Change Programs Don't Produce Change

¶ … change programs don't produce change (Beer, Eisenstat, Spector, 1990) the authors delve into why change management programs consistently fail over time. From their analysis, they conclude that despite the best efforts of senior management, change initiatives fail due to a series of factors that have discovered from their research. Seeking to be prescriptive in their analysis, the authors contend that change management programs at a strategic level stand a better chance of success if they follow these axioms or guidelines.

First, it is critically important to mobilize commitment to change through joint analysis of business problems (Beer, Eisenstat, Spector, 1990). Second, there needs to be a strong shared vision of how to organize and manage for competitiveness and agility of strategies above all else. Third, senior management can accomplish more by concentrating on and creating consensus for the new vision including a strong competency around the company's core process, intellectual property and product related strengths.

Fourth, redefine the roles of each department in change management in general, and within specific programs specifically. This can be particularly challenging according to the authors, who show through examples how companies have struggled to do this. Fifth, companies need to institutionalize or make their cultures fully compliant and capable of revitalization through the use of formal policies, structures and systems. This begins to change the corporate culture over time more efficiently than any number of rules or regulations would.

Finally the authors show that monitoring and adjusting strategies in response, or in short creating a more agile organization can ensure a much higher level of successful change over time. In the second article, Downsizing: What do we know? What have we learned? (Cascio, 1993) that authors provide a wealth of evidence showing the downsizing actually detracts from focus and the willingness of employees to trust their employers over time.

Using the Three-C framework as a basis of their analysis (command, control, and compartmentalization) the authors provide evidence that the stated benefits of downsizing rarely actually come to fruition (Cascio, 1993). The stated benefits of attaining lower overhead, less bureaucracy, more efficient decision-making, smoother communications, a greater sense of entrepreneurship and increases in productivity rarely materialize (Cascio, 1993). Instead what happens are divisions and cultural fragmentation that causes companies to lose focus, momentum and rarely get to the original results they had so aggressively attempted to through lay-offs and reduction in force.

The authors contend that it is addicting to begin cutting headcount and get stronger financial results, with investors often buying more stock as well (Cascio, 1993). This cycle continues over time until an organization must eventually confront its lack of cohesion and vision to attain challenging, highly orchestrated objectives over time. In the third article, The Limits of Structural Change (Oxman, Smith, 2003) the triad factors of strategies, systems and structure are used as the foundation for analysis of change management initiatives in organizations.

This triad of factors is also used for evaluating the level of congruency between corporate objectives and change management programs as defined by the leaders of an organization as well. What the study shows is that when change management programs either positive or negative, neglect to keep these factors in balance, there is often widespread employee dissatisfaction and alienation over time (Oxman, Smith, 2003).

While the authors contend through cited research that the rational for formalizing organizational hierarchy can in various structural contexts be effective, they revert back to the triad factors of strategy, systems and structures to continually make their point regarding how change must be systemic. They don't see change as an add-on; rather it must emanate out of the culture of an organization to be successful (Oxman, Smith, 2003).

In the article Memo to: CEOs (Simons, Mintzberg, Basu, 2002) the authors mix metaphor and meaning to communicate in a direct, blunt style ot CEOs regarding how they need to lead their companies not as figureheads, but as actual leaders. The entire article resonates with how critical it is for CEOs to see their businesses as continually improving, adding in key functions and requirements over time but still staying focused on broader objectives.

The call to leadership is also consistently shown throughout the analysis, with the authors consistently exposing myths and commonly held misbeliefs about leadership and management (Simons, Mintzberg, Basu, 2002). If the entire memo would be re-written in a single form, it would tell CEOs to quit believing in the paradigms in the past and begin to embrace those of the future.

The memo also calls out fallacies of thinking that leaders can go it alone, and points to the need for leadership to concentrate more on empowering and enabling workers to attain growth while also accomplishing tasks for their jobs (Simons, Mintzberg, Basu, 2002). Summary of Comparable Concepts Across Papers All of these papers are unified on the need for leaders to be more facilitative of change, and less blind or oblivious to it (Simons, Mintzberg, Basu, 2002) (Oxman, Smith, 2003).

All four analyses also point to the detrimental effects of layoffs and show how they cause significant disruption.