Presentation for OS210 Organizational Communication, Goodwin College, East Hartford CT

1. Week 6
Chapter 10

2. Models of
Organizational Change

3. Models of
Organizational Change
 Change is constant as organizations evolve
and age, especially as we move further into
this new millennium.
 Organizations must organize for continuous
change to become flexible and adapt quickly
to environmental changes
 Mergers
 Layoffs
 Job redefinitions

4. Models of
Organizational Change
Start
up
Kimberly & Miles |
Hannan & Freeman –
80’s
Organizational
Decay Growth
Life Cycle
Harvest

5. Models of
Organizational Change
 The natural life cycle of an organization might
include:
 Start-up– company develops a market and
creates systems and procedures
 Growth – clients relationship are developed and
the size of the company grows
 Harvest – the company serves existing customers
 Decay stage – the services become less relevant
to the marketplace and the firm eventually folds
or is bought by another company.

6. Models of
Organizational Change
 Other models look at planned change
 Implementation not simple
 Disseminate information about the
change
 Integrate changes into the day-to-day
operations of the organization

7. Models of
Organizational Change
 Model of planned change (Connor &
Lake, 1994)
 Involve a number of different types of
change
(individual, behavior, organizational, process
es)
 It is accomplished using different methods
(technical, structural, managerial)

8. Models of
Organizational Change
 Schools introducing the new
method for teaching reading
because of the national
standard No Child Left
Behind initiative
 Changes in the school
population
 New developments in
elementary school

9. Models of
Organizational Change
 School‟s culture, textbooks, lesson plans,
community involvement and pressure make the
change complicated.

10. Models of
Organizational Change
 Many organizational
practitioners are concerned with
ways of managing change and
don‟t support the idea of just
letting the organizational life
cycle take its course.
 Successful organizations are
those that initiate
change, respond to change, plan
change and implement change
as an ongoing way of life.

12. Reactions to
Organizational Change
 Management support for the change
process is critical
 Senior management has the most
impact on change
 When senior management don‟t backup
the change, change effort is not
successful
 Ownership tension

13. Reactions to
Organizational Change
 Another area of concern in the change
process is the resistance to change.
 Change can threaten the organizational
culture of a workplace
 Company's core values
 Mission
 Work environment

14. Reactions to
Organizational Change
 Employees gain a
sense of group
identity and belonging
from organizational
culture.
 Fear is natural.

15. Reactions to
Organizational Change
 Resistance to Change
 Behavior that prevent
the implementation or
use of a system to
prevent systems
designers from
achieving their
objectives.

16. Reactions to
Organizational Change
 Reasons for Resistance
to change
 Ignorance of a
change initiative
 Inadequate training
 Fear

17. Reactions to
Organizational Change
 Another reaction to change is the
uncertainty of organizational members
because of
 Stress
 Anxiety
 Defense mechanism

18. Communication in the
Change Process
 Communication and Information
 The best ways to deal with
uncertainty and anxiety.

19. Communication in the
Change Process
 Employees prefer having negative
information to having no information about
organizational change.

20. How do communication activities
translate into meaningful
coordinated strategy?
 Assessment - to understand the territory
before taking action, and especially to identify
interests
 What are their key beliefs and values?
(cognitive)
 What is their emotional state? (emotional)
 What are they willing to do and why?
(intentions, interests)

21. Case Study

22. How do communication activities
translate into meaningful
coordinated strategy?
 Assessment - to understand the territory before taking
action, and especially to identify interests
 Evaluate the existing communication system
 What are the existing channels of communication?
 What are the communicative goals for each
channel?
 What types of messages are typically transmitted
in these channels?
 What is the target audience for each channel?

23. SMART Goal
 To educate 100% of employees about the
state of the business, by January, 2012 at
a cost of $3,000.

24. Strategies for Communicating
about Change
 Clampitt, DeKoch, and Cashman
(2000) proposed communication
strategies that management can use
in communicating about change to
employees.

25. Strategies for Communicating
about Change
 Spray & Pray: Executives shower
employees with all kinds of
information, hoping that employees will
be able to sort out the significant from
insignificant
 Tell & Sell: Executives communicate a
more limited set of messages, first
telling employees about the key
issues, then selling them on the wisdom
of their approach.

