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Change Management TheoriesDo Change Management Theories Really Work?
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The Practitioner's Guide for Organizing an Organization Is All About
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Business Process Reengineering
BPR is one of the change management theories that concentrates on the processes by which organizations get things done. In theory, if better processes were implemented, the organization would be more efficient. But, BPR generally didn't take into account the people aspect of organizations - processes are people doing things! So, their attitudes towards what they were doing, and towards change, needed to be considered more.
Total Quality Management
TQM is another of the change management theories - focused on people and their importance to processes and the organization. But it still lacked the ability to measure or evaluate people because it is focused on the existing or planned processes.
So, both these major change management theories, and their many variations, are deficient in that they lack the ability to look at the organization as a whole... they study parts. And they lacked the ability to project the impact of the management changes that were being implemented - small wonder they caused so many problems and nasty surprises!
The Holonomic Organization Model
Dr. Ken Mackenzie is our internationally-recognized organizational expert. Over 30 years of research, teaching, studying and working with organizations undergoing change have enabled what we consider to be the most workable of the change management theories or models that we have seen. We'll let Dr. Mackenzie tell the story, from the summary of his Practitioners Guide to Organizing Organizations...
Generic Organizational Problems
All organizations face the continuing problem of becoming and remaining well–organized. Most organizations are not well–organized and need to become better organized in order to compete successfully. It is no longer sufficient to organize in order to be productive or efficient. In an era of rapid technological and social change, it is also necessary to become and remain efficiently adaptable. The practitioner needs new ideas for meeting this growing challenge.
The discrepancy or gap between the well–organized organization that you need and the one you have is a serious organizational problem. Problems get solved when the discrepancy between the desired and the actual state of affairs is reduced. The task of improving an organization, by making it better organized, involves high–level problem solving.
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Early on, Dr. Mackenzie noticed that the problems that organizations set out to solve are rarely the actual problems that they face. [That certainly is consistent with our own experience!] So Organizational Problem Solving identifies 5 interrelated stages. Great care needs to be taken to ensure that one is working on the right problem. There is a natural tendency to work on the problems one knows how to solve rather than to work on problems that need to be solved. Locating the appropriate level is a detective game... Levels of Organizational Problems identifies ways and means to uncover not only visible, but also hidden, problems.
Organizational Learning identifies several related issues that are fundamental to understanding the theory - the concepts of process, structure and their interdependencies. These concepts allow one to discuss why, for many organizations, there appear to be serious learning impairments. That is, some organizations appear to be seriously learning impaired while others act more intelligently.
Finally, the idea of Combined Congruency has to be considered to see how the technical and social aspects of the organization are interdependent.
Now we can look at the main ideas themselves...
The Holonomic Organization
There are ten organizational properties that characterize a holonomic organization:
- Has essential characteristics as a whole which are also present in every unit. [That's where holonomic comes from.]
- Requires the minimum of effort to direct, control, and coordinate its units
- Is efficient at storing and recalling information about itself
- Is resistant to the impact of uncertainty and "noise"
- Is flexible and responsive when it adapts to change
- Can lose units and still be capable of maintaining its essential characteristics
- Is highly responsive to strong leadership which is based on principles
- Is intolerant of leaders whose actions are not based on the consistent application of basic principles
- Is efficiently adaptable
- Is maximally productive
In a hologram the parts contain the whole, and this is very different from our usual view of organizations that the whole is the sum of the parts. So, in a holonomic organization, wherever you go, the same fundamental processes of change and adaptation are all present and all operating.
There are 12 main enabling process, referred to here as 12 Holonomic Processes [HP].
When these 12 enabling processes are present and operating, the holonomic organization will have 6 Desired Organizational Characteristics [DOC].
Processes are really people... doing things.
There are 29 Leadership Practices [LP] that are really the foundation upon which the 12 enabling processes are built, and which, in turn, produce the organizational characteristics.
The Practitioner's Guide to Organizing Organizations sets out and fully explains the interrelationships - which particular Leadership Practice[s] support and enable which Holonomic Processes [HP]. And the very precise relationship by which each of the 12 HP affects exactly 2 of the Desired Organization Characteristics, and how each of the 6 DOC results from the presence and operation of 4 of the 12HP.
If we use the analogy of navigation, the Model is the roadmap.
Diagnostics
Whether you are an owner, manager or director in a larger organization that needs a full diagnostic evaluation and who wants to get a better understanding of the underlying theory...
or an owner in a smaller one who simply needs ideas and help with how to cope with change...
the Model, a Holonomic Cube and some helpful worksheets are set out in The Practitioner's Guide to Organizing Organizations.Don't let the title fool you... this is a clearly presented and very practical and useful tool for owners and managers of all sized businesses.
A very extensive online survey process has evolved from the original ODS - Organizational Diagnostic Survey to the present HALO Process [Holonomic Assessment of the Leadership of an Organization.] Gathering information readily from various organization levels and processing it quickly enables an extensive array of analytical reports that both pinpoint areas where the leadership process is not functioning, but also relate and enable projection to assess the impact of various solutions.
Continuing our navigation analogy, the HALO Process is the
G[lobal] P[ositioning] S[ystem] with which extremely accurate fixes are made to determine exact position.
The full extent of the HALO Process is beyond our scope here but it is fully described in The Practitioner's Guide to Organizing Organizations.
However, both to assist with our own understanding and to provide a glimpse of the power and extent of this HALO Process, we produced two tools, which we are pleased to share with you.
To focus on a "bottom-up" approach to organizational problem solving, we designed a simple test form that lets you [and others in your organization] simply click Yes or No to indicate the presence or absence of each of the 29 Leadership Practices - whether or not they are functioning in your organization.
Based on that, we are able to provide a feedback as to which Holonomic Processes might not be functioning, and thus which Desired Organizational Characteristics might not be present. It only takes about 5 minutes and we'll try to provide a detailed response within 48 hours, workload permitting.
Click here to receive your complimentary [free!] analysis, courtesy of Family Business Experts.
To focus on a "top-down" approach, we have prepared a simple spreadsheet in MS Excel format. Looking at the Desired Organizational Characteristics and Holonomic Processes, simply indicate No if and where you think a process is not functioning or a characteristic is not evident in your organization. Send the spreadsheet to us by Email and we'll respond with an indicator of which one[s] of the 29 Leadership Practices might not be functioning, since they will be the root cause of a process or characteristic not working.
Like with the "bottom-up" analysis, it only takes about 5 minutes, it's complimentary [free!] and we'll try to turn around our analysis within 48 hours.
Click here to automatically download the small Top Down Assessment spreadsheet file to your hard drive. Instructions for completing and returning the assessment are found within the workbook. It is in MSExcel format, so you must be able to use MSExcel or another program that reads Excel files - such as Supreme Office Suite.
Please understand that neither of these have near the depth nor complexity of the HALO Process, but they are great for a "preliminary judgment" and to help understand the interrelationship of the different factors that have to be considered in change management and organizational problem solving.
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