Change is a constant in our lives as nothing stays the same forever. Change is a constant phenomenon because the interplay of time and the human propensity to muck around mean that eventually even the most stalwart feature of our human world will change. Change is what it is – just a multi-dimensional shifting from one point of reference to another point of reference in preparation for yet another shift. It is content free and totally impersonal. Change is just a process of nature.
As irrefutable as change is, change scares most people spitless. And, even as change scares people, spitless people, and the extent to which spitless people will go, can cause organizations undergoing planned change to miserably fail to complete a change process.
The diagram below displays a theory of change.
http://stevenmsmith.com/ar-satir-change-model/
In the Satir Change Model, the “late status quo” is the usual condition of most healthy organizations. Good health means that the organization always is making slight adjustments in its forward movement. As the elements that surround the organization change due to economic, political and cultural shifts, to name a few, in its general environment, the organization makes slight adjustments in its forward path. It is like the airplane flying from Boston to Los Angeles, never flying on a straight line but always making compass and altitude adjustments until it successfully lands in LAX.
Pay attention to the sequence of “late status quo, foreign element, resistance, and chaos.” It is how an organization responds to the chaos that determines its potential for successfully completing planned changes.
Planned change actually is the introduction of a pre-considered “foreign element” into the organizational environment. Sometimes referred to as an improvement or innovative practice, or, as the next generation in positioning the organization to meet a better future, the introduction of the new idea, practice, product or personnel is regarded by the status quo as foreign. It is the new kid in the neighborhood that nobody knows. It is an uninvited guest at the company party. At its heart, it represents the unknown. For some, the unknown is welcome and they embrace it. For others, the unknown is greatly disturbing and excites their fight or flight responses.
For the sake of an educational example, let’s examine the Common Core State Standards as a “foreign element.” The initial exposure of the Core looked like another compass or altitude adjustment in the status quo of K-12 education in the United States. After all, the Core was authorized, approved and disseminated by the National Governors Council, the Council of Chief State School Officers, and a select group of Fortune 500 companies. Just another planned change.
Following a brief time for first blush reading, examination and analysis, the Core initiated a ripple of adjustments to all of the economic, political and cultural status quo systems within education. Many felt the Core may be like new math/old math controversy or the debate between phonics and whole language. Not quite. Within months and in a not-too-subtle manner, the federal Department of Education used the Core as a driver for change within the fifty state Departments of Public Instruction. State adoption of the Core was part of the quid pro quo for a waiver from the draconian mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act. Most states found this a welcome consolation. Forty-five states and state education departments adopted the Core, accepted the waiver, and other financial incentives of the Race To The Top program. For a brief time, the change process resembled the Satir model and was preparing for “transformation.”
The friction of change was different for local school districts that did their first blush reading, examination and analysis of the Core and found an instant need for major professional development. Regional educational agencies and national professional development vendors responded to the alarm of the local school districts with a wide array of workshops, seminars and training institutes. Whereas, there were early adopters of the Core by the major powerbrokers at the national, state and local levels, it did not take long for the friction of change to mount a growing resistance. Call it “slap back.”
The issues of resistance to the Core rose in each of the factors of the status quo – economic, political and cultural. Taxpayers balked at the implied financial resources needed to retrain four million teachers and the new educational materials needed for the alignment of instruction with the Core’s new and different academic standards. State and local school district budgets already were maxed out. Money became an issue. Politicians at all levels balked at the federalization of public education which constitutionally is under the purview of the state. The Core became synonymous with the Affordable Care Act. Partisanship and radicalism became an issue. Somehow, there also is a fear that the Core represents the forces of advocates of One World and this was an affront to patriotic Americans. And, traditionalists argued that each local school district historically established its own educational requirements and the Core trampled on local control. The reduction of emphasis upon classic literature in favor of increasing instructional focus upon a literacy for contemporary information was hotly argued. Local control of the quantitative and qualitative focus of instruction became an issue.
Resistance rose and chaos ensued. And, in this episode of chaos there appeared to be no allowance for a “transforming idea, integration, and new status quo.” (see the diagram) The future direction seemed to be any direction but the Core.
It is how organizations respond to resistance and chaos that bespeaks their true health. At all times, there are elements of resistance and chaos within the life and times of every organization. Most are accommodated within its negotiated systems. Wages and benefits are negotiated. Discontinuation of old products necessitates retooling for new products. Work groups may be transplanted from one geographic location to another, sometimes across the country or world. New skills sets are needed by new employees as veterans and outmoded skill sets transist from the workforce. Each has change creates its own uncertainties and each uncertainty its incumbent resistance. Healthy organizations are able to accommodate the give and take of change. Yet, life adjusts and the organization goes on. Not so true for unhealthy organizations.
Increasingly, however, resistance and ensuing chaos in our contemporary culture have found new types of power. Resistors do not seek accommodation of planned change; they seek to restructure and sometimes strengthen the status quo as a price for diminishing the chaos. As a result, organizational leaders wet a finger and lift it to the wind each time the resistance bell is rung. Within the chaos, leaders are determining their personal stake in the nature of the attempted organizational changes or if they can harness the chaos for their personal advantage. This capacity is forging a new generation national, state and local leaders.
It is a given that an organization does not emerge from its dealing with the issues of chaos along the same pathway it held prior to the chaos. There will be change, but not the change that was planned.
The upshot is that change may no longer be a planned process assisting an organization to navigate from point A to point B. Organizations now may exist within the pinball machine of time in which they put the “ball” of their wanted change into motion not knowing clearly how each element in the system will tap and redirect the change. Finally, however, ball will come to rest and that is where the organization will find itself. A plane headed for LAX may be anywhere on the globe.
Hence, any persons contemplating a planned change within their organization must understand the new dynamics of change theory. Plan with resistance and chaos in mind. Not to do so, is to court organizational disaster.