Week 8 Discussion One pages 429 - 431 of our text, the authors describe six categories of resistance to change. · Negative Valence of Change · Fear of the Unknown · Not-Invented-Here Syndrome · Breaking Routines · Incongruent Team Dynamics · Incongruent Organizational Systems Select one of these categories that illustrates a situation you have experienced where there was resistance to change.  Describe the specifics of why people were so resistant, what the organization tried to do to overcome the resistances, and what the outcomes were.  Next, describe what you would recommend the organization do differently based on what you have learned this week. Reference: · McShane, S.L., & Von Glinow, M.A. (2015). Organizational Behavior:  Emerging Knowledge, Global Reality (7th eds.). New York: McGraw-Hill. Chapter 15 - Organizational Change (pp. 424-451) Discussion Response 1: By D,W The change that immediately came to mind for me was resisted by the team demonstrated a negative valence of change. The employees “applied a cost-benefit analysis to determine if the change will make them better or worse off” (McShane & Von Glinow, 2015, p 429). The situation was when I was part of the sales team that handled advertising for florists in the company’s directory and website. The florists use the network to send orders to florists in other areas that they do not deliver to. So for example, if a florist came into a shop in Chicago to send flowers to their family member in Houston, the florist would accept the order, take payment from the shop, go to the paper directory or the website and find a florist in that city to send the order to so that it is delivered and filled. Fairly simple process that has been going on for well over a hundred years. The change was that now as part of this team’s commission schedule, they would be commissioned based on sales but also on improving outbound orders. The commission scheduled changed slightly so that 10% of the commission plan was now set aside for this new “bucket.” The team, especially the veterans” felt that they had no influence on improving orders and would now lose 10% of what they were making on commissions. They didn’t feel that the network receiving more orders assisted them and felt this was just a way for the company to take money from the employees because they made too much the year before. The employees didn’t feel that the company would truly benefit and instead felt that there would be little to no real impact. The company addressed these issues by delaying the change three months and having the employees try to improve the orders sent. After the research was done and the employees saw that they could make a difference and the company would benefit, they started to buy into the change. Once the change was put into the place, the employees ended up making an average of 5-10% more each month on commissions. If I were to advise the company or be part of a company that would do this again, I would stron.

1. Week 8 Discussion
One pages 429 - 431 of our text, the authors describe six
categories of resistance to change.
· Negative Valence of Change
· Fear of the Unknown
· Not-Invented-Here Syndrome
· Breaking Routines
· Incongruent Team Dynamics
· Incongruent Organizational Systems
Select one of these categories that illustrates a situation you
have experienced where there was resistance to change.
Describe the specifics of why people were so resistant, what the
organization tried to do to overcome the resistances, and what
the outcomes were. Next, describe what you would recommend
the organization do differently based on what you have learned
this week.
Reference:
· McShane, S.L., & Von Glinow, M.A. (2015). Organizational
Behavior: Emerging Knowledge, Global Reality (7th eds.).
New York: McGraw-Hill. Chapter 15 - Organizational Change
(pp. 424-451)
Discussion Response 1:
By D,W
The change that immediately came to mind for me was resisted
by the team demonstrated a negative valence of change. The
employees “applied a cost-benefit analysis to determine if the
change will make them better or worse off” (McShane & Von
Glinow, 2015, p 429). The situation was when I was part of the
sales team that handled advertising for florists in the company’s
directory and website. The florists use the network to send
orders to florists in other areas that they do not deliver to. So
for example, if a florist came into a shop in Chicago to send
flowers to their family member in Houston, the florist would
accept the order, take payment from the shop, go to the paper

2. directory or the website and find a florist in that city to send the
order to so that it is delivered and filled. Fairly simple process
that has been going on for well over a hundred years. The
change was that now as part of this team’s commission
schedule, they would be commissioned based on sales but also
on improving outbound orders. The commission scheduled
changed slightly so that 10% of the commission plan was now
set aside for this new “bucket.” The team, especially the
veterans” felt that they had no influence on improving orders
and would now lose 10% of what they were making on
commissions. They didn’t feel that the network receiving more
orders assisted them and felt this was just a way for the
company to take money from the employees because they made
too much the year before. The employees didn’t feel that the
company would truly benefit and instead felt that there would
be little to no real impact.
The company addressed these issues by delaying the change
three months and having the employees try to improve the
orders sent. After the research was done and the employees saw
that they could make a difference and the company would
benefit, they started to buy into the change. Once the change
was put into the place, the employees ended up making an
average of 5-10% more each month on commissions.
If I were to advise the company or be part of a company that
would do this again, I would strongly recommend before rolling
this, bring the employees in with the research as well as have
them start trying the process before explaining that this could
impact their commissions. When an employee believes they
could lose money, they react negatively. If the company would
have made it an additional commission it could have also had
positive impacts by getting their buy in because of the promise
of more money.
McShane, S.L., & Von Glinow, M.A. (2015). Organizational
behavior: Emerging
knowledge, global reality (7th eds.). New York:
McGraw-Hill.

