If we take what we have learned about social change in organisations (large or small, formal or not), we find evidence that the knowledge of what needs to be done is not the main determinant of success in the doing. That success lies with confidence, which follows leadership, which is a social (not textual) phenomenon, frequently reinforcing the small changes in individual and small group behaviour that add up to making the change as a whole. Further evidence shows that the process of engaging the not-yet-committed can be predictable, intuitive and simple, but runs in the face of the belief system that underpins 'science', using 'emotional' information and accepting that, on some things, leaps of faith must be required and made. As psychologists, we have evidence that people don't change behaviour because they are rationally convinced; they change because it is more convenient, more acceptable, more safe and more expedient – because they believe it will be better for them, in their subjective and diverse meanings of 'better'. Where can we apply this to assist action in the interest of sustaining the planet on which we live?

1. ©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 1
WHAT CAN WE DO
WHEN THE SCIENCE SAYS "X“
AND PEOPLE STILL SAY "WHY?"
Frank O'Connor
Consulting Director, Moa Resources
Wellington, New Zealand
franko@moa.net.nz

2. ©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 2
WHAT DO WE KNOW
We have learned a lot about social change
• in organisations large or small, formal or not
• knowing what needs to be done does not determine success
The origin of success lies in confident action
Confidence follows leadership
• a social (not textual) phenomenon
• frequently reinforcing the small actions
• individual and small group behaviour add up
We don’t make the change as a whole

3. FURTHER EVIDENCE SHOWS …
Major change runs in the face of what we believe
• challenge to prevailing belief systems may include those that are
seen to underpin 'science‘
We do change ingrained habits
• using 'emotional' information as well as thoughts
• accepting that, sometimes, leaps of faith are required and made
The process of engaging the not-yet-committed can
be predictable, intuitive and simple …
and inadequately informed
©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 3

4. BESTSELLING JOHN KOTTER 1947 –
“There are four reasons that certain people are
resisting change”
©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 4
Kotter and Schlesinger, 1979
• Parochial self-interest
– some people are concerned with how change may affect their own
interests, rather than considering the effects for the whole
• Misunderstanding
– communication problems; inadequate information
• Low tolerance to change
– certain people are very keen on security and stability in their work
• Different assessments of the situation
– some employees may disagree on the reasons for the change and
on the advantages and disadvantages of the change process

5. SIX APPROACHES TO COMBAT
RESISTANCE TO CHANGE - 1
• Education and Communication – people lack information
– Educate people beforehand. Up-front communication reduces
unfounded rumours concerning the change
• Participation and Involvement – we don’t have all we need
planned yet and others have considerable power to resist
– Involve employees in the change effort - they are more likely to buy
in and help
• Facilitation and Support - resistance from adjustment problems
– Head-off potential resistance supporting employees deal with fear
and anxiety about detrimental effects of change
– special training, counselling, time off work.
©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 5

6. SIX APPROACHES TO COMBAT
RESISTANCE TO CHANGE - 2
• Negotiation and Agreement – some may lose out and have
considerable power to resist
– by offering incentives to employees not to resist change, to veto
elements of change, or to offer early buyouts or retirements
– … where those resisting change are in a position of power
• Manipulation and Co-option where other tactics will not work or
are too expensive
– Involve leaders of the resistance in the change effort, but if feel
they are only symbolic, they may resistance even further
• Explicit and Implicit Coercion – if speed essential, at last resort
– force acceptance by making clear that resisting change will lead to
losing jobs, firing, transferring or not promoting employees.
©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 6

7. AN OCTOPUS HAS “THE FACTS”
Meet Paul …
• ‘predicted’ the outcome of
games involving the German
World Cup football team this
year
Does the press really think
Paul can predict the outcome
of a soccer game?
• Or is it a real misunderstanding
of the nature of probability…
©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 7

8. SURELY THIS IS MORE THAN LUCK
Offered 2 flag-bearing boxes,
each containing a mussel,
Paul chooses one of them
• For the matches involving the
German team, Paul ‘selected’
the winner of each game
• After the game that saw
Germany lose to Spain, Paul
appeared to select the victor
through to the final
©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 8

9. ©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 9
WELL, NO
Toss a coin & record whether
it comes up heads or tails
• Over dozens of tosses you’ll see
‘runs’ of several heads or
several tails
But each time you toss,
there’s a 1 in 2 chance of
coming up heads
• Regardless of what’s gone
before
So the octopus is sometimes
right, sometimes wrong; for
one or a run of ‘choices’
– Alison Campbell’s BioBlog Jul 09

10. WE LIKE A GOOD STORY!
Humans are pattern-seeking
creatures
• We seem very happy to imbue
mere coincidence with far more
meaning than it actually has
So we need to go carefully
On with the stories …
©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 10

