Organizational Change Management can lean on at least six major models to help provide the checklist of To DOs and Whys. But why are there so many? Different models have diferent assumptions about how Because all models caution about destabilization, and each model offers a point of view on how to account for restabilization. This new discussion starts the argument for why certain things will wind up in every model going forward.

1. Modeling Change
Management
Against The Odds
An archestra notebook
©2013 Malcolm Ryder / archestra

2. Why to Change
An interesting fact of current management is the difficulty of keeping up with the acceleration of
changes in demand. Most managers are experiencing that the problem has gone from being a
special one during exceptional periods, to being a typical one during normal periods.
Grappling with risks to performance, these decision makers must deal with how to deliver highquality outputs with high variety at higher frequency. The immediately apparent solutions often
pose a threat – bringing interruptions to many of the very things that had formerly been critical
success factors, such as: economies of scale, optimization of procedures, clear divisions of
resources, and continuous improvement.
However, learning from markets and engineering, analysts and managers recognize some new
architectures that help to fit the bill when facing ongoing volatility in the diversity of incoming
demand.

3. How to Change
In these newer architectures, independent but loosely “coupled” services, having standardized
interfaces, collaborate on composing and performing the processing needed to meet a request.
Their interactions are not spontaneous; but they are individually responsive to sudden demand
without having to alter their own configuration, and their interactions are highly regular.
Groups of such services provide a virtual network for processing, and in that network, different
demands get routed in real time through the simplest available path that works with accountable
effectiveness. As a result, depending on the speed of throughput, the network has the agility to
keep up with volatile demand.
For this to work, the fulfillment of a demand must be decomposed into available procedural
segments, which are orchestrated to produce and provide the response. The interactions of services
are orchestrated for the production. Service interactions run at a scale allowing incremental
outputs, which are then combined by other services to generate additional or more “final” result.

4. What to Change
Systems engineers build this “network” so that agility can be readily orchestrated. The modularity of
functions, and the sizing of requests for processing, are both designed for co-operation without the
rigidity of “hard-wired” integration.
The systematic purpose-driven behavior
available from that architecture makes its
design a compelling example of how to
organize for performance under the priority of
agility.
As a result, it points out that in the big picture
(as at right), changing the system is where most
of the difference is made in restructuring for
performance against demand.

5. The market for Change Management
An enterprise is a goal-oriented organization functioning as a system. The goal of the organization is the
purpose of the system.
Organizations rely on the stability of the system to provide predictability to the use of competencies. But this
stability is a behavior. If the behavior of the system diverges from the goal of the organization, the organization
can fail.
Increasingly, the organization’s prospects for achieving its goal are affected by external pressures that change in
source, intensity and duration.
That environment of operation increases the complexity of leveraging systemic abilities and conditions.
The complexity consists of variability in the availability and control of the abilities and conditions when faced
with ongoing changes in demand and in the impact of events.
To manage complexity, managing variability is the essential problem to solve.
Managing responses to variability is the required proof of success. The probability of successful response
should be targeted, to set the feasible scope of change.
Organizations rely on analysts to determine whether there is a need to change, and on managers to enact it.
What remains elusive is certainty that, in a frequently morphing environment, the change will be sufficient to
generate enough value to justify its adoption.

6. Change Definition
The difference between the organization and the system is the same as the difference between goal
and purpose. Goals qualify purposes. Purpose supports goal-seeking.
The organization has the goal. However, a system has two outstanding characteristics that
distinguish it by type; a system has a purpose and a behavior.
Structure is an element of both purpose and of behavior. The role of structure is to provide
persistent support.
• The support is for the conditions making up sustainable purpose and sustainable behavior.
• Purpose is made up of resolve, priority and awareness. It is reflected in logic and decisions.
• Behavior is made up of technique, intensity, and activity. It is reflected in constraints and
methods.
Managed change is a restructuring of the system.

7. Structure subject to Change
Persistence in the support for purpose and behavior is vital to two main issues: planning and action.
A plan is characterized mainly by how it prescribes constraints and logic.
Action is characterized mainly by how it coordinates decisions and methods.
PLAN
DO
PLAN
DO
(BEHAVIOR)
CONSTRAINTS
METHODS
(PURPOSE)
LOGIC
DECISIONS
Technique
Propriety
Standards
Resolve
Advantage
Objective
Intensity
Risk
Scale
Priority
Importance
Requirement
Activity
Permission
Skill
Awareness
Validity
Urgency
©2013 Malcolm Ryder / archestra
The tables above show the conditions making up behavior and purpose. Given the factors identified above for
planning and action, support has an agenda to provide, maintain, and synchronize them. Persistence means that there
are mechanisms in place to continually assure that provision, maintenance and synchronization.
As part of support, the correspondence of the system (behavior) to the organization (purpose) needs to be at
minimum discoverable and at best designed. Behavior supports purpose when it aligns with the logic of the purpose.

