Organizational Change and Transformation - Overcoming the "Mark Twain Dilemma"

Mark Twain lived through some of the most profound changes in America: from the Civil War; to the closing of the West; to the advent of Industrialization.  He summed up his feelings about change in his typical pithy fashion, "You know I'm all for progress.  It's change I object to."  Twain's dilemma is we all recognize the need for progress and innovation; and that involves change.  But change is risky and can hurt.  However, the best time to undertake organizational change is when you don't have to (Pietersen, 2002). 

This leads to FUD: Fear, uncertainty, and doubt.  To change involves loss of control, certainty, and the feelings of competency in the existing order of things as they are.  The driving forces in support of change must be greater than the restraining forces of fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

So, how do we overcome Mr. Twain's dilemma?  Pietersen offers 6 rules:

• Rule 1 – Create a simple and compelling case for change
• Rule 2 – Communicate Constantly and Honestly

• Rule 3 – Maximize Participation

• Rule 4 – Remove those who resist

• Rule 5 – Generate Short Term Successes

• Rule 6 – Set a shining Example

If we accept Edgar Schein's (1990) definition of organizational culture, we can see the challenge in affecting change:

“A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration that has worked well enough to be considered valid and therefore to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems."

In my recent experience, I have witnessed the application of these six rules. 

Rule 1 -  A CTO of a federal agency declared several years ago that he wanted to create a "World Class IT Organization."  One does not specifically know what that means, but it is "simple and compelling."

Rule 2 - Organizations must start using information to make fact-based decisions.  Process improvements and organizational change should be measured for value and not just because Service Management is "good."  We should know we are doing better because we can measure it against how bad we were before.  The data and information doesn't lie; it is honest.

Rule 3 - Sometimes process improvements collapse under their own weight.  Let them proceed organically.  Guide strategically and not tactically at first.  The organic growth will maximize participation and the organization will begin to own the change rather than change because senior leaders "said so."

Rule 4 - Part of the strategic guidance is to build process improvements into senior leadership goals and commitments.  Removing those who resist will become a natural outcome of performance.  Take a look at "Reinforcement Systems" in the Channel's The "psychology" of organizational culture entry from a couple of weeks ago.

Rule 5 - Using the information from Rule 2, short term successes can be realized because there is objective evidence of their existence.  Of equal importance, one starts to see more "process-oriented" successes rather than "organizational-oriented" successes. 

Rule 6 - Successful organizations pick a project or initiative that is working and nuture it and use it as a the bedrock of the change effort.  Advocates reside here and momentum can be built.  It becomes the "Shining Example."  Over time, those who resist gradually become part of the organization that is not in step with the changing culture. 

We also must guard against improving and being satisfied with just the improvement.  We must add value and show the customer that value.  Otherwise, they are not going to buy your stuff simply because you are CMMI Level 3 Certified.  This is the difference between "terminal value" and "functional value."  Look for this discussion in an upcoming Channel entry.

FG

Pietersen, W. (2002). The Mark Twain dilemma: The theory and practice of change leadership. The Journal of Business Strategy, 23(5), 32-37. (Document ID: 179186281).

The IT Service Management "Service Culture" Defined

In the last entry, we discussed the "Service Culture" as the skillset required to achieve organizational maturity - specifically in the realm of IT Service Management.  That discussion resulted in this question: what exactly is meant by "Service Culture."  There are many opinions, but none that can be called "scholarly," which means it is a result of research and peer review.

Perhaps now there is an answer; or at least a scholarly approach to the answer.  The Organizational Culture Domain ©  (Granito, 2011) has been developed as an add on to existing maturity models to extend and compliment those models and answer the question: "What is meant by Service Culture."

The Organizational Culture Domain (OCD) ©  consists of eight components:

• Organizational Tension - The basic trust in a change or upheaval and the amount of "mourning" the organization requires for the old way
• Coordination and Communication - The need for or extent to which key departments and individuals work together to improve the organization
• Organizational Commitment - Convincing those in the organization to be committed to the new vision and their roles in achieving it
• Organizational Competency - Learning the analytical and interpersonal skills managers and employees will use in the Change effort
• Organizational Leadership - The demonstration by top management of visible and consistent support for change
• Management Innovation - Management support for the business application of creativity
• Organizational Innovation - A culture of continual service improvement
• Organizational Continuity - Retention of cultural fundamentals important to organizational change, such as purpose or mission, core technologies, and key resources and skills.