11. KURT LEWIN 1890 - 1947
• Moved from studying behaviour to engineering its change,
particularly in relation to racial and religious conflicts
• Invented sensitivity training, for making people more aware of
the effect they have on others
An early three-stage change process
• The first stage he called "unfreezing“ – overcoming inertia and
dismantling the existing "mind set“
– Defense mechanisms have to be bypassed
• In the second stage the change occurs – a period of confusion
and transition
– We are aware that the old ways are being challenged but we do not
have a clear picture as to what we are replacing them with yet
• The third and final stage he called "freezing“
– The new mindset is crystallizing and one's comfort level is returning
to previous levels … this is often misquoted as "refreezing"
©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 11

12. ERIC TRIST 1909 – 1993
• For the last two years of the World War II, Trist was chief
psychologist to the civil resettlements units for repatriated
prisoners of war …
– “probably the most exciting single experience of my professional life”
Trist and the Tavistock Institute:
• industrial and military projects on change and reintegration
• the Family Discussion Group
• John Bowlby’s studies on mother-child separation
• the establishment of Family Systems Therapy
• the Socio-technical Systems approach with Fred Emery
©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 12
Toward a Social Ecology, 1972

13. LEON FESTINGER 1919–1989
• Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
– inconsistency among beliefs and behaviours will cause an
uncomfortable psychological tension
– people change their beliefs to fit their actual behaviour, rather than
the other way around, as popular wisdom suggests
• Social Comparison Theory
– how people evaluate their own opinions and desires by comparing
themselves with others
– how groups exert pressures on individuals to conform with group
norms and goals
• Social Network Theory
– showed how the formation of social ties among college freshmen
was predicted by the physical proximity between people, and not just
by similar tastes or beliefs, as laymen tend to believe.
©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 13
People tend to befriend their neighbours

14. DONALD SCHÖN 1930-1997
• A lifetime of interest in the subtle processes whereby
technological and other change is absorbed (or not) by social
systems
• “Generative metaphor”
– figurative descriptions of social situations, usually implicit and even
semi-conscious but that shape the way problems are tackled, for
example seeing a troubled inner-city neighbourhood as urban "blight"
and, hence, taking steps rooted in the idea of disease
• "Learning systems“
– exploring the possibility of learning at the supra-individual level
• Reflective practice inquiry
– the role of technical knowledge versus "artistry" in developing
professional excellence … see The Reflective Practitioner 1983
• “Reflective frames”
– of social problems which are otherwise taken for granted and can be
critically reconstructed in a shared way to solve “intractable policy
controversies” … see Frame Reflection with Martin Rein, 1994
©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 14

15. EDGAR SCHEIN 1928 –
• "Corporate culture“
– “basic tacit assumptions about how the world is and ought to be …
that a group of people share and that determines their perceptions,
thoughts, feelings, and their overt behavior" - Schein, 1996
“Even with rigorous study, we can only make
statements about elements of culture, not culture in
its entirety”
• Artefacts
– dress code, furniture, office jokes are surface aspects which are
easily discerned, being tangible or verbally identifiable, yet may be
hard to decipher
• Espoused Values
– desired and stated cultural elements are examples of conscious
justifications, strategies, goals and philosophies below artefacts
• Basic Assumptions and Values
– difficult to discern because they exist at a largely unconscious level,
yet they provide the key to understanding why things happen the
way they do – motives, aspirations, fears and other beliefs are hard
to recognize from within
©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 15

16. MARTIN SELIGMAN 1942 –
• Learned helplessness is a “condition … manifested by a
complete lack of incentive to do anything about one’s external
circumstances”
©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 16
Seligman, Helplessness, Freeman, New York, 1992
• Learned helplessness
– a psychological condition in which a human being or an animal has
learned to act or behave helplessly in a particular situation
– usually after experiencing some inability to avoid adverse situations
– even if it actually has power to change its unpleasant circumstance
• The same mechanism may mediate in individuals and groups
– the expectation of response ineffectiveness contributing to individual
and organisational ‘depression’ and inaction

17. PEOPLE GENERATE CHANGE BY
CREATING THE BELIEF THAT CHANGE CAN
©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 17
SUCCEED
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Testing
Depression/
Acceptance
Support
Time
Arousal

18. CHRIS ARGYRIS 1923 –
Individual and organizational
learning
• the extent to which human
reasoning (not just behaviour)
can become the basis for
diagnosis and action
©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 18
with Donald Schön
Key concepts
• Ladder of Inference
• Double-Loop Learning
Argyris & Schön 1974
• Theory of Action / Espoused
Theory / Theory-in-use
• High Advocacy/High Inquiry
dialogue
• Actionable Knowledge