26. Strategies for Communicating
about Change
 Underscore & Explore: Executives focus
on developing a few core messages
clearly linked to organizational success,
while actively listening for potential
misunderstandings and unrecognized
obstacles.
 Identify & Reply: Executives identify key
employee concerns and then reply to them.

27. Strategies for Communicating
about Change
 Withhold & Uphold: Executives
withhold information until necessary.
Secrecy and control are the implicit
values of this strategy.

28. Strategies for
Communicating about
Change
 The Spray and Pray strategy creates the
illusion that everyone is informed.
 Spray and Pray and Withhold and Upload are
least effective.
 The Tell & Sell strategy demonstrates the
(cheer) leader‟s enthusiastic endorsement of
an initiative. But, no one ever asks for
employee feedback or checks to see if the
message was understood.

29. Strategies for Communicating
about Change
 The Underscore & Explore strategy is the
most effective strategy.
 It addresses fewer issues and explores
employee interpretations.
 It has the added benefit of creating
dialogue around a few core concepts
that have the greatest potential to
transform the organization.

30. Tactics to Implement Strategies
 Repetition & Redundancy
 Repeating a slogan while varying the
examples increases the likelihood to
hear, remember and act on a similar
message: Moving forward, We try harder
 Repetition also help to break the
resistance.
 Car license
tags, acronyms, conferences, newsletter
s, employee stories

31. Tactics to Implement Strategies
 Opinion Leaders
 Identify a leader who serves
a vital role in the social
structure of employees
 Provides insight and
expertise
 Clarify opinions for others
 Help the group make sense
of the organizational life
 set the norms for acceptable
and unacceptable behavior

32. Tactics to Implement Strategies
 Select the right Communication Channels
 Build new channels into the system to allow for the
routine and systematic discussion of key issues.
 Channels of communication, and the way they
are used, influence how messages are
interpreted.
 The channel choice symbolizes „importance‟.
 When announcing major changes, leaders should
use multiple channels because it increases the
probability employees will hear key messages.

33. Tactics to Implement Strategies
 Use “rich” channels, such as face-to-face
meetings, to allow for rapid feedback and quick
adaptation to employee concerns.
 Provoke Dialogue – a meaningful dialogue
promotes deeper commitment to the leader‟s
ideas, purpose or mission.

34. Tactics to Implement Strategies
 Check the pulse
 A survey to identify employee
concerns
 A Pulse Report with a summary of the
findings
 A “Talking Points” document, which is
a summary for managers, outlining
how executives think about the issues
drawn from the current Pulse. This
serves as the basis for the updates
managers provide to their employees.

35. 1.
Organizational Crisis
 Organizational crisis evolves in three stages
1. Precrisis – prevent or prepare for possible problems
 Have a crisis management plan and update it at least
annually.
 Have a designate crisis management team that is
properly trained.
 Conduct exercise at least annually to test the crisis
management plan and team.
 Pre-draft select crisis management messages including
content for dark web sites and templates for crisis
statements. Have the legal department review and
pre-approve these messages.

36. 1.
Organizational Crisis
2. Crisis – there is a trigger that can damage the
reputation of organizations; there is uncertainty
 Avoid the phrase “no comment” because people think
it means the organization is guilty or try to hide
something.
 Present information clearly by avoiding jargon or
technical terms. Lack of clarity makes people think
the organization is purposefully being confusing in
order to hide something.

37. 1.
Organizational Crisis
 Appear pleasant on camera by avoiding nervous
habits that people interpret as deception.
 Brief all potential spokespersons on the latest crisis
information and the key message points the
organization is trying to convey to stakeholders.

38. Organizational Crisis
3. Postcrisis – communication focuses on determining
responsibility, or apologizing and establishing systems
to deal with similar crisis in the future.
 Deliver all information promised to stakeholders as
soon as that information is known.
 Keep stakeholders updated on the progression of
recovery efforts including any corrective measures
being taken and the progress of investigations.
 Analyze the crisis management effort for lessons
and integrate those lessons in to the organization‟s
crisis management system.