Approaches to Managing
Organizational Change

Prepared By
Kindly restrict the use of slides for personal purpose.
Please seek permission to reproduce the same in public forms and presentations.
Manu Melwin Joy
Assistant Professor
Ilahia School of Management Studies
Kerala, India.
Phone – 9744551114
Mail – manu_melwinjoy@yahoo.com

Three stage model
• One of the cornerstone models
for understanding organizational
change was developed by Kurt
Lewin back in the 1940s, and still
holds true today.
• His model is known as Unfreeze –
Change – Refreeze, refers to the
three-stage process of change he
describes.
• Kurt Lewin, a physicist as well as
social scientist, explained
organizational change using the
analogy of changing the shape of
a block of ice.

Three stage model
Unfreezing RefreezingMoving
• Provide rationale
for change
• Create minor
levels of
guilt/anxiety about
not changing
• Create sense of
psychological
safety concerning
change
• Provide information
that suspects
proposed changes
• Bring about actual
shifts in behavior
• Implement new
evaluation systems
• Implement new
hiring and promotion
systems
Kurt Lewin

Three stage model

Three stage model
• Unfreezing is the process which
involves finding a method of making it
possible for people to let go of an old
pattern that was counterproductive in
some way.
• Unfreezing is necessary to overcome
the strains of individual resistance and
group conformity.
• Unfreezing can be achieved by the use
of these three methods.
– Increase the driving forces that direct
behavior away from the existing
situation or status quo.
– Decrease the restraining forces that
negatively affect the movement from
the existing equilibrium.
– Find a combination of the two
methods listed above.

Three stage model
• Movement stage involves a process of
change in thoughts, feeling, behavior, or
all three, that is in some way more
liberating or more productive.
• Once team members have opened up
their minds, change can start. The change
process can be dynamic and, if it is to be
effective, it will probably take some time
and involve a transition period.
• In order to gain efficiency, people will
have to take on new tasks and
responsibilities, which entail a learning
curve that will at first slow the
organization down.
• A change process has to be viewed as an
investment, both in terms of time and
the allocation of resources: after the new
organization and processes have been
rolled out.

Three stage model
• Change will only reach its full
effect if it’s made permanent.
Once the organizational
changes have been made and
the structure has regained its
effectiveness, efforts should be
made to cement them and
make sure the new
organization reaches the
standard.
• “Re-freezing” gives people the
opportunity to thrive in the
new organization and take full
advantage of the change.

Changing People: Some Basic
Steps
Recognizing the
need for change
Attempting to
create a new state
of affairs
Incorporating the changes,
creating and maintaining a
new organizational system
Step 1: Unfreezing
Step 3: Refreezing
Step 2: Changing

Case study
• The oil company had three
divisional offices in the West,
located in Seattle, San
Francisco, and Los Angeles.
• The decision was made to
consolidate the divisions in
to a single regional office to
be located in San Francisco.
• The reorganization meant
transferring over 150
employees, eliminating some
duplicate managerial
positions, and instituting a
new hierarchy of command

UNFREEZING
• The status quo can be considered to
be an equilibrium state. To move
from this equilibrium to overcome
the pressures of both individual
resistance and group conformity
unfreezing is necessary. It can be
achieved in one of three ways.
• The driving forces, which direct
behavior away from the status quo,
can be increased.
• The restraining forces, which hinder
movement from the existing
equilibrium, can be decreased.
• A third alternative is to combine the
first two approaches.

Movement
• The oil company’s management
could expect employee resistance
to the consolidation. To deal with
that resistance, management could
use positive incentive to encourage
employees to accept the change,
such as these;
• Increase in pay can be offered to
those who accept the transfer.
• The company can pay liberal
moving expenses.
• Management might offer low cost
mortgage funds to allow
employees to buy new homes in
San Francisco.

Movement
• Employees could be counseled individually.
Each employee’s concerns and
apprehensions could be heard and
specifically clarified.
• Assuming that most of the fears are
unjustified, the counselor could assure the
employees that there was nothing to fear
and then demonstrate, through tangible
evidence, that restraining forces are
unwarranted.
• If resistance is extremely high, management
mat have to resort to both reducing
resistance and increasing the attractiveness
of the alternative if the unfreezing is to be
successful.
• To be effective, change has to happen
quickly. Organizations that build up to
change do less well than those that get to
and through the movement stage quickly.

Refreezing
• Once the consolidation change
has been implemented, if it is to
be successful, the new situation
needs to be refrozen so that it
can be sustained over time.
• Unless this last step is taken,
there is a very high chance that
the change will be short lived
and that employees will attempt
to revert to the previous
equilibrium state.
• The objective of refreezing, then,
is to stabilize the new situation
by balancing the driving and
restraining forces.

