This document provides an overview of dialogical approaches to organizational change management. It discusses Peter Senge's concept of the learning organization and emphasizes the importance of dialogue, reflection, and understanding complexity. The document also examines appreciative inquiry as a positive approach to change focused on an organization's strengths. Finally, it introduces the change kaleidoscope model for analyzing the contextual factors influencing change implementation options.

1. Managing Change,
Creativity &
innovation
© Patrick Dawson, Constantine
Andriopoulos

2. OD Developments And
Postmodern Ideas: Dialog And
Meaning
Chapter 8

3. Lecture Objectives
• Outline the essential elements of dialogical (OD) approach
to change.
• Compare and contrast dialogical with diagnostic
approaches to change.
• Provide an appreciation of Senge’s notion of the learning
organization.
• Evaluate the change kaleidoscope.
• Discuss emergence of appreciative inquiry.
• Debate the key challenges faced by OD.

4. Some proponents of dialogic OD see it as a
transformational process, whereas others see it as a way in
which the various parties involved in the change process
can gain insights into each other’s organizational reality.
Where its proponents see it as distinct from classical
‘diagnostic’ OD is in its interpretative nature; it draws on the
idea that reality is socially constructed and socially
negotiated, and that organizations are seen as meaning-
making systems. However…the philosophy of Lewinian OD,
with its emphasis on democracy and fairness fits neatly with
the egalitarian nature of postmodern organizations (Burnes
and Cooke, 2012: 141).

5. Oswick’s (2013) Shifts from…to
• The design of work (the tangible elements) to culture
and identity (the intangible elements)
• A backward glance to more forward looking approaches
(temporal re-orientation)
• Planned top down to more bottom up and employee
instigated change with wider stakeholder involvement
• An internal focus to wider collaboration beyond the
organization in bringing the outside in

6. Old OD versus new OD
Deficit-focused thinking
Q: What are the main
problems?
• Issues of low morale, or
low commitment, how to
tackle problems and
overcome resistance.
• Traditional approach
seeks conformity and
togetherness.
Positive-focused thinking
Q: What works really well and
what is most affective?
• Focus on periods of high
enthusiasm, of how to
create and sustain
engagement and positive
feelings.
• Less anxiety provoking as
builds on what is working
well.

7. Video
Organizational Development
Video options are:
The Future of OD: practitioner under 3 minutes for
MBAs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NMz1UX5XUE
or
John Izzo: OD Expert, 8 minute video (gas stations) at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0USUyXk4zg

8. Bushe and Marshak’s (2014) four
commonalities of the new OD
• Strong humanistic and democratic values
• A concern for capacity building and development of
the system
• Consultants stay out of content and focus on process
• Greater system awareness is encouraged and
facilitated

9. An early development: the learning
organization (Peter Senge)
I believe that, the prevailing system of management is, at its
core, dedicated to mediocrity. It forces people to work harder
and harder to compensate for failing to tap the spirit and
collective intelligence that characterizes working together at
their best. Deming saw this clearly, and I believe now, so do a
growing number of leaders committed to growing organizations
capable of thriving in and contributing to the extraordinary
challenges and possibilities of the world we are living in
(Senge, 2016: xvi).

10. Values undermining learning
• Measurement and targets: setting the performance
targets and short-term metrics
• Compliance: conflict and diversity is seen as a problem
whilst compliance is rewarded
• Division and competition: competition between staff is
seen as healthy and good
• The holy trinity of management: planning, organizing
and controlling.

11. Senge’s Five Disciplines (1-3)
• Mental Models. The discipline for learning is to open up
our minds from longstanding assumptions to be
influenced by others in broadening our understanding
and learning.
• Personal Mastery. The discipline of continually clarifying
and deepening our personal vision, of focusing our
energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality
objectively.’
• Building Shared Vision. That binds people together
through a process of shared learning.

12. Senge’s Five Disciplines (4-5)
• Team Learning. Abilities of a team working together
exceeds that of combining individual abilities—achieved
through reflecting and rethinking assumptions through
engaging in dialog that enables genuine togetherness in
thinking and coordinated action.
• System Thinking. A framework for viewing the lacework of
interconnectivity and inter-relationships of flux and
wholeness rather than a more traditional focus on fixity and
separateness.

13. The Learning Organization
These three core learning capabilities of:
i) aspiration through personal mastery and shared vision;
ii) reflective conversation through mental models and
dialogue; and
iii) understanding complexity through system thinking are
central to the learning organization.

14. The lifelong journey of learning
There are many ways to characterize the essence of this
work as there are people doing it: it is a system of
management consistent with nature, human nature, and
the nature of larger living systems; it is working together
in ways that realize our highest aspirations; it is being
the change we seek to create. Or, as Marianne Knuth
so beautifully says, it is staying connected to the being
that never stopped being connected (Senge, 2006: 376)

15. The Kaleidoscope Approach to Change
A diagnostic tool for managing change

16. The Kaleidoscope Approach
• The external change context is represented by the outer ring
• The middle ring captures contextual features that vary and
can enable or constrain change
• The inner ring represents choices for change design

17. The change kaleidoscope
Implementation
Options
Change Type/Path
Change Start Point
Change Style
Change Target
Change
Interventions
Change Roles
Time
Scope
Preservation
Diversity
Capability
Capacity
Readiness
Power
Three rings
• Organizational
change context
(outer)
• Contextual
features
(middle)
• Implementation
options
(inner)

18. Contextual features
(middle ring)
Implementation
Options
Change Type/Path
Change Start Point
Change Style
Change Target
Change
Interventions
Change Roles
Time
Scope
Preservation
Diversity
Capability
Capacity
Readiness
Power
Time
The speed with
which the change
needs to be
achieved
• Long-term or
little time?
• Pro-active or
reactive?

19. Contextual features (middle ring)
Implementation
Options
Change Type/Path
Change Start Point
Change Style
Change Target
Change
Interventions
Change Roles
Time
Scope
Preservation
Diversity
Capability
Capacity
Readiness
Power
Scope
Scale and scope of
change required
• Transformation
or adaptation?
• Entire or parts of
the
organization?

20. Contextual features (middle ring)
Implementation
Options
Change Type/Path
Change Start Point
Change Style
Change Target
Change
Interventions
Change Roles
Time
Scope
Preservation
Diversity
Capability
Capacity
Readiness
Power
Preservation
The extent to which it
is necessary to
preserve existing
elements
• Practices
• Staff
• Specific assets
• Culture
• Particular
competences

21. Contextual features (middle ring)
Implementation
Options
Change Type/Path
Change Start Point
Change Style
Change Target
Change
Interventions
Change Roles
Time
Scope
Preservation
Diversity
Capability
Capacity
Readiness
Power
Diversity
The degree of
diversity in terms
of values, norms
and attitudes
among affected
groups of staff
• Subcultures?
• National
cultures?
• Professional
groups?

22. Contextual features (middle ring)
Implementation
Options
Change Type/Path
Change Start Point
Change Style
Change Target
Change
Interventions
Change Roles
Time
Scope
Preservation
Diversity
Capability
Capacity
Readiness
Power
Capability
Competence
levels for
managing change
• Knowledge
about the
design
• Ability to cope
with the change
• Ability to
manage others
during the
change

23. Contextual features (middle ring)
Implementation
Options
Change Type/Path
Change Start Point
Change Style
Change Target
Change
Interventions
Change Roles
Time
Scope
Preservation
Diversity
Capability
Capacity
Readiness
Power
Capacity
The amount of
resources
available to invest
in the change
• Money
• Human
resources
• Managerial
time

24. Contextual features (middle ring)
Implementation
Options
Change Type/Path
Change Start Point
Change Style
Change Target
Change
Interventions
Change Roles
Time
Scope
Preservation
Diversity
Capability
Capacity
Readiness
Power
Readiness
How ready are
people for change
• Aware of the need
for change
• Understand the
extent and
implication of
changes proposed
• Motivated towards
the goals of
change

25. Contextual features (middle ring)
Implementation
Options
Change Type/Path
Change Start Point
Change Style
Change Target
Change
Interventions
Change Roles
Time
Scope
Preservation
Diversity
Capability
Capacity
Readiness
Power
Power
The power of those
who can influence
change
• Initiators
• Change agents
• Recipients
• Other
stakeholders

26. Implementation options (inner ring)
• The change
design derived
from contextual
features
• Used to guide
and assist the
change
management in
implementation
Implementation
Options
Change Type/Path
Change Start Point
Change Style
Change Target
Change
Interventions
Change Roles
Time
Scope
Preservation
Diversity
Capability
Capacity
Readiness
Power

27. Implementation options (inner ring)
Implementation
Options
Change
Type/Path
Change Start Point
Change Style
Change Target
Change
Interventions
Change Roles
Time
Scope
Preservation
Diversity
Capability
Capacity
Readiness
Power

28. Change Type
The
speed
of
change
The extent of change
Transformation Re-alignment
Increment
al
Evolution
• Implemented gradually
• Often through different
stages and inter-
related initiatives
Adaption
• Less fundamental
• Slowly through staged
initiatives
Big bang Revolution
• Via simultaneous
initiatives on many
fronts
• Often in a relatively
short space of time
Reconstruction
• More dramatic
• Often forced and
reactive

29. Implementation options (inner ring)
Implementation
Options
Change Type/Path
Change Start
Point
Change Style
Change Target
Change
Interventions
Change Roles
Time
Scope
Preservation
Diversity
Capability
Capacity
Readiness
Power
Change start point
(where change
initiated)
• Top-down
• Bottom up
• Pilot sites

30. Implementation options (inner ring)
Implementation
Options
Change Type/Path
Change Start Point
Change Style
Change Target
Change
Interventions
Change Roles
Time
Scope
Preservation
Diversity
Capability
Capacity
Readiness
Power
Change
management style
during
implementation
• Education &
communication
• Collaboration/
Participation
• Intervention
• Direction
• Coercion

31. Implementation options (inner ring)
Implementation
Options
Change Type/Path
Change Start Point
Change Style
Change Target
Change
Interventions
Change Roles
Time
Scope
Preservation
Diversity
Capability
Capacity
Readiness
Power
What does
change aim to
achieve?
• Productivity
• Quality
• Behavior
• Costs
• Attitudes and
values

32. Implementation options (inner ring)
Implementation
Options
Change Type/Path
Change Start Point
Change Style
Change Target
Change
Interventions
Change Roles
Time
Scope
Preservation
Diversity
Capability
Capacity
Readiness
Power
Interventions for
achieving
change targets
• Technical
• Social
• Political
• Cultural
• Structural

33. Implementation options (inner ring)
Implementation
Options
Change Type/Path
Change Start Point
Change Style
Change Target
Change
Interventions
Change Roles
Time
Scope
Preservation
Diversity
Capability
Capacity
Readiness
Power
Change agency
(responsibilities for
leading and
managing change)
• Leadership
• Change teams
• Consultants
• External
facilitation

34. Jabri: The Storying Process and
Participative Change
• Utilizes Lewin’s three-step model
• Relational perspective
– Combines process, dialog, and social construction
– Discourse core of constructivist approach in the
talk between people and the way language is used
• Main problem
– Tendency to tread change recipients as all the
same

35. Single to Multi Voiced
• Beyond monologic single channeled authoritative top-
down communication
• Dialogical: multiple voices and viewpoints
– Individual, group, intergroup, organization, and
inter-organizational levels
• Must consider entanglement between people and
matter (sociomateriality)

36. The Need to Story Change
The adoption of a social constructionist approach to
change management emphasizes the need to drive
change through an ongoing co-construction of meaning
that involves people at all levels of the organization,
rather than being restricted to ‘experts’ working through
senior management (Jabri, 2012: 52)

37. Building on Lewin
• Stories and conversations around change
– Present promoting and resisting forces
• Stimulate responses (further conversations)
– Drawing on previous talk the listener becomes the
speaker just as the speaker becomes the listener
• People engage in dialogue in the co-construction of
shared understanding

38. Promoting forces
Promoting forces
Resisting forces
Resisting forces
Building readiness
Communicating
Current
state
Desired
state
Unfreezing
Changing and organizing
Ice-topping (some
refreezing)
Figure 8.1 A view of force-field analysis (source: Jabri, 2012: 100)

39. Action Research
Action research is also about an ongoing process of
reflection on change processes (problem-solving,
decision-making and communication) undertaken by
both the change agent and the change recipients.
Action generates learning which is fed back to further
improve the change process. Evaluation is achieved
through the collaboration of both the researchers
(change agent or change team) and organization
members (Jabri, 2012: 12).

40. A change led through dialogue is more
likely to take root
• Making sense of change enhances readiness for
change
• Can also build on Appreciative Inquiry and commence
with some form of appreciation
• Three processes
– Understanding through dialogue
– Propose interventions
– Make them internally persuasive

41. Table 8.2 Jabri’s force-field analysis template/worksheet (Source:
Jabri, 2012: 116)
Start by talking about the problem/s that you feel really need/s to be
shared.
List some of the manifestations (symptoms or stories) of the
presenting problem/s.
Describe the present situation, as you see it.
Describe the desired situation, as you see it.
Give an example of a resisting force acting against change. Think of
a story you might wish to share and be ready to share it with the
person next to you.
Give an example of a driving force acting for change. Think of a
story you might wish to share and be ready to share it with the
person next to you.
What are your proposal/s for reducing the intensity of the resiting
forces? Tell a story of an event in support of your ideas.
What are your proposal/s for enhancing the intensity of the driving
forces? Tell a story of an event in support of your ideas.
Are there any other ideas or stories you might wish to share?

42. Criticisms
• Limited by the images and structure of Lewin’s
three-step approach
• Retains notion of event time and linearity—not the
process view advocated
• The notion of ‘ice-topping’ in place of refreezing is
not sufficient to engage process
• Sidesteps political dimensions and power issues
addressed by Buchanan and Badham

43. Appreciative Inquiry (AI)
‘Appreciative Inquiry is the cooperative, co-evolutionary
search for the best in people, their organizations, and the
world around them. It involves systematic discovery of what
gives life to an organization or a community when it is most
effective and capable in economic, ecological and human
terms…AI intervention gives way to inquiry, imagination and
innovation. Instead of negation, criticism, and spiraling
diagnosis, there is discovery, dream and design’ (Cooperrider
and Whitney, 2015: 336).

44. Rochet and Tollect (2015) 6 key
principles
• The poetic principle: events and situations can be seen
differently from different perspectives
• The social construction principle: reality is co-constructed
collectively
• The simultaneity principle: direction of questions are very
important in steering the change process
• The anticipation principle: refers to the expectations that
we hold about the future
• The positive principle: enthusiasm is central
• The wholeness principle: ensuring that all stakeholders
are collectively involved in change

45. Appreciative Inquiry
John Hayes explains
at:
http://www.youtube.c
om/watch?v=BqHeuj
LHPkw
Video

46. Appreciating – the 4D model
• AI builds on (appreciating) what is working and co-
constructing an ideal future (through discussions
and stories) and then translating that desired future
state into actionable statements.
• Since 1997, the 4D cyclical model of AI has
emerged as a central AI method.

47. 4D Cycle
Discovery
‘What gives life?’
(The best of what is)
Appreciating
Positive
Core
Dream
‘What might be?’
(What is the world calling for)
Envisioning Results
Design
‘What should be – the ideal?’
Co-constructing
Delivery/Destiny
‘How to empower, learn,
and adjust/improvise?’
Sustaining
Affirmative
Topic Choice

48. Summary of areas covered
• Dialogical OD and movement from diagnostic
foundations.
• Senge’s learning organization.
• Change kaleidoscope framework.
• Jabri’s participative dialogical approach to managing
change.
• Appreciative Inquiry (AI)

49. Recommended Reading
• Bushe, G. and Marshak, R. (Eds.) (2015) Dialogic
Organization Development: The Theory and Practice of
Transformational Change. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler
Publishers.
• Bushe, G. and Marshak, R. (2009) ‘Revisioning organization
development: diagnostic and dialogic premises and patterns
of practice’. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 45(3):
348-368.
• Jabri, M. (2016) Rethinking Organizational Change: The Role
of Dialogue, Dialectic & Polyphony in the Organization.
London: Routledge.
• Oswick, C. (2013) ‘Reflections: OD or not OD that is the
question! A constructivist’s thoughts on the changing nature of
change’, Journal of Change Management, 13(4): 371-381.