individuals are much more
disposed to resist than others.
We could, of course, present further examples of research that supports the
notion that individuals are the main source of resistance to change (Erwin &
Garman, 2010; Heath & Heath, 2011; Palmer, 2004). However, this would
merely serve to emphasize a point already well demonstrated, that there is a considerable body of opinion which sees human beings as innately programmed to
resist change and defend the status quo (Ford et al., 2008; Piderit, 2000).
Though the notion that resistance is a normal human trait appears to have
become broadly accepted (Choi & Ruona, 2011; Dent & Goldberg, 1999; Erwin
& Garman, 2010; Oreg et al., 2011; Self & Schraeder, 2009), the system or contextual perspective is not without its supporters. From the 1970s onwards, proponents of OD and other disciplines began to take a greater interest in the role of
organizational culture in helping or hindering change, though in practice this
often boiled down to a belief that many employees had unsuitable values and
beliefs (Burnes, 2014; Watson, 1997). Similarly, supporters of the culture-excellence approach saw inappropriate cultures and structures as impediments to
change, which led to recommendations for wholesale replacement of those
employees who did not fit the new cultural –structural mould (Cumm...
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