CHANGE READINESS FROM A CONSULTANCY
PERSPECTIVE
Master thesis, Msc BA, specialization Change Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Management and Organization
August 21, 2008 SANDER BINNEMA Student number: 1578685 Burchtstraat 4c 9711 LT Groningen tel.: +31 (0)6-12198912 e-mail: binnema@gmail.com Supervisor/ university dr. K. S. Prins
dr. M. P. Mobach (second supervisor)
PREFACE
In front of you lies the result of the research that I have performed to finish my study Change Management at the University of Groningen. After a quick start, this research, of course, had its setbacks. But as no one dies from working hard, my mother always said, I sturdy worked on to eventually deliver this result. With blood, toil, tears and sweat, the hard work resulted in this paper. Despite these difficulties, that everyone has during one’s research, I also enjoyed writing this paper. It was a very interesting journey with visits to several organizations, through the entire country, and tours to see how they produce their products; interviewing a number of interesting individuals; and attending sessions in a number of LeanEnt’s change processes.
Several people helped me during my research in one way or another. Without their support, the would not have been completed. Therefore, I would like to thank them for their support.
Firstly, I would like to thank Karin Prins, my first supervisor, for her valuable comments and her support during this period. Secondly, I want to thank Mark Mobach, my second supervisor, for reviewing an earlier version of this paper and providing me with valuable comments. I would also like to thank Frits de Vries and Robert van der Velde for giving me the opportunity to do my research, and their support and patience during the development of this paper. Furthermore, I want to thank Jorrit Nicolai for the discussions and feedback, Jacob-Hans Kingma for his review on my final draft, and his and Johnny van der Ploeg’s support and discussions. Lastly, I would like to thank all the interviewees that have provided me useful information and insights to put together this paper. Thanks to everyone!
Sincerely,
ABSTRACT
During its existence, LeanEnt has developed a roadmap that is applied in their change processes to implement Lean. Within these processes LeanEnt has some difficulty with the human side of change and therefore wishes to know what handles to turn to increase change readiness within a client organization, which is researched in this paper.
The research question that is used to perform this research is: “What strategies influence the attributes of change readiness, in the lean transition processes of LeanEnt, and in what way does LeanEnt apply these strategies in their roadmap?” In order to answer this question, a qualitative research with eleven members of six different client organizations has been carried out. Using interviewees from six different organizations makes the findings broadly applicable, which is the strength of the research. The weakness of the research is that the majority of the interviewees relied on their memory for answers, because their change processes already has advanced in the implementation phase.
This paper exposes that, in practice, employees are uncertain about the future state; discrepancy between the current situation and a future state is insufficient; difficulties with the understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of Lean are common; and availability of management lacks in some cases. The most important abbreviations to increase the level of change readiness are creating a picture of the future, creating a sense of urgency, educate about lean, facilitate and support the change and gaining short-term wins and communicate them.
The main additional insight is that change readiness is not a one-off event, but a continuous activity interwoven in all the steps of the change process.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT... 3
1. INTRODUCTION ... 6
1.1. Lean... 7
1.2. Roadmap LeanEnt:... 8
1.2.1. Phase one - Diagnose ... 8
1.2.2. Phase two - Design... 10
1.2.3. Phase three - Implementation preparation ... 10
1.2.4. Phase four - Implementation ... 11
2. RESEARCH DESIGN ... 12
2.1. From Behavioural Change to Change Readiness... 12
2.1.1. Individual perception ... 13
2.1.2. Resistance ... 13
2.1.3. Change readiness ... 14
2.2. Research Question ... 15
2.3. Sub Questions ... 15
2.3.1. Individual’s readiness to change ... 16
2.3.2. Strategies that influence change readiness... 19
2.4. Conceptual Model ... 21
2.5. Research Method ... 22
2.5.1. Case study ... 22
2.5.2. Method for analysis... 23
3. RESULTS ... 25
3.1. Individual’s Change Readiness... 25
3.1.1. Discrepancy... 25
3.1.2. Efficacy ... 26
3.1.4. Principal Support ... 27
3.1.5. Personal Valence... 27
3.2. Strategies to Influence Change Readiness ... 28
3.2.1. Communication and Education... 28
3.2.2. Participation and Involvement ... 30
3.2.3. Facilitation and Support ... 31
4. DISCUSSION ... 33
4.1. Strategies to Influence Change Readiness ... 33
4.1.1. Communication and Education... 33
4.1.2. Participation and Involvement ... 34
4.1.3. Facilitation and Support ... 36
4.2. Actions to Create Change Readiness ... 38