Force Field Analysis
• It provides a framework for
looking at the factors (forces)
that influence a situation,
originally social situations.
• It looks at forces that are either
driving movement toward a goal
(helping forces) or blocking
movement toward a goal
(hindering forces).
• The principle, developed by Kurt
Lewin.

Force Field Analysis
• Driving forces are forces
that push in a direction
that causes change to
occur.
• Driving forces facilitate
change because they push
the person in the desired
direction.
• They cause a shift in the
equilibrium towards
change.

Force Field Analysis
• Restraining forces are
forces that counter driving
forces.
• Restraining forces hinder
change because they push
the person in the
opposition direction
• Restraining forces cause a
shift in the equilibrium
which opposes change.

Force Field Analysis
• Equilibrium is a state
of being where driving
forces equal
restraining forces and
no change occurs
• Equilibrium can be
raised or lowered by
changes that occur
between the driving
and restraining forces.

Desired
Conditions
Current
Conditions
Before
Change
After
Change
Driving
Forces
Restraining
Forces
Force Field Analysis
During
Change
Driving
Forces
Restraining
Forces Driving
Forces
Restraining
Forces

KOTTER’S EIGHT STEP MODEL
• 30 years of research by leadership
guru Dr. John Kotter have proven that
70% of all major change efforts in
organizations fail.
• Why do they fail?
• Because organizations often do not take
the holistic approach required to see
the change through.
• However, by following the 8 Step
Process outlined by Professor Kotter,
organizations can avoid failure and
become adept at change. By improving
their ability to change, organizations
can increase their chances of success,
both today and in the future.

KOTTER’S EIGHT STEP MODEL
• In “Leading Change” (1996), Dr. John Kotter
outlined an 8-Stage Process to Creating Major
Change:

Step 1: Create Urgency
• Develop a sense of urgency around
the need for change. This may help
you spark the initial motivation to
get things moving.
• Open an honest and convincing
dialogue about what's happening
in the marketplace and with your
competition.
• What you can do:
– Identify potential threats, and
develop scenarios showing what
could happen in the future.
– Examine opportunities that should
be, or could be, exploited.
– Start honest discussions, and give
dynamic and convincing reasons to
get people talking and thinking.

Step 2: Form a Powerful Coalition
• Bring together a coalition, or
team, of influential people whose
power comes from a variety of
sources, including job title, status,
expertise, and political
importance.
• Once formed, your "change
coalition" needs to work as a
team.
• What you can do:
– Identify the true leaders in your
organization.
– Ask for an emotional commitment
from these key people.
– Work on team building within your
change coalition.
– Check your team for weak areas.

Step 3: Create a Vision for Change
• Link ideas and concepts to an
overall vision.
• A clear vision can help everyone
understand why you're asking
them to do something.
• What you can do:
– Determine the values that are
central to the change.
– Develop a short summary (one or
two sentences) that captures what
you "see" as the future of your
organization.
– Create a strategy to execute that
vision.

Step 4: Communicate the Vision
• Communicate the vision more
frequently and powerfully, and
embed it within everything that you
do.
• Use the vision daily to make
decisions and solve problems.
When you keep it fresh on
everyone's minds, they'll remember
it and respond to it.
• What you can do:
– Talk often about your change vision.
– Openly and honestly address
peoples' concerns and anxieties.
– Apply your vision to all aspects of
operations – from training to
performance reviews.
– Tie everything back to the vision.

Step 5: Remove Obstacles
• Put in place the structure for
change, and continually check for
barriers to it.
• Removing obstacles can
empower the people you need to
execute your vision, and it can
help the change move forward.
• What you can do:
– Identify, or hire, change leaders
whose main roles are to deliver
the change.
– Recognize and reward people for
making change happen.
- Identify people who are resisting
the change.
– Take action to quickly remove
barriers (human or otherwise).

Step 6: Create Short-term Wins
• Create short-term targets –
not just one long-term goal.
• Each "win" that you produce
can further motivate the
entire staff.
• What you can do:
– Look for sure-fire projects
that you can implement
without help from any strong
critics of the change.
– Don't choose early targets
that are expensive.
– Reward the people who help
you meet the targets.

Step 7: Build on the Change
• Each success provides an
opportunity to build on what
went right and identify what
you can improve.
• What you can do:
– After every win, analyze what
went right and what needs
improving.
– Set goals to continue building
on the momentum you've
achieved.
– Keep ideas fresh by bringing in
new change agents and
leaders for your change
coalition.

Step 8: Anchor the Changes in
Corporate Culture
• Make continuous efforts to ensure that the change
is seen in every aspect of your organization.
• It's also important that your company's leaders
continue to support the change. This includes
existing staff and new leaders who are brought in.
• What you can do:
– Talk about progress every chance you get.
- Include the change ideals and values when
hiring and training new staff.
– Create plans to replace key leaders of change
as they move on. This will help ensure that
their legacy is not lost or forgotten.