Each one of these components can be measured in the OCD Organizational Culture Assessment instrument © (Granito, 2011) and then assessed for "maturity" as any other domain in maturity models such as CMMI and maturity frameworks such as ITIL and CobiT.

The OCD ©  adds to CobiT:

• Delivery and Support
• Monitoring
• Planning & Organisation 
• Acquisition & Implementation
• Organizational Culture

The OCD ©  adds to IT Service Management:

• Service Strategy
• Service Design
• Service Support
• Service Operation
• Service Culture
• Continual Service Improvement

The OCD ©  also fits into CMMI - SVC as Organizational Culture Management.  All models have frameworks for assessing each domain and associated components.  So too with the OCD.  We will discuss the assessment instrument in a future post.

FG

Copyright © 2011 by Granito & Associates.  All rights reserved

Granito, F.A. (2011).  Organizational Resilience and Culture: A Model for Information Technology Service Management (ITSM).  (Doctoral Dissertation).

The "psychology" of organizational culture

According to Lawson, E., & Price, C. (2003), CEOs are starting to apply traditional psychology to affect organizational culture change.  Specifically, four things: A purpose to believe in; Reinforcement systems; The skills required for change; and Consistent role models.

A Purpose to believe in - This is based on the theory of cognitive dissonance, the distressing mental state that arises when people find that their beliefs are inconsistent with their actions.  Festinger (1957) observed in the subjects of his experimentation a deep-seated need to eliminate cognitive dissonance by changing either their actions or their beliefs.  The implication at the organizational level is that people would be inclined to change their behavior IF they believe in overall purpose.  It is not enough to simply TELL employees they must follow a new process or behavior.

Reinforement Systems - This is based on Skinner's theories of conditioning and positive reinforcement.  The implication at the organizational level is reporting, operational, and measurement processes must be consistent with behavior the organization is asking its people to embrace.  An organizational policy for executives to mentor employees should have a reward embeded in the executive's performance to encourage them to actually do it.

The skills required for change - Change of behavior requires the necessary skills, support, and training to be successful.  A recovering alchoholic attends meetings and has a support group of people who emphathize with the recovering behavior.  The IT organization moving to more "mature" processes like ITIL/ITSM or CMMI asks employees to exhibit a "service culture."  But what is that?  I have developed an Organizational Culture Domain in my Doctoral Disseration that attempts to answer that.  More on that in a later post.

Consistent role models - This is based on Dr. Benjamin Spock and the decisive impact role models have in the development of children. An organization that encourages innovation and entrepreneurship should NOT be micro-managing its employees and should be able to tolerate risk taking.  If employees fear the organizational consequences of failure, they will not be motivated to innovate.....or even give constructive feedback.

FG

Lawson, E., & Price, C. (2003). The psychology of change management. Mckinsey Quarterly, (2), 30-41.

The Organization that's always late

Recently, I had the opportunity to deliver an onsite training class to a large Federal Agency.  Since all students were from the same agency, I was able to notice a pattern to their comings and goings - they were always late to class.  I mean really late.  Like up to 30 minutes.

At first I attributed this to being on site and the students were distracted by their regular jobs.  This seemed reasonable since the one person from out-of-town was always on time.  But I had to know.  So I asked. 

It seems it was accepted practice to be late!  A meeting at 1:00 means that the participants should start assembling rather than being there ready to start.  Digging deeper I learned the employees take the lead from managers and executives who regularly practice this behavior. 

Except this one time when a high level executive happened to get to a meeting on time only to find not everyone had yet assembled because they expected the executive to be late.  That was the "culture."  The result was to then "solve the wrong problem" as I am want to say.

Rather than set an example and ask that folks be on time, the executive began to send a "runner" to the meeting to see if anyone was there.  If no one was there, he wouldn't show up!  This "blew my mind."

If anyone has run into this, I would welcome hearing from you to help extend my research.

FG

Welcome!

Greetings and welcome!

After spending several years examining organizational and corporate culture as part of my Doctoral Dissertation, I feel compelled to keep a "diary" of real life observations of the Information Technology Organization.  The "Service Culture" is the basis for innovation and real organizational change and transformation.  But it is illusive and difficult to attain.

The writings here will be both scholarly and non-scholarly.  Scholarly in that they may be related to Organizational Culture writers such as Edgar Schein and non-scholarly where they are just observations and opinions. 

I welcome your constructive discussions with me.

FG