This document summarizes a monthly discussion on organizational change myths. It includes: 1) A discussion of cognitive biases like confirmation bias that can undermine organizational change efforts. 2) Questions about whether urgency around change is overstated and can undermine credibility. Different levels of urgency are discussed, from creating a sense of concern to destroying attitudes. 3) A note that while research supports creating urgency, practitioners are uncertain, and overstating urgency risks appearing insincere.

1. Myth Busting
Organisational Change – Nos 2
Join the conversation 7-9pm GMT 7th September 2022
Presented by Alex Boulting
The aim of these monthly talks is to
crowd-source a body of knowledge from
people who have experience in
Organisational Change.

4. What’s the problem?
• Bayesian Updating - we hold onto our current beliefs & get into habitual ruts
• Active Inference – looking for confirmation of our world – confirmation bias
• Cognitive Candy - Highly intuitive – things generally are not simple KISS can make us stupid
• Waste of time & money - Could be learning other things
• Negative outcomes – could end up hurting people
• Undermine our practice – we loose credibility particularly other psychological practices

5. 04
03
02
01
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03
04
03
02
01
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02
03 04
S
L
E
I
Deduction
(inference from facts) Experts
Induction
(inference from observation) Education
Consultants
Institutions
Abduction
(inference from what you
‘know’ )
Knowledge
Pattern Matching
Agency
Practitioner Organisational
Stakeholder
Academic
Active Inference we seek
information that makes our
predictions of our reality true. This
‘reality’ is our mental model - a
bias. Our reality is a self fulfilling
perceptual prediction.
Authority – information that
is repeated within a systems
creates a ‘narrative’ where you
assume people know what they
are talking about. A relational &
conceptual beliefs.
Empirical – objective
observation used to test
hypothesis “seeing is believing”
- ‘empirical reality’ used in
evidence-based practice
Automatic –”Automatically
generated solutions without long
logical arguments or evidence”
subject to cognitive bias Experience
INTERNAL EXTERNAL

6. Today’s Session

7. How do we know?

8. Is this a Valid Construct…?
COHERENCE
Definition + Scope + Relationship = Coherence and CONSTRUCT VALIDITY. How can we claim to
have a body of knowledge if we don’t have valid constructs?
RELATIONSHIP
No construct is an island so where is the body of knowledge that underpins Kotter & ADKAR when they
have no (or few) references in their books.
SCOPE
Space = Kubler Ross extrapolation from grief counselling to Organisational Change, Time = Kotter’s
19thC model applied to 20thC problems and Values Judgements = “brains hate change” extrapolation
from Neuroscience
DEFINITION
Precise distinctions from other concepts. Change Management = “people side of change” – a circular
tautology or clear definition?
Suddaby, R. 2010. Construct clarity in theories of management and organization. Academy of Management Review, 35: 346-357.
Construct = an abstract categorisation of observations - exist in our brain only ;)

9. Spotting a dodgy concept
01
02
03
04
05
LOGICALLY POSSIBLE
UNIQUELY & CLEARLY
DEFINED
MEANINGFUL MEASURES
PREDICABLE
ETHICAL
We cannot defy the laws of physics so there are no
miracles. Equally there is no ‘truth’ so there must be a
possibility of it being wrong.
Vague definitions are hard to disprove. New ideas might
be ‘old wine in new bottles’ which creates confusion and
narrows our understanding.
Clear terminology so that results can be reproduced by
others. Need to measure what we claim to observe. Does it
feel overly complicated?
Operationalising a construct means that it can consistently
predict outcomes and is testable. Is it correlation or causality?
Do we feel comfortable doing this even if it works? What impact will it
have on other factors?

10. 04
05
06
Cutting edge consultants
extrapolate findings to wide
applications
Managers become the evangelists
resulting in self-fulfilling prophecies
Review of original findings sows
scepticism. Concept now makes
consultants look outdated. Everyone
smartly moves on.
Academic
Discovery 01
02
03
A modest cautious complicated contextual
discovery showing a causal link between
two factors.
High powered simplified presentation
embellishing the ‘discovery’ creates a
‘buzz’ & repetition makes it stronger
One idea becomes a book
released by a ‘guru’ with a catchy
title
Doubt
&
Defection
Cult-like Following
Consultancy Hype
Popularisation
Study Description
Pop psychology
The Fad & Fashion Funnel
“Thinking scientifically is a
skill. Scepticism is healthy;
cynicism is not. In order to be
a discriminating “purchaser” of
management ideas we need
to evaluate the evidence for
them.“
Fads and Fashions in Management - July 20,
2015 - Adrian Furnham Professor of
Psychology University College London –
European Business Review