4.2.1. Create a picture of the future ... 38
4.2.2. Create a sense of urgency ... 39
4.2.3. Educate about Lean... 40
4.2.4. Facilitate and support the change... 41
4.2.5. Gain short term results and communicate them... 41
4.3. Implications for LeanEnt ... 42
4.4. Limitations ... 43
4.5. General Conclusion... 45
1. INTRODUCTION
The environment of today’s organizations is becoming increasingly more dynamic. The need to implement changes in strategy, structure, process and culture is growing (Armenakis, Harris and Mossholder, 1993) and leads to an increasing amount of change projects. This study is related to LeanEnt, a consultancy organization that is specialized in one of the themes above, namely the redesign of organizational processes. As most organizations incorporate moderate organizational changes once a year and major organizational changes every four to fives year (Kotter and Schlesinger, 1979), it can be said that there are a lot of opportunities for LeanEnt to develop, realize, transform and improve organizations’ processes. In redesigning organizations’ processes, LeanEnt follows the Lean principles, that will be discussed in the next paragraph. They serve customers operating in markets like production, construction, governments and hospitals. The focus in their projects is always to improve the core processes of the organization, because it are these processes that are most crucial in an organization’s existence. Within redesign these core processes, LeanEnt focuses on two aspects, namely decreasing lead times, the period of time between the placement of an order and the moment the product or service is delivered; and work-in-progress, the unfinished products, wherein capital is invested, in a production process. Decreasing both, LeanEnt believes, will lead to an increase of productivity and cost-efficiency. Eventually this should lead to an improved competitive position and a better liquidity.
to increase their knowledge about individuals’ behaviour in change and about workable interventions to stimulate changes in individuals’ behaviour. Therefore for this research the following objective has been formulated:
“To give LeanEnt insight in possible interventions to stimulate changes in behaviour of individuals within organizations and herewith increasing the effectiveness of the change projects.”
1.1. Lean
As mentioned above, LeanEnt is specialized in redesigning, with the use of Lean principles, core processes of organizations. In this paragraph will be generally explained what Lean is and what parts of Lean are implemented in practice by LeanEnt.
In the current business environment, efficiency and effectiveness in the use of personnel, machines, equipment and all other resources in the production chain, is becoming more important. One way for organizing these resources around your core processes is Lean. Lean is a process management philosophy which is derived from Toyota with its Toyota Production System. It is defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology Manufacturing Extension Partnership as “a systematic approach for identifying and eliminating waste through continuous improvement, flowing the product at the pull of the customer in pursuit of perfection.”
overproduction, transportation, waiting, inventory, motion and over-processing (Kilpatrick, 2003).
As mentioned earlier, Lean is based on a number of principles, five to be accurate. These are: specify value, identify the value stream, create flow, let customers pull value, and pursue perfection through continuous improvement.
Summing the Lean philosophy up, it provides a way of doing “more and more with less and less – less human effort, less equipment, less time and less space – while coming closer and closer to providing customer exactly what they want” (Womack and Jones, 2003). It has sometimes been compared with losing weight: keep looking at the scale, otherwise your processes will turn out to be flabby again (van Ede, 2005). This conclusion of doing more with less is also frequently used by LeanEnt to simply state what it is about. This statement has also resulted into the expression, and travesty, “Lean is mean”, for the reason that people can feel that “less” is another word for redundancies. In reality it is, and should be, a manner to create new work instead of dismissing employees in the name of efficiency (Womack and Jones, 2003).
1.2. Roadmap LeanEnt:
In their attempts to implement changes and transforming organizations into Lean operations, LeanEnt utilizes a roadmap. The roadmap is a step-by-step plan, containing nine individual steps, that guides the organization to the implementation of Lean. These nine steps can be divided in three phases: diagnose, design and pre-implementation. The phases and steps are as follows:
1.2.1. Phase one - Diagnose
playful manner. The goal of the day is plural and is oriented towards showing, in a relatively short amount of time, what Lean is; opening the eyes of the participants for seeing how things can be done in a different way; demonstrating that a different way of working leads to different results; taking away the common fear and anxiety that individuals perceive when change projects start; and showing that it can be fun too.