8. Benefit of the Structure
The basis of persistence in the support for purpose and behavior consists of culture
and intelligence.
• Culture is represented by the prevalent values that exert influence on the
direction and approval of actions and events.
• Intelligence is represented by the communications that exert influence on the
retention and perspectives of information.
Modifications in culture and/or intelligence can be catalysts for changes that may
affect the relationship of the system (behavior) to the organization (goal).
Management works to make these affects mainly intentional.
The general label for the relationship of the behavior to the goal is “performance” –
however, because of that term’s usual emphasis on final outcomes, it is more
precise to say that the relationship is the performance potential.

9. Culture of Behaviors and Purpose
Culture is represented by the prevalent values that exert influence on the direction
and approval of actions and events. Here are those influential values:
CONSTRAINTS
METHODS
Provide
Policies
Rules
Maintain
Thresholds
Responsibility
Synchronize
Processes
Qualifications
(PURPOSE)
LOGIC
DECISIONS
Provide
Strategy
Mission
Maintain
Accounting
Authority
Synchronize
Models
Schedule
©2013 Malcolm Ryder / archestra
(BEHAVIOR)

10. Intelligence of Behaviors and Purpose
Intelligence is represented by the prevalent communications that exert influence on
the retention and circulation of information. Here are those influential
communications:
CONSTRAINTS
METHODS
Provide
Governance
Roles
Maintain
Audits
Services
Synchronize
Assignments
Training
(PURPOSE)
LOGIC
DECISIONS
Provide
Marketing
Targets
Maintain
Reporting
Measurement
Synchronize
Surveys
Alerts
©2013 Malcolm Ryder / archestra
(BEHAVIOR)

11. The Challenge of Change Adoption
When change is being considered, it is easy to hold the presumption that new information will
provoke action to generate the desired events. The linearity of that ideal causality is attractive.
But typically, what actually happens is that information is generated, distributed and interpreted in
many different ways that can cause less predictable, and far less linear, adoption of the argument
for change.
Another issue in promoting change is the disparity that may exist regarding the readiness of
different identified stakeholders to tolerate the discussion. The timing of proposed changes can
cause the proposal to compete against significant progress already being made and defended under
circumstances already accepted.
A third issue is uncertainty amongst both decision-makers and their affected parties about how the
short-term cost/benefit ratio found locally for themselves drives an overall “global” cost/benefit
ratio for the organization, and whether that overall outcome will translate into local parties getting
credit.
These kinds of issues reflect that the complexity of change is due to variability of several kinds.
Although any given occasion of change may have more or less variability involved, managing change
is inherently about managing complexity.

12. Restructuring: Types of Change to Manage
Managing change is inherently about managing complexity, which stems from variability.
Managed responsiveness to variability must include Agility, Flexibility, and Resilience.
Agility is the ability to productively change attention and action from one problem or
opportunity to another, with timeliness and without discontinuity.
Flexibility is the ability to reorganize the commitment of resources and capabilities to address
the current priority and stress, without disintegration.
Resilience is the ability to recover a previous condition (such as a position, state or
arrangement) when a necessary diversion has been brought under control.

13. Change Impacts versus Performance
Most managers have well-honed radar about trade-offs
that may become evident in proposed changes.
The usual trade-offs – involving risks, costs and priorities
– can independently become negotiating points as
quickly as they had become “features” in the proposed
path to the value of the change.
But more importantly, they are ones that can associate
different aspects of variability, making the goal of the
proposed change somewhat dependent on other
management efforts.
Another important and even profound difference in the
point of view on these trade-offs is based on how
“Performance” is defined and how it is the focal point of
change.
Because of environmental pressures, Change
Management increasingly focuses on enabling the
opportunity for future kinds of performance, not on
optimizing the current modes of performance.
©2013 Malcolm Ryder / archestra

14. What Change Accomplishes
In the volatile business environment today, the most important challenge for change management
is to bring order and competency to how agility links organization and performance potential.
• An organization operates as a system. Change Management is a restructuring of the system.
• System is interpreted in terms of purpose and behavior, which normally means having a function
of a form.
• Performance potential is interpreted in terms of effectiveness, which normally means causing
certain effects within prescribed timeframes.
Agility is:
• the capability to deploy and use …
• the form needed for ….
• the function that will be effective,
• at a high frequency given the pace of change in demand.
This means that the alignment recognized as Agility is a structure that dynamically resolves
complexity.

15. Restructuring: Elements of Change to Manage
Recap:
• By design, agility dynamically resolves complexity, which aligns the organization to its
performance potential.
• Variability in values (culture) and communications (intelligence) readily fuels complexity.
• Because of that, preparing for change management means assessing the consistencies present or
lacking in those areas, and addressing the matter of providing persistent support for key
behaviors and purposes.
• As found by an assessment, variability may be an inhibitor or an enhancer of the goal of the
prospective change.
• Management responses to the assessment may introduce trade-offs to stakeholders.
• Local effects and global effects may not be the same, but they must be complementary in the
perspective of the goal of the change.
• The timing and scope of change can largely predetermine whether complementary effects can be
achieved.