MANAGING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE PROCESS, SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION AND DIALOGUE Muayyad Jabri palgrave macmiuan
VII CONTENTS List of Tables List of Figures Preface About the Author Message to the Lecturer Message to the Student Acknowledgements xii xiii xv xviii xx xxii xxiv chapter 1 Defining Change 1 The nature of change, 2 Anticipation of the forces of change 3 Change versus'changing' 8 Stories of change in time 9 Types of change 9 Ways of thinking about change 11 Organizational vision and the management of change 14 Strategic thinking and change 17 Metaphors and vision 18 Revision 20 Recommended reading, 21 2 Constructing Change 25 Modes of thinking about change 26 The role of language in managing change 28 The organization as a system based on social construction 30 Monologic and dialogic communication 34 Constructing levels of analysis 35 The importance of the individual level of analysis 38 What do we mean by structure? 41 What do we mean by culture? 42
VIII CONTENTS Constructing connections between structure and culture 45 Why is process important? 45 Revision - 47 Recommended reading 47 Understanding the Role of the Change Agent 51 Defining agency 52 External and internal change agents 53 Agency and structure 58 Agency and leadership for change 60 Monologic and dialogic agency 62 Relational agency and communication 64 The consultant-client relationship 67 Agency and sources of power 70 Revision 71 Recommended reading 72 Constructing Change Through Narrative and Storytelling 75 Why narrative? 76 Importance of narrative in constructing change 79 Change management through narratives 82 Types of narratives 82 Role of voice narrative in creating readiness 83 Storytelling as an act of narration 84 Why is storytelling useful for managing change? " 87 Narrating job situations through storytelling 89 Emergence of agency through narration 90 Making judgements on stories 91 Role of storytelling in enacting change 92 Revision 94 Recommended reading 94 Constructing Change Through the Field Concept 97 The case of Newpark General Hospital 98 Field theory and the work of Kurt Lewin 99 Storying change achieved through force-field 103 Field theory and the notion of utterances 104 Lewin and the notion of dialogue 106 Using force-field in group settings 107 Action research 110 Action leading to theory and theory leading to action 114 Example of the type of activities involved in action research 115
CONTENTS IX Revision 117 Recommended reading 117 Creating Readiness and the Notion of Sensemaking 119 Readiness: a conceptual overview 120 Gap analysis and the willingness to change 121 Creating readiness at different levels 123 Ways of enhancing readiness 126 Relationship between readiness, capability and urgency 126 The role of communication in creating readiness, 131 Readiness and sensemaking 132 Sensemaking of Queensland's natural disaster: a case example, 135 Revision 140 Recommended reading 140 The Problem-Centric Model of Diagnosing Change 143 An overview of diagnosis 144 Introducing the problem-centric model 145 Introducing the dialogic mode 146 The problem-centric mode 147 Climate audits and voice surveys 150 Diagnosis achieved through retrospective 'sensemaking' 155 Levels of diagnosis 156 Problems associated with diagnosis 162 Leveraging change 164 Total quality management 164 Revision 167 Recommended reading 167 The Dialogic Model of Diagnosing Change 171 The role of dialogue 172 Introducing appreciative inquiry (Al) 174 Diagnosing through Al 176 Advantages of Al 178 Palm 24: a story of Al 178 The role of conversations in Al 182 The role of dialogue in Al 183 Contrasting the models: a recap 184 Diagnostic models: an evaluation 187 Relationships between diagnosis and intervention 187 Revision 190 Recommended reading 190
X CONTENTS 9 Modes of Intervening 193 Defining the act of intervention 194 Attitudinal change 194 Covert and overt levels of analysis: the notion of the organizational iceberg 195 Using the iceberg for planning interventions 197 The role of communication in facilitating intervention 199 Modes of intervention 200 Depth of intervention 203 The metaphor of the 'swimming pool' 206 How discourse implicates the social construction of an intervention 209 Intervention as an act of balancing 212 Revision 215 Recommended reading 215 10 Understanding and Managing Organizational Resistance 219 Probing reasons for resistance 221 Resistance and social representation 222 Resistance as an attitudinal outcome 223 The social construction of resistance 224 Explaining resistance: first and second realities 226 Resistance and types of conversation 227 Explaining resistance: the role of personal identity 230 The role of communication 231 The role of conversation in explaining resistance 232 Revision.' 233 Recommended reading 233 11 Communicating Change 237 The role of language in change communication 238 Models of communicating change 241 Bakhtin's notion of dialogue 246 Consensus: monologic versus dialogic 247 Dialogic communication 250 Connections between communication and a learning organization 252 Communicating change and the role of the change agent 254 Revision 256 Recommended reading 256 12 Making Sense of Organizational Identity 261 Two approaches to organizational identity 263
CONTENTS XI Reconciling the two approaches 266 Connections between levels of identity 268 Ricoeur: the role of narratives in the formation of organizational identity 268 Bakhtin: the role of utterances in the formation of organizational identity 271 The notion of change agency 274 Identity and empowerment 275 Defining empowerment 276 Empowerment achieved through participative design 278 Summary 280 Revision 281 Recommended reading" 281 Author Index 285 Subject Index 290