11. 04
05
06
Create some generic questions that
fit with attributes of athletic leaders
e.g., resilient in face of set-backs
H1 - Athletic leaders create positive
results or produce more athletic
followers
Find a company to run survey, test
hypothesis & with some statistical jiggery-
pockery publish results & claim a new
construct
Positive
Adjective 01
02
03
Think of a positive adjective such as
‘authentic’ ‘spiritual’ or ‘athletic’
Make up some attributes for ‘athletic’
leaders e.g., winners, driven, demand
the very best etc.
Find inspiring quotes & interviews
from CEOs who mention attributes in
Step 2
Test
Hypothesis
Formulate
Hypothesis
Create a Questionnaire
Gather Evidence
Imagine a Theory
DIY Leadership
How to invent a new leadership style
“Without this (critical thinking*)
we have a pseudo-science.
Researchers into authentic
leadership have fallen into this
trap, willingly. For now, they
show not desire to escape
from it”
Management Studies in Crisis - 2019 – Dennis
Tourish Professor of Leadership and
Organization Studies at Royal Holloway,
University of London
*my summary of a quote from Richard Feyman that
Tourish uses in his book

13. 13

14. Poll Results

16. Constant Change
FREE ENERGY
=
Divergence –Evidence
Discrepancy between our model & the world = prediction error
PERCEPTION – change beliefs to
minimise divergence
ACTION – change observations to
maximise evidence
CHANGE YOUR MIND CHANGE YOUR WORLD
PREDICTION OBSERVATION
BEING – Sensory States DOING – Active States

18. Individual
Group
Social Change

19. The Origins of N-Step Change Model
01
02
1. The Develop Of A Need For Change (“unfreezing”), 2. Establishment of
Change 3. Relationship, Working Toward Change (“moving”), 4.
Generalisation & Stabilisation of Change (“freezing”) & 5. Achieving A
Terminal Relationship
Lippit’s 5-steps – 1958
1. Creating A Sense of Concern, 2. Developing A Specific Commitment to
Change, 3. Pushing For Major Change, 4. Reinforcing & Consolidating
New Course
Phillip’s 4 Steps – McKinsey & Co - 1983
1. Create Urgency 2. Form a Powerful Coalition 3. Create a Vision for
Change. 4. Communicate the Vision. 5. Remove Obstacles. 6. Create Short-
Term Wins. 7. Build on the Change. 8. Anchor the Changes in Corporate
Culture.
Kotter’s 7 Steps – 1995

20. 10 Problems with N-step Change Models
Mental Models
Time
to
Change?
Practice
Lack Of
Evidence
Out Of Date
Extraordinary
Extrapolations
Gloomy Vision
Self Fulfilling
Top Down
Project Based
Closed
Episodic
Linear

21. Bayesian Updating Getting the complete picture
Sensory Input
(‘New’ Evidence -
Change)
Current Beliefs
(Unfreeze) Future Beliefs
(Refreeze)
Organisational
Academic
Stakeholder
Our Knowledge
Our Experience
Our Current
model of the
world
New mental
model of the
world
Organisation’s most
likely situation 1
2
3
4

23. Research seems to
support the claim
but practitioners are
unsure?

24. Challenging
Status Quo
Creating Pain
Urgency Continuum
Not Accepting BAU
“Strong and widespread
felt need for change
although the direction of
change is not clear yet
Phillips (1983)
Sense of
Concern
“To break open the shell of
complacency and
self‐righteousness it is
sometimes necessary to
bring about an emotional
stir up”. Lewin (1943)
Organisations are
“canyons of complacency”
Kotter (2012)
Emotional
Stir-up
“support for attitudes have
to be undermined and
destroyed if change is to
take place.” Schein (1962)
Destroy
Attitudes
“Orchestrating pain
messages throughout an
institution is the first step in
developing organisational
commitment to change”
Conner
‘create a crisis’ Kotter
(2012)
Create a Crisis
Do we know what we are talking about?
“Hiatt (2006) warns against overselling change by putting too much stress on the urgency of every change—reducing credibility.
Similarly, Kanter et al. (1992: 383) caution that messages of urgency might appear to “cry wolf” and “fail to induce a felt need for
change.“
“it is difficult to make much
progress…of a major
change effort unless most
managers honestly believe
that the status quo is
unacceptable” (p51) (2012)
Decreasing likelihood of change success