2. The second step is appointing the core team, which consists of six to eight members, that will develop the changes necessary for an organization in their attempt to become Lean. The concept of using a core team comes from the belief that it are the employees that need to resolve the company’s problems, not the consultants. Facilitating the employees in the creation of changes requires support, commitment and inside knowledge from their side, that is esteemed to be achieved by using a core team. Criterion for team composition is that it consists of members from the whole value stream of a product line. Furthermore, they can often give consideration to the placement of one or two opponents of changes, and occasional consultation with the company for placement of informal leaders. In the end the company makes the decisions about the formation of the core team.. 3. This third step consists of a walk through the company, following the path the
1.2.2. Phase two - Design
4. In the fourth step they create Key Performance Indicators (KPI) that make the results of the Lean project measurable and consequently take away the absence of obligations that employees sometimes have, and show the results that the lean implementation delivers. The KPI’s are chosen by the core team, but this is directed by the consultants to such an extend that the KPI’s that will be used are the same indicators as the two aspects they focus on, namely lead times and work-in-progress and consequently productivity.
5. In the fifth step the core team members define a theoretical pit stop. This pit stop is utilized to get core team members away from their daily routine, let them think as extremely as possible about the possible changes and make them call the, for them unlikely, small cycle time. This step is maintained in the belief that trying to polish the process only creates little improvements and will eventually lead to dissatisfying marginal increased processes.
6. In the sixth step they produce a practical pit stop. In this pit stop they design the new process, taking into account the boundaries they are working in, creating a process with flow and without waste. This step is based on the theoretical pit stop, but takes some steps back into what is possible in reality. It is created from a more practical perspective on the process and the creation of a goal that is attainable.
1.2.3. Phase three - Implementation preparation
7. In the seventh step new game rules of how work should be done are defined and an action plan for the implementation of the changes is created. This step is used in order to get very specific about what is necessary to set the first steps from the current situation in order to achieve the eventual goal.
management often is the initiator of the project. The other presentations are to inform other employees about what the core team has done and what the plans are for implementation.
1.2.4. Phase four - Implementation
2. RESEARCH DESIGN
The first paragraph of this part is an introduction into the field of change management, leading to the dependent variable of the research, namely change readiness. It starts with discussing why human behaviour can be a blocking factor for change, continues to mention in what way this results into resistance against the change, and concludes with how this resistance can be prevented. This leads on to the next two paragraphs where the research question and subsequently the sub questions will be presented. In the third and last paragraph the method for research analysis that has been conducted will be outlined.
2.1. From Behavioural Change to Change Readiness
The desire to learn more about the human side of change, automatically leads you to the area of change management. In the change management literature there is a lot to be found about this human side, which is in contrast to the negligence of companies dealing mostly with the technical side of change. Mulligan and Barber (1998) make the analogy with the yin and yang of change. On the one side there are the technical aspects of change and on the other side the social and emotional considerations about it. Where the dependency on the human direction and reactions on organizational change is very large, it is all the more striking that the former is generally well constructed, whereas the latter often not well thought through (Gill, 2003).
“Those who expect moments of change to be comfortable and free of conflict have not learned their history”
2.1.1. Individual perception
Then why does there, from an organizations perspective, seem to be a natural aversion against changes by individuals? This might be explained by the theory of Kotter and Schlesinger (1979), who argue that every change is a disturbance of the status quo, which in turn is a threat to employees’ jobs and a disturbance of their way of thinking. This is supported by Armenakis and Bedeian’s (1999) research in which they state that individuals develop automatic responses to work and life events in order to cope with the stress that is caused by demands that are placed on them. These responses become invalid as a result of changes. Losing the validity of these responses creates feelings of uncertainty, the possibility of being unable to cope with the new situation; and the difficulty in altering their skills results in an increased level of stress.
2.1.2. Resistance
Resulting from this increased level of stress, is a negative motivation towards and a reaction of the individual against the change in order to maintain the status quo (Armenakis and Harris, 2002; Cozijnsen en Vrakking, 2003). The term used for these reactions is resistance, which can be defined as any phenomenon that hinders the change process in the beginning or at its development in order to keep the current situation (del Val and Fuentes, 2003). It is seen as a phenomena, and a natural-by-product, that occurs when the speed and magnitude of changes are higher than the human storage capacity. Given that the speed and magnitude are commonly higher than individuals are able to deal with, it sounds logic that resistance is often seen as a fact of life (Cozijnsen and Vrakking, 2003; Jansen, 2000).
goal of the change process. Adequate management of resistance is seen as the key for change success or failure (del Val and Fuentes, 2003). As Armenakis and Bedeian (1999) argue, the effects of change-associated stress, which can lead to resistance, can be improved with proper foresight.