19. Model 1 Theory-In-Use
Governing
Variables
Define goals and try to
achieve them
©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 19
Maximize winning
and minimize losing
Minimize generating or
expressing negative feelings
Be rational
Action
Strategies
Design and manage the
environment unilaterally (be
persuasive, appeal to larger
goals)
Own and control the
task (claim
ownership of the
task, be guardian of
definition and
execution of task)
Unilaterally protect yourself
(speak with inferred categories
accompanied by little or no
directly observable behaviour, be
blind to impact on others and to
the incongruity between rhetoric
and behaviour, reduce
incongruity by defensive actions
such as blaming, stereotyping,
suppressing feelings,
intellectualizing)
Unilaterally protect
others from being
hurt (withhold
information, create
rules to censor
information and
behaviour, hold
private meetings)
Consequences
for the
Behavioral
World
Actor seen as defensive,
inconsistent, incongruent,
competitive, controlling,
fearful of being vulnerable,
manipulative, withholding of
feelings, overly concerned
about self and others or under
concerned about others
Defensive
interpersonal and
group relationship
(dependence upon
actor, little additivity,
little helping of
others)
Defensive norms (mistrust, lack
of risk taking, conformitment,
emphasis on diplomacy, power-centred
competition, and rivalry)
Little freedom of
choice, internal
commitment, or risk
taking
Consequences
for Learning
Self-sealing Single-loop learning Little testing of theories publicly,
much testing of theories privately
Effectiveness Decreased effectiveness Argyris, Putnam & Smith, 1985,
Action Science, Ch. 3

20. Model 2 Theory-In-Use
Governing
Variables
Valid information Free and informed
©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 20
choice
Internal commitment to the choice
and constant monitoring of its
implementation
Action
Strategies
Design situations or
environments where participants
can be origins and can
experience high personal
causation (psychological
success, confirmation,
essentiality)
Tasks are controlled
jointly
Protection of self is a joint
enterprise and oriented toward
growth (speak in directly
observable categories, seek to
reduce blindness about own
inconsistency and incongruity)
Bilateral
protection of
others
Consequences
for the
Behavioral
World
Actor experienced as minimally
defensive (facilitator, collaborator,
choice creator)
Minimally defensive
interpersonal relations
and group dynamics
Learning-oriented norms (trust,
individuality, open confrontation
on difficult issues)
Consequences
for Learning
Disconfirmable processes Double-loop learning Public testing of theories
Consequences
for Quality of
Life
Quality of life will be more
positive than negative (high
authenticity and high freedom of
choice)
Effectiveness of
problem solving and
decision making will be
great, especially for
difficult problems
Effectiveness Increase long-run effectiveness Argyris, Putnam & Smith, 1985,
Action Science, Ch. 3

21. MARVIN WEISBORD 193x –
Contentment
©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 21
Denial
Renewal
Confusion

22. ©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 22
FUTURE SEARCH
• A 3-day planning meeting process which enables people to
cooperate in complex situations, high conflict and uncertainty
Four Principles
• Getting the “whole system in the room”
• Exploring all aspects of a system before trying to fix any part
• Putting common ground and future action front and centre
– treating problems and conflicts as information, not action items
• Having people accept responsibility for their own work,
conclusions, and action plans

23. BEYOND PRODUCTIVE WORKPLACES
• Future Search typically involves groups of 40 to 80 people in one
room and as many as 300 in parallel conferences
– People from diverse backgrounds use Future Searches to make
systemic improvements in their communities and organizations,
working entirely from their own experience
• Used with many social, technological and economic issues
– organize the demobilization child soldiers in Southern Sudan
– Integrate an economic development plan in Northern Ireland
– work with a Hawaiian community to reconnect with traditional values
– determine the future of urban mobility in Salt Lake City, Utah
• People achieve four outputs from one meeting
– shared values
– a plan for the future
– concrete goals
– an implementation strategy
©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 23
www.futuresearch.net

24. HOW CAN WE BUILD IN ENDURING,
CONSTRUCTIVE NORMS AND
I have pondered that question for many years. I doubt
that anybody can “build in” a technical insurance policy
for ongoing success that trumps people’s willingness to
keep revisiting worthy goals and to stay connected with
each other. The key leadership policy I advocate is
involving those who do the work in planning the work.
The best methods for doing that tend to be simple.
©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 24
PROCESSES?
• How can anybody be sure the plans people make are actually
carried out?
Productive Workplaces Revisited: Dignity, Meaning and Community in the 21st
Century, Marvin Weisbord; Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2004

25. WHAT’S IN OUR TOOLBOX?
As psychologists, we have evidence that people
don't change behaviour just because they are
rationally convinced
• They change instinctively because it is more convenient, more
acceptable, more safe and more expedient
• They change intellectually because they believe it will be better
for them, in their subjective and diverse meanings of 'better‘
Where can we apply this insight to assist action in
the interest of sustaining the planet on which we
live?
©O’Connor I/O PsycSoc Conf 2003 RAP p 25