3. Discussion Response 2:
By H,W
All of us are hesitant to change, whether it’s because they fail
to recognize a need for change or lack the confidence to change
(McShane & Von Glinow, 2015). I see this resistance every day
in my job as a physician. It is uncommon that you have a
patient who is doing all the right things when it comes to their
health. Instead the majority of my day is in advising and caring
for people with complex medical conditions that if mismanaged
have real consequences. Since those consequences are not
always obvious in the here and now, many patients fail to
identify a need to change. They view change with negative
valence, fear, incongruent (family) dynamics and resist breaking
routines (McShane & Von Glinow, 2015). Even when
consequences are present, many patients lack the confidence to
make measureable change assuming it is now too late to make a
difference.
Ironically, physicians and their staff are just as
stubborn to change. About five years ago, Dreyer had hired
LEAN experts to come in and act as consultants to help us
create efficiencies in providing care to patients. While these
principles worked miracles for Toyota, physicians argued that
patients weren’t cars and we weren’t an assembly line.
Basically, there was a bit of incongruence in team dynamics,
but the major resistance was due to the “not invented here”
syndrome. I mean, we know our job best, so how is this non-
clinical consultant going to help me deliver medical care better
than I already do? Well, after some time trials, and pilot
programs, along with provider engagement, some changes were
made that helped some providers, while other providers elected
to continue with their present cadence resistant to breaking their
routine. But from this we learned a few things. I learned that it
takes “x” minutes to see a patient on average and I can choose

4. to organize my schedule in blocks of this increment all day, or I
can have a long appointment and short appointment and they
will naturally average out over the course of a day or week.
Some providers chose to set their cadence to “x,” and being the
fan of change myself (remember I like my control), I chose to
stay with my regular schedule of long and short appointments. I
did so, because the fear of uncertainty in what would happen to
my day, and frankly my anxiety, if I had one of those days that
just should be an automatic re-do was just too great. I cannot
predict how sick my patients will be on a given day or if I will
need to admit someone to the hospital while taking care of the
remainder simultaneously, or, my favorite, whether my patients
will be on time or not. One late patient could ruin a cadence,
especially if the cadence is set for the “x” average, and you
could just as easily have a mix of patients that normally would
require more than the average appointment time.
Our staff are great, and they have been saddled with
being short-staffed for the better part of two years. Partly due
to turnover and partly due to medical absences. With the
current financial burdens in healthcare, our nursing staff will
continue to work with one less position due to a hiring freeze
and elimination of the vacant spot. This has placed more
burden on our medical assistant staff who are responsible to
stock our rooms, room our patients, call back results and refill
prescriptions in a given day—this work is simultaneously
performed. As a leader, I know their job is often overwhelming
and I also know that they prefer certain aspects over others, but
all in all, the total job needs to be done since our patients
depend on it and I depend on them to deliver the care to the
patient. Recently I proposed a different structure to their team
in attempts to create a self-directed team. I expected some
resistance as I was asking them to break certain routines and I
knew historically they had some team dynamics that were not
always conducive to organizational norms. I anticipated they
may demonstrate some of the “not invented here syndrome” as
well. So, prior to holding a staff meeting, I took aside two of