Herein, foresight is the keyword. The problem in challenging, overcoming, dealing with or managing resistance to change is that it continues in being a reactive way in keeping the change running smooth. And as an old proverb tells: a stitch in time saves nine.
2.1.3. Change readiness
More fashionable in preventing and dealing with resistance is a more dynamic and proactive view to create a positive motivation towards the change and so readiness for change in these individuals’ perceptions.
Change readiness, as Metselaar (1997) mentions, is an individual’s positive behavioural intention regarding change implementations. It consists of participants perception of the change being necessary, their willingness to take part in it and the organizations ability to make change happen (Arlbjørn, de Haas, Caspersen, Johansen and Nørmølle, 2006; Jansen, 2000). Eventually high readiness is a cognitive precursor for individuals’ behaviour that should result in an employee’s effort to support and increase the speed of the change process. Conversely, low readiness can eventually lead to resistance to change (Armenakis et al, 1993; Metselaar, 1997).
2.2. Research Question
Following from the idea that high change readiness increases the chance of success for change processes, the question rises what measures LeanEnt takes to increase this change readiness in their change processes. As mentioned earlier, LeanEnt uses a roadmap to go from start to finish. Within this roadmap nine steps are taken to achieve the finish, but it is unsure in what way they influence the change readiness of individuals within the organizations during these steps. As Kotter has repeatedly discussed (1995, 2007, 2008), there are eight stages that need to be realized in order to create major change. These stages in some way reject resistance to change or prevent this by creating readiness for change. You might expect that during the LeanEnt roadmap there also is some, whether intended or unintended, contribution to the change readiness of organizations. It is hoped for that this contribution is positive, but as Kotter’s editor (2007) mentioned: “leading change is both absolutely essential and incredibly difficult”. So in what way the change readiness of individuals is influenced during the change process needs to be find out.
Consequently, the main focus of this research is on the influence that the roadmap has on the change readiness of individuals. As a result, the following research question is formulated:
“What strategies influence the attributes of change readiness, in the lean transition processes of LeanEnt, and in what way does LeanEnt apply these strategies to their roadmap?”
2.3. Sub Questions
1. “What individual attributes determine the amount of change readiness through change processes?”
2. “What are crucial elements during the roadmap that influence the individual attributes of change readiness?”
The two sub questions above are explained in the following two parts.
2.3.1. Individual’s readiness to change
In order to provide an answer to the research question, it is necessary to understand what determines an individual’s motivations towards change. As mentioned earlier, this motivation can either be positive, in the sense of change readiness, or negative, which can result in resistance. In this sense it is necessary to know what prescribes the amount of change readiness. Armenakis and Harris (2002) describe five domains that shape an individual’s motivation towards change. Every domain is concluded with a prerequisite, that determines the change readiness of individuals. These prerequisites serve as a basis for the results section. A clearer explanation of the purpose of the prerequisites will follow in the research method section of this paper.
Discrepancy
To achieve change readiness, it is essential to have individuals perceiving the change as necessary. Creating urgency for change is seen by many writers as an important element in change and in the creation of change readiness. Kotter (1995), Armenakis et al. (1993) and Galpin (1996) all recognise the establishment of a sense of urgency or need for change as the first activity in successfully implementing change.
opening one’s eyes to other views and to set individuals to consider alternatives (Kotter, 1996). It might even be the only possibility as Burnes (2004) argues, because urgency will only arise when employees believe there is no other option than to change. So the greater the pain and dissatisfaction with the current state, the greater the motivation for change and the less the resistance to change (Nadler, 1993). Armenakis and Harris (2002) describe it as the discrepancy between the current situation and some desired end-state. In order to create change readiness, individuals must believe that something is wrong with the current situation and something needs to change even so much that the status quo seems more dangerous than launching into the unknown (Kotter, 1995).
• Employees perceive the change as necessary Efficacy
For individuals to acquire the desired level of change readiness, it is necessary for them to have confidence in their own and the organization’s ability to succeed in implementing change. Employees that have confidence in their ability to cope with the change effort are more likely to contribute to the change than employees who do not (Cunningham et al., 2002). Individual’s readiness for change, and so their attempt to change, depends on the extent that they have the confidence that they can succeed. Without individuals having this confidence, an organizational change will be difficult, at best (Armenakis and Harris, 2002)
Employees’ efficacy is influenced by their knowledge about change and positive or negative experiences with previous change attempts (Metselaar and Cozijnsen, 2005). When organizations, and the employees within, have successfully implemented changes at previous attempts, their belief in their own ability to implement new changes is higher than in situation where previous attempts failed. Therefore, it seems important to understand the confidence employees have in their ability to implement changes.
(Armenakis, Harris & Field, 1999b). It is not only their view on their own ability to adjust to the changes, but also the ability of the organization to control its own destiny and make the investments to create change.
• Employees believe they are able to successfully implement the change Appropriateness
When a change is proposed, individuals may feel change is necessary, but they can still disagree with the specific change itself. The potential resistance that can occur may be viewed as beneficial, because it is not on an emotional but on a rational base. The discussions that arise are grounded in the disagreement about the suitability of the particular change (Armenakis and Harris, 2002). Thus, it is important to make sure that individuals view the change as appropriate. If this cannot be succeeded, reconsidering the way the change is communicated or even reconsidering the change approach might be the best option.
• Employees believe the specific change is an appropriate reaction to the discrepancy
Principal Support
The increased scepticism caused by these program-of-the month changes, results in a position that in order to create readiness for a change proposal, an organization needs to provide information and convince it’s employees that the formal and informal leaders are committed to the change effort (Armenakis and Bedeian, 1999). Therefore, communication about the leaders’ commitment to invest time, energy and resources to push the change through to completion is crucial.
• Employees are convinced that management is committed to push the change through to completion
Personal valence
In change approaches, employees are logically looking for the value that the change adds to their work. They will be asked to put effort in implementing the change and will consequently desire some benefits for this in return. If employees do not believe this is the case, resistance is likely to occur. So in order to create change readiness, and thus support for the change, employees need to have belief in the opportunity to obtain one or another form of intrinsic or extrinsic outcome (Coetsee, 1999). As misunderstanding of the future state can lead to the perception that the change will cost them more than they will gain (Kotter and Schlesinger, 1979). Therefore, it is necessary to create a clear picture of the gains and costs of the changes.
• Employees believe they will experience benefits from the change 2.3.2. Strategies that influence change readiness
Communication and Education
Communication and education, together with participation and involvement, seems to be the most important strategy for creating change and change readiness. Through communication the five domains that create change readiness are discussed either explicitly or implicitly. It explicitly helps people to see the need for and logic of change (Kotter and Schlesinger, 1979), it creates discrepancy and efficacy (Armenakis et al., 1993) and it can send symbolic information regarding the commitment to, prioritization of and urgency for the change effort (Armenakis et al., 1993).
Communication and education can be ideal in creating readiness by preventing employees developing resistance based on inadequate or inaccurate information and analysis (Kotter and Schlesinger, 1979). It is one of the most common ways to overcome resistance and can take place through the communication of ideas, the changes that are proposed and the principles behind it (Kotter and Schlesinger, 1979). Furthermore, training or presentations can increase the knowledge of employees. Also participation in the change process fulfils in the education for the employees that are involved in the process. Consequently, the increased level of knowledge can increase the perceived efficacy of employees.
Participation and Involvement
bring in information that is critical to the design of the change (Kotter and Schlesinger, 1979).
To make it more concrete and to make the relation with the five domains, it can be said that by making use of participation, communication of information is facilitated. Herewith communication about what the change will be, which should increase the perceived appropriateness, and why it has come about, which should increase the perceived discrepancy, is possible (Nadler, 1993)
Facilitation and Support
The third strategy to increase change readiness is for change agents to facilitate the change and be supportive. It consists of, for example, bringing up additional resources, giving employees time off after a demanding period, providing training in new skills or simply listening and providing emotional support (Kotter and Schlesinger, 1979). Giving employees the time and opportunity to disengage from the present state is necessary as change frequently creates feelings of loss. Therefore, listening to employees, providing emotional support and planning enough time in advance to allow people to deal with this loss is necessary (Nadler, 1993).
Removing barriers, so employees who want to implement the changes can do so, forms a part of facilitation and support too (Kotter, 2008). In general, the core of facilitation and support is to empower others to act on the vision (Kotter, 1995). Successful communication by a guiding coalition can empