Write two substantive paragraphs (total one page) about how you will use the model to design a vacation with six people where you travel across the Western US for 7-10 days.
Using Exhibit 18.4 The Steps to Action Research Below
Exhibit 18.4 The Steps in Action Research
Diagnosis of the Organization
"The first step in action research requires managers to recognize the existence of a problem that needs to be solved and acknowledge that some type of change is needed. In general, recognition of the need for change arises because someone in the organization thinks there is a gap between desired performance and actual performance. Perhaps customer complaints about the quality of goods or services have increased. Perhaps profits have recently fallen or operating costs have escalated. Or perhaps turnover among managers or employees has been excessive. In the first stage, managers need to analyze what is going on and why problems occur.
Diagnosing the organization can be a complex process. Like a doctor, managers have to distinguish between symptoms and causes. For example, there is little point in introducing new technology to reduce production costs if the problem is that demand is falling because customers do not like the design of the product. Managers have to carefully collect information about the organization to diagnose the problem correctly and get employees committed to the change process. At this early stage, it is important for managers to collect information from people at all levels in the organization and from outsiders such as customers and suppliers. Questionnaire surveys given to employees, customers, and suppliers, and interviews with employees and managers can provide information essential to a correct diagnosis.
Determining the Desired Future State
After identification of the present state, the next step is to identify where the organization needs to be—its desired future state. This step also involves a difficult planning process as managers work out various alternative courses of action that could move the organization to where they would like it to be. Identifying the desired future state involves deciding what the organization’s strategy and structure should be. For example, should the organization focus on reducing costs and increasing efficiency? Or are improving quality and responsiveness to customers the key to future success? What is the best kind of structure for the organization to adopt to realize organizational goals—a product structure or perhaps a cross-functional team structure?
Implementing Action
Implementing action is the third step of action research.60 It is a three-step process. First, managers need to identify possible impediments to change that they will encounter as they go about making changes. These include impediments at the organization, group, and individual levels.61 Suppose managers choose to reengineer the company from a functional to a cross-functional team structure to speed product development and reduce costs. They must anticipate the obstacles they will encounter when they “unfreeze” the organization and make the changes. Functional managers, for example, might strongly resist efforts to change the company because their power and prestige in the organization might suffer. Similarly, the members of a team who have formed stable task and role relationships will resist being assigned to a new team where tasks and roles have to be worked out again and new interpersonal relationships have to be forged.
The more revolutionary the adopted change, the greater the problem of implementing it. Managers need to find ways to minimize, control, and co-opt resistance to change. They also need to devise ways to foster organizational members’ commitment to the change process. Moreover, they must look to the future and seek ways to refreeze the changes they have made.
The second step in implementing action is deciding who will be responsible for actually making the changes and controlling the change process. The choices are to employ external change agents —outside consultants who are experts in managing change—or internal change agents —managers from within the organization who are knowledgeable about the situation—or some combination of both.62
External change agent
An outside consultant who is an expert in managing change.
Internal change agent
A manager from within an organization who is knowledgeable about the situation to be changed.
The principal problem with using internal change agents is that other members of the organization often perceive them as politically involved in the change process and biased toward a particular outcome or group. External change agents, in contrast, are perceived as less influenced by internal politics. Another reason for using external change agents is that as outsiders, they have a detached view of the organization’s problems and can distinguish between the “forest and the trees.” Insiders are often so involved in ongoing events within the organization that they cannot see the “real” source of the problems. Management consultants, such as those from McKinsey & Co. and Accenture, are often brought in by organizations to help top managers diagnose opportunities and problems—and suggest solutions. Many consultants specialize in a certain type of organizational change such as restructuring, reengineering, or TQM.
The third step in implementing action is to decide which specific change strategy will most effectively unfreeze, change, and refreeze the organization. Specific techniques for implementing change are discussed later in this chapter. The types of change that these techniques give rise to fall into two categories: top-down and bottom-up.63
Top-down change is change implemented by managers at a high level in the organization. The result of radical organizational restructuring and reengineering is top-down change. Managers high up in the organization decide to make a change, realizing full well that it will reverberate at all organizational levels. The managers choose to manage and solve problems as they arise at the divisional, functional, or individual levels during the process.
Top-down change
Change implemented by managers at a high level in the organization.
