Bill Harris is struggling with contradictory "expert opinion" about
whether one small groups of powerless people can make change happen.
After quoting some who said, "Yes," then says:
>OTOH, I do buy into the change management notion that you need sponsorship
>at high levels and a cascading chain of reinforcing sponsorship
>throughout the organization to be successful.
>Paradoxical? Yep.
>Anyone got a way to make sense of this, preferably with data?
Bill, my own data (from nearly 20 years of working with organizational
change) sends a pretty clear message that probably won't help you a bit:
Yes, small groups of powerless people can make huge changes happen in
organizations and society. In fact, it is only small groups of people who
ever do make changes happen -- in the sense of beginning the processes of
change and supporting them. But it a whole lot easier for such small
groups to work when there is commitment and support from higher levels,
and even easier when there is a cascading chain of reinforcing
sponsorship.
I used to describe my organizational change methodology as "top
down/bottom up/meet messily in the middle" because my own experience is
well described by that. I have found it relatively easy to get top level
support for the outcomes of change efforts (so long as those outcomes
supported their strategic and bottom line initiatives), and even easier to
get bottom level support for change (because those are the people who feel
the need for change most personally and intensely.) The resistance in
organizations comes most commonly from those in the middle -- the keepers
of the current systems/processes, the people who gained their positions
through (and base their self esteem on) their knowledge of how to work or
work around the current systems, the people with the most "skin" in the
status quo.
--"John Gunkler" <jgunkler@sprintmail.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>