Models of Change

John PritchardHigher Education Academy

Models of Change

• Levels and Forms of Change• Managing Change: Outcomes and Assumptions• Directing and Shaping Change: Six Models (Palmer and Dunford 2008)• Team Discussion• Reflections

Levels and Forms of Change

ALPHA LEVEL CHANGE • Gradual, incremental, planned approach to change that

cumulate over a period of time which focuses on changes to particular arenas within the university

BETA LEVEL CHANGE• Gradual, incremental emergent approach to change that

develops over a period of time to cumulative and comprehensive change in the university

GAMMA LEVEL CHANGE• Revolutionary, transformational and comprehensive planned

attempt to create change across the whole university. Paradigm shift.

From Golembiewski/McAuley 20103

Managing Change

• A simple enough term?• Defining Outcomes: Intended and emergent• Managing process: Controlling and shaping• Palmer and Dunford (2008) ‘Organizational

Change and the Importance of Embedded Assumptions’

Outcomes and assumptions

Assumptions about change outcomes

Assumptions about managing

Controlling Shaping

IntendedPartially intendedUnintended

DirectingNavigatingCaretaking

CoachingInterpretingNurturing

Directing

Directing

• Vision: essential and early• Communication: unambiguous, specific

actions• Resistance: can and must be overcome

Navigating

• Vision: blurring through competing stakeholders

• Communication: as a form of negotiation• Resistance: focusing on those with greatest

influence

Caretaking

Change is inevitable...

Caretaking

• Vision: determined by inexorable forces• Communication: focused on explaining

inevitability and coping strategies• Resistance: will decline naturally

Shaping Change

• Coaching• Interpreting• Nurturing

Coaching

• Vision: emerges through focused facilitation skills of leaders

• Communication: centred on emotional commitment to shared values

• Resistance: overcome through developing personal confidence and capability

Interpreting

Interpreting

• Vision: articulating ‘inner organisational voice’, surfacing values and identity

• Communication: sensemaking: narrative, storytelling and metaphors

• Resistance: negative change scripts

Interpreting opportunities for creative realisation

Nurturing

Nurturing

• Visions: are always temporary and being rewritten due to force of external change

• Communication: responsive and therapeutic• Resistance: no significant effect

Models of Change• Factors affecting choice of model: – Type of change– Institutional ethos– Phase of change– Simultaneous multiple changes– Preferences and skills of change manager

Models of Change• Any approach to managing change will do...• As long as it:–Animates people and gets them moving and

experimenting–Provides a direction– Encourages closer attention to what is

happening– Facilitates respectful interaction

Karl Weick