Bottom-up change is change implemented by employees at low levels in the organization and gradually rises until it is felt throughout the organization. When an organization wants to engage in bottom-up change, the first step in the action research process—diagnosing the organization—becomes pivotal in determining the success of the change. Managers involve employees at all levels in the change process to get their input and lessen their resistance. By reducing the uncertainty employees experience, bottom-up change facilitates unfreezing and increases the likelihood that employees will retain the new behaviors they learn during the change process. In contrast, top-down change proceeds rapidly, forces employees to keep up with the pace of change, and troubleshoots problems as they arise.
Bottom-up change
Change implemented by employees at low levels in the organization and gradually rises until it is felt throughout the organization.
In general, bottom-up change is easier to implement than top-down change because it provokes less resistance. Organizations that have the time to engage in bottom-up change are generally well-run organizations that pay attention to change, are used to change, and change often. Poorly run organizations, those that rarely change or postpone change until it is too late, are frequently forced to engage in top-down restructuring simply to survive. Organizations that change the most are able to exploit the advantages of evolutionary bottom-up change because their managers are always open to the need for change and constantly use action research to find new and better ways to operate and increase effectiveness. Organizations in which change happens rarely are likely candidates for revolutionary top-down change. Because their managers do not use action research on a continuing basis, they attempt change so late that their only option is some massive restructuring or downsizing to turn their organization around.
Evaluating the Action
The fourth step in action research is evaluating the action that has been taken and assessing the degree to which the changes have accomplished the desired objectives. Armed with this evaluation, management decides whether more change is needed to reach the organization’s desired future state or whether more effort is needed to refreeze the organization in its new state.64
The best way to evaluate the change process is to develop measures or criteria to help managers assess whether the organization has reached its desired objectives. When criteria developed at the beginning of action research are used consistently over time to evaluate the effects of the change process, managers have ample information to assess the impact of the changes they have made. They can compare costs before and after the change to see whether efficiency has increased. For example, they can survey employees to see whether they are more satisfied with their jobs. They can survey customers to see whether they are more satisfied with the quality of the organization’s products. As part of its TQM effort, managers at Starwood’s carefully surveyed their customers to make sure that the hotels’ new appearance and services met their expectations. That information helped them to evaluate the success of their change effort.
Assessing the impact of change is especially difficult because the effects may emerge slowly. The action research process we have been describing may take several years to complete. Typically, reengineering and restructuring take months or years, and total quality management, once under way, never stops. Consequently, managers need valid and reliable measures they can use to evaluate performance. All too often, poorly performing organizations fail to develop and consistently apply criteria to evaluate their performance. For those organizations, the pressure for change often comes from the outside when shareholders complain about poor profits, customers complain about their products, or regulatory bodies investigate their practices.
You’re the Management Expert Bringing Change to a Restaurant
You are the change agent called in to help a local restaurant find out why its sales are not increasing. The restaurant’s major problem is a low level of repeat business—customers just don’t seem to return often. After visiting the restaurant several times posing as a customer, you discover that there seems to be a high level of conflict between the chefs in the kitchen and the waiters, and a high level of conflict among the waiters. The chefs are also playing favorites with the waiters to get a share of their tips; waiters who give the chefs a cut of their tips get better food for their customers than those who do not, and their customers are served quicker. Unfortunately, customers notice the strife between employees and react to it negatively. That means smaller tips for both waiters and chefs and fewer repeat customers for the restaurant. Draw up a plan for changing this situation, and develop some before-and-after measures to evaluate how well your plan is succeeding.
Institutionalizing Action Research
The need to manage change is so vital in today’s quickly changing environment that organizations must institutionalize action research—that is, make it a required habit or a norm adopted by every member of the organization. The institutionalization of action research is as necessary at the top of the organization (where the top management team plans the organization’s future strategy) as it is on the shop floor (where employees meet in quality circles to find new ways to increase efficiency and quality). Because change is so difficult and requires so much thought and effort to implement, members at all levels of the organization must be rewarded for being part of successful change efforts. Top managers can be rewarded with stock options and bonus plans linked to organizational performance. Lower-level members can be rewarded through an employee stock-ownership plan and by performance bonuses and pay linked to individual or group performance. Indeed, tangible rewards are one way of helping to refreeze the organization in its new state because, as we discussed in Chapter 8, pay is an important motivation tool for helping people learn and sustain desired organizational behaviors."
Sample Solution