Systems Theory
• Systems Theory was first
introduced by Van
Bertalanffy (1950) and was
introduced into the
organisational setting by
Kataz and Khan (1966).
• Systems theory is an
approach to organisations
which likens the enterprise
to an organism with
interdependent parts, each
with its own specific
function and interrelated
responsibilities.

Systems Theory
• The system may be the
whole organisation, a
division, department or
team; but whether the
whole or a part, it is
important for the OD
practitioner to
understand how the
system operates, and the
relationship the parts of
the organisation have.

Systems Theory
• The emphasis in OD is that that
real systems are open to, and
interact with, their
environments, and it is possible
to acquire new properties
through emergence, resulting
in continual evolution.
• Rather than reducing an
organisation to the properties
of its parts or elements,
systems theory focuses on the
arrangement of and relations
between the parts which
connect them into a whole.

Systems Theory
• The organization is an open system, which
interacts with the environment and is
continually adapting and improving.
• The organisation influences and is
influenced by the environment in which it
operates
• If an organisation is to be effective it must
pay attention to the external
environment, and take steps to adjust
itself to accommodate the changes in
order to remain relevant
• All part of the organisation are
interconnected and interdependent
• If one part of the system is affected, all
parts are.
• It is not possible to know everything
about the system, but if you look hard
enough there are plenty of clues.

Burke-Litwin change model
• The Burke-Litwin change
model revolves around
defining and establishing a
cause-and-effect relationship
between 12 organizational
dimensions that are key to
organizational change.
• Let’s take a look at how this
change model can make the
process easier.

Burke-Litwin change model
• External Environment: The key
external factors that have an
impact on the organization must
be identified and their direct and
indirect impact on the
organization should be clearly
established.
• Mission and Strategy: the vision,
mission and the strategy of the
organization, as defined by the
top management should be
examined in terms of the
employees’ point-of-view about
them.

Burke-Litwin change model
• Leadership: A study of the
leadership structure of the
organization should be carried
out, which clearly identifies the
chief role models in the
organization.
• Organizational Culture: An
organizational culture study
should seek information on the
explicit as well as the implied
rules, regulations, customs,
principles and values that
influence the organizational
behavior.

Burke-Litwin change model
• Structure: The study of
structure should not be
confined to hierarchical
structure; rather it should be a
function based structure
focusing on the responsibiliity ,
authority, communication,
decision making and control
structure that exists between
the people of the organization.
• Systems: Systems includes all
types of policies and procedures
with regards to both the people
and the operations of the
organization.

Burke-Litwin change model
• Management Practices: This
would entail a study of how well
the mangers conform to the
organization’s strategy when
dealing with employees and the
resources.
• Work Unit Climate: It is a
collective study of how the
employees think, feel and what
do they expect. The kind of
relationships the employees
share with their team members
and members of other teams is
also an important aspect of
work unit climate.

Burke-Litwin change model
• Tasks and Skills: This involves
understanding what a specific job
position demands and the kind of
skills and knowledge that an
employee must have in order to fulfill
the task responsibilities of that job
position. It’s important to see how
well jobs and employees have been
matched.
• Individual Values and Needs: This
dimension seeks to explore the
employee’s opinion about their work
so as to identify the quality factors
that will result in job enrichment and
better job satisfaction.

Burke-Litwin change model
• Motivation Level: Identifying the
motivation level of the employees
will make it easier to determine
how willingly they would put in
their efforts to achieve
organizational goals. This would
also involve identifying
motivational triggers.
• Individual and Overall
Performance: This dimension takes
into account the level of
performance, on individual and
organizational levels, in key areas
like productivity, quality, efficiency,
budget and customer satisfaction
etc.

Porras & Robertson Model
• Porras & Robertson outline four types of
organizational change based on the category
of change (planned or unplanned) and its
order (first or second).

Porras & Robertson Model
• Planned change originates with a
decision made by the organization
itself with the deliberate purpose of
improving its functioning.
• It is also common to engage an
outside resource to help in the
processes of making these
improvements.
• Planned change is typically initiated
to respond to new external
demands imposed upon the
organization.
• Planned change will often affect
many unforeseen segments of the
organization.

Porras & Robertson Model
• Unplanned change is change
that originates outside of the
organizational system and to
which the organization must
respond.
• This adaptive response is often
focused on the alteration of
relatively clearly defined and
narrow segments of the
organization.
• It is spontaneous, evolutionary,
fortuitous, or accidental.

Porras & Robertson Model
• First-order change, linear and
continuous in nature, involves
alterations in system
characteristics without any
shift in either fundamental
assumptions about key
organizational cause-and-
effect relationships or in the
basic paradigm used by the
system to guide its
functioning.

Porras & Robertson Model
• Second-order change is a
multi-dimensional, multi-
level, qualitative,
discontinuous, radical
organizational change
involving a paradigmatic
shift.