1. Managing and Leading Change
Warren Watson
Arizona State University
2012

2. Why Do We Care About Change?
• We’re living in a period where most
organizations, including this newspaper, are
undergoing significant organizational change.
• Managers must learn to embrace, lead and
manage change to survive and thrive.
• This means adopting management styles that are
open, flexible and decentralized.
• Problem is: Most of us resist change even though
it may lead to improvements.

3. What is Change:
Textbook Definition?
“Vast, titanic force hurtling us on a roller-
coaster adventure of seething white-water
chaos, threatening to grind us like
roadkill!”
--- Training Magazine

4. Ways to Promote Organizational Change
• Establish a sense of urgency
• Develop a vision and strategy
• Communicate the change vision
• Empower staffers to action
• Generate short-term wins
• Consolidate gains, then produce more change
• Anchor new approaches in the culture
--- Sources: John Kotter, “Leading Change;” Kathy
Rutkowski

5. The Stages of Change
As in death and divorce, those going through
change reach various stages of experience:
• 1) Denial
• 2) Anger
• 3) Bargaining
• 4) Despair
• 5) Acceptance

6. Challenges to Change
• “We don’t have time • “This stuff isn’t
for this stuff” relevant”
• “The stuff isn’t • “We keep reinventing
working” the wheel”
• “Where are we going • “They never let us do
with this” this stuff”
• “We don’t have • “We’ve tried this
enough help” before”

7. Why People Resist Change
• No one has sold the reasons for change
effectively enough
• There is low tolerance for change
• Parochial self interest gets in the way
• There is misunderstanding and lack of trust
“Most failures can be traced to a lack of
commitment … Commitment is the glue that
binds the people and goals behind change.”
--- Tom Silvestri, Media General Inc.

8. Techniques in Managing Change
• Create a strategy to help change, and
communicate, communicate, communicate
• Terminate the present
• ID and explain new performance requirements
• Allow some “learning” mistakes
• Create apparatuses that reward desired new
behavior more

9. More Techniques
• Train to improve skills
• Reinforce expectations
• Give consistent and supportive feedback
• Celebrate short-term victories
• Continue to encourage innovation,
creativity
• Do things face to face!

10. 6 Ways of Dealing with Resistance
1) Education and Communication
• When to use: Lack of information or facts
• Advantage: Once persuaded, people will
help

11. 6 Ways of Dealing with Resistance
2) Participation and involvement
• When to use: Designers of change need
information; others have power to resist
• Advantage: Participants commit to change;
new information is added

12. 6 Ways of Dealing with Resistance
3) Facilitation and support
• When to use: Where people are resisting
because of adjustment difficulties
• Advantage: Although time consuming, this
is the only road to counter adjustment
problems

13. 6 Ways of Dealing with Resistance
4) Negotiation and agreement
• When to use: When clear that an individual
or group will clearly lose out
• Advantage: An easy way to avoid major
resistance

14. 6 Ways of Dealing with Resistance
5) Manipulation
• When to use: Where other options are too
expensive or won’t work
• Advantage: Relatively quick and
inexpensive

15. 6 Ways of Dealing with Resistance
6) Coercion
• When to use: Where speed is essential
• Advantage: A speedy way to combat
resistance

16. Making it Permanent
Making it permanent means the change is
no longer viewed as tentative, is a matter of
routine, and is now the norm. If you arrive
at this stage, change becomes instinctual.
This is ultimate level of commitment.
--- Harvard Business Review

17. Managing Through Change;
Managing Through a Distraction
• Some lessons from Carly Fiorina,
chairwoman and chief executive officer of
Hewlett-Packard Co.
• Fiorina led a long and storied fight to win a
merger with Compaq Computer Corp.

18. 5 Lessons Learned
1) Have a strategic vision and a peripheral
vision, so you can look ahead and look
around.

19. Lessons Learned
2) Be proactive in communicating
constantly and thoroughly with your staff
through face-to-face meetings, emails and
voice mails.

20. Lessons Learned
3) Manage and act with flexibility. Stuff
happens!

21. Lessons Learned
4) Build your team. Success is always
derived from the right people and
teamwork.

22. Fiorina’s Lessons
5) Trust that you know more about your
business or specialty than outside observers
and critics. Be confident.

23. ‘A Strong Internal Compass’
“Leadership requires a strong internal
compass. You have to have a strong sense
of what you will need and what you think is
right, because there are a million things
that can blow you off course (during
change.”
--- Carly Fiorina, Hewlett-Packard Co., as told to
the Wall Street Journal

24. “Learn and Move On’
“The truth is I don’t spend a lot of time on
hindsight. When you make a mistake, you
have to learn from it and move on.”
--- Carly Fiorina, Hewlett-Packard Co.

25. Change is a Process
Jellison’s J-Curve:
1) Status quo
2) Taking the plunge
3) Bottoming out
4) Gaining ground
5) Success and mastery!

26. Another Process
Three steps:
1) Preparation
2) Acceptance
3) Commitment
Committed change: Employees own the
change. They add enthusiasm and high-energy
involvement.
--- Tom Silvestri, Media General Co.

27. Change Style Indicator
• This Discovery instrument captures your preferred
style in approaching change
• Identifies you as conserver, pragmatist or originator
• Conservers prefer gradual and incremental change
• Originators prefer a faster and more radical
approach to change
• Pragmatists prefer change that is functional and
more reflective of the demands of a situation

28. Conservers
• Appear disciplined, precise, methodical,
cautious
• Prefer solutions that are tested and proven
• Accept conventional assumptions
• Enjoy predictability
• Prefer group problem-solving, decision-making
• Improve efficiency, maximize continuity and
stability
• Sometimes confuse the means with the end

29. Originators
• May appear undisciplined, disorganized, abstract
and spontaneous
• Prefer quick and expansive change
• Challenge accepted assumptions
• Enjoy risk-taking
• Sometimes focus on individual contributions
• Appear as visionary in their thinking
• May treat accepted policies and procedures with
little regard.

30. Pragmatists
• May appear practical, agreeable and flexible
• Are more focused on results than structure and
organization
• Serve as mediators and bridgers
• See both sides of an argument
• Explore accepted assumptions when appropriate
• May take a more middle-of-the-road approach
• Solve problems in ways that emphasize
workable outcomes

31. Perceptions: Conservers v/v Originators
Conservers see originators as:
--- Disruptive
--- Disrespectful of tradition and history
--- Generators of turbulent work
environments
--- Insensitive to the feelings of others
--- Wanting change for the sake of
change

32. Perceptions: Originators v/v Conservers
Originators see conservers as:
--- Dogmatic
--- Hesitant to try new ideas
--- Compliant to authority
--- Stuck within the system
--- Defenders of the status quo

33. Perceptions: Pragmatists
Pragmatists can be perceived by strong
conservers AND originators as:
--- Compromising
--- Mediating
--- Indecisive
--- Easily influenced
--- Non-committal

34. Sources
• Tom Silvestri, Media General Inc.
• Discovery Learning
• Wall Street Journal
• Harvard Business Review