5. the team members who have some referent power in the group
and asked them what they thought of my idea. They thought the
idea was reasonable and liked the potential in becoming more
self-directed and accountable to each other, a point that was
frustrating many of the team members. The two of them
brought it to the group that afternoon without my request and
change was put in motion—just like that! While I used open
communication and employee involvement with the team
members, they went back to the group and employed a learning
strategy to help adapt their old routine to be accepting for new
role patterns (McShane & Von Glinow, 2015). The results of
this change were immediate to patients and providers; the
medical assistant team began to develop change self-efficacy
(McShane & Von Glinow, 2015). Later that same week, I held a
staff meeting where for the first time in any meeting I have ever
been to, I introduced a strategic vision for the department and
asked my team how we can incorporate my vision with their
vision. This was critical for establishing a sense of urgency and
direction (McShane & Von Glinow, 2015). The site and
department leaders then employed appreciative inquiry utilizing
the Four-D model of discovery, dreaming, designing and
delivering (McShane & Von Glinow, 2015).
While I am happy to report, there have been vast
improvements, I know that change will require continued
reinforcement and feedback. This same team in the past has
reverted back to incongruent behaviors, and relied on the “not
invented here” and the “that’s not my job” tactics previously. I
have full confidence they can become a great self-directed team,
and site leadership is enthusiastic to support this transition
using this department as a pilot for other departments. Though
we are delivering on our objectives much more consistently, I
don’t think we are at a true destiny (McShane & Von Glinow,
2015). I think we are still in the dreaming and design phases. In
allowing them a great deal of input in the design of their team
dynamics, I feel as though their self-esteem is less threatened
by the change that needs to occur and I hope that instead their

6. self-worth and self-efficacy are supported furthering their
commitment to change. Focusing on the possibilities instead of
the problems will help us to empower each other, leading to an
increase in engagement and overall team and departmental
effectiveness.
McShane, S. L. & Von Glinow, M. A. (2015). Organizational
Behavior. (7th ed.). New York, NY:
McGraw-Hill.
Chapter Fifteen Organizational Change 429
Percentage of employees, by selected countries, who agree or
strongly agree that “change is handled effectively in my
organization.” Not all 28,810
employees across the 15 countries surveyed are shown here, but
all are included in the “total sample” figure.
India United
States
China United
Kingdom
Total
Sample
Germany France South
Korea
Japan
63%

7. 49% 47%
43% 43% 42%
34%
31%
24%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
How Effectively
Do Organizations around the World Handle Change?8
Negative Valence of Change Employees apply a cost–benefit
analysis to deter-
mine if the change will make them better or worse off.19 This
analysis consists of the cal-
culation described in the expectancy theory of motivation
(Chapter 5) and subjective

8. expected utility (Chapter 7). Specifically, resistance to change
is higher when employees
believe that: (a) the change will have more negative than
positive outcomes (e.g., lost
status, lower pay, poorer working conditions), and (b) the
negative outcomes have a high
probability of occurring and the positive outcomes have a low
probability of occurring.
Although employees consider their personal costs and benefits
from the change, their re-
sistance or commitment also depends on their belief that the
change will benefit or harm
the team and company. Even if they personally benefit, to some
degree employees may
oppose the change if they believe others will suffer or the
initiative will be ineffective for
the organization.20
Fear of the Unknown All change includes some degree of
uncertainty; people lack the
ability to accurately predict or visualize the future situation.
When employees do not know the
probability of good or bad outcomes from the change, they tend
to anticipate worse rather than
better outcomes. Only when the present conditions are very bad
do most people welcome an
Are you ready for change? Visit connect.mcgrawhill.com to
identify
conditions that are holding back your readiness for a specific
change
initiative.
lack sufficient motivation, ability, role clarity, or situational
support to change their attitudes,
decisions, and behavior.17 In other words, an employee’s

9. readiness for change depends on all
four elements of the MARS model. These four factors are the
foundations of the six most
commonly cited reasons people resist change, which are
summarized here:18
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430 Part Four Organizational Processes
uncertain future. Uncertainty is also associated with lack of
personal control.21 This lack of
control generates negative emotions, particularly when the
change potentially affects things of
importance, such as our jobs, careers, or self-concepts. Overall,
the uncertainty built into most
organizational change is considered less desirable than the
relative certainty of the status quo.
Not-Invented-Here Syndrome Some employees oppose or even
discreetly undermine
a change initiative because its success threatens their self-
worth. This resistance occurs when
the change was developed by others, even though the practice is
within the individual’s job
duties or mandate. Due to this “not-invented-here” syndrome,
staff sometimes deliberately
inflate problems with changes that they did not initiate, just to
“prove” that those ideas were
not superior to their own. As one consultant warned: “Unless
they’re scared enough to listen,

10. they’ll never forgive you for being right and for knowing
something they don’t.”22
An example of the not-invented-here syndrome occurred several
years ago when Gold-
corp CEO Rob McEwan decided to post the mining company’s
confidential geological
data online and offer a handsome reward to anyone who could
help find more gold on the
property. The Goldcorp Challenge was a huge success, but the
firm’s geological staff com-
plained just before the event was launched. “We have real
concerns,” they told McEwen.
“You’re going to ask the rest of the world to tell you where
we’re going to find gold in our
mine, and we think they’re going to think we’re really dumb and
that you don’t have any
confidence in us.”23
Breaking Routines People typically resist initiatives that force
them out of their com-
fort zones and require them to invest time and energy in
learning new role patterns. Indeed,
most employees in one survey admitted they don’t follow
through with organizational
changes because they “like to keep things the way they are” or
the changes seem too compli-
cated or time consuming.24
Incongruent Team Dynamics Teams develop and enforce
conformity to a set of
norms that guide behavior. However, conformity to existing
team norms may discourage
employees from accepting organizational change. For instance,
organizational initiatives to
improve customer service may be thwarted by team norms that

11. discourage the extra effort
expected to serve customers at this higher standard.
Ray Davis, CEO of Umpqua Bank,
warns that employees tend to
revert to their past routines and
habits unless the change is
reinforced through systems and
structures. “When you are leading
for growth, you know you are
going to disrupt comfortable
routines and ask for new behavior,
new priorities, new skills,” says
Davis, whose Oregon-based bank
is regarded as one of America’s
most innovative financial
institutions. “Even when we want
to change, and do change, we
tend to relax and the rubber band
snaps us back into our comfort
zones.”25
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Chapter Fifteen Organizational Change 431
Incongruent Organizational Systems Rewards, information
systems, patterns
of authority, career paths, selection criteria, and other systems
and structures are both
friends and foes of organizational change. When properly

12. aligned, they reinforce desired
behaviors. When misaligned, they pull people back into their
old attitudes and behavior.
Even enthusiastic employees lose momentum after failing to
overcome the structural con-
fines of the past.
Unfreezing, Changing, and Refreezing
According to Lewin’s force field analysis model, effective
change occurs by unfreezing the
current situation, moving to a desired condition, and then
refreezing the system so it re-
mains in this desired state. Unfreezing occurs when the driving
forces are stronger than the
restraining forces. This happens by making the driving forces
stronger, weakening or remov-
ing the restraining forces, or both.
The first option is to increase the driving forces, motivating
employees to change through
fear or threats (real or contrived). This strategy rarely works,
however, because the action of
increasing the driving forces alone is usually met with an equal
and opposing increase in the
restraining forces. A useful metaphor is pushing against the
coils of a mattress. The harder
corporate leaders push for change, the stronger the restraining
forces push back. This antago-
nism threatens the change effort by producing tension and
conflict within the organization.
The second option is to weaken or remove the restraining
forces. The problem with this
change strategy is that it provides no motivation for change. To
some extent, weakening the
restraining forces is like clearing a pathway for change. An

13. unobstructed road makes it easier
to travel to the destination but does not motivate anyone to go
there. The preferred option,
therefore, is to both increase the driving forces and reduce or
remove the restraining forces.
Increasing the driving forces creates an urgency for change,
while reducing the restraining
forces lessens motivation to oppose the change and removes
obstacles such as lack of ability
and situational constraints.
CREATING AN URGENCY FOR CHANGE
A few months after he became CEO of Nokia Corp, Stephen
Elop sent employees a scorch-
ing e-mail, warning them about the urgency for change. “I have
learned that we are standing
on a burning platform,” wrote Elop. “And, we have more than
one explosion—we have
multiple points of scorching heat that are fueling a blazing fire
around us.” Elop described
strong competition from Apple and Google, Nokia’s falling
brand preference, and its declin-
ing credit rating. “We poured gasoline on our own burning
platform,” he warned, pointing
to the company’s poor accountability and leadership.26
Nokia recently sold its mobile phone division to Microsoft and
Elop has become Micro-
soft’s executive vice-president. But this incident illustrates
Elop’s strong belief that Nokia’s
future depended on its employees developing a stronger urgency
for change.27 This urgency
for change typically occurs by informing employees about
competitors, changing consumer
trends, impending government regulations, and other forms of
turbulence in the external

14. environment. These are the main driving forces in Lewin’s
model. They push people out of
their comfort zones, energizing them to face the risks that
change creates. In many organiza-
tions, however, leaders buffer employees from the external
environment to such an extent
that these driving forces are hardly felt by anyone below the top
executive level. The result is
that employees don’t understand why they need to change, and
leaders are surprised when
their change initiatives do not have much effect.
Customer-Driven Change Some companies fuel the urgency to
change by putting
employees in direct contact with customers. Dissatisfied
customers represent a compelling
driving force for change because the organization’s survival
typically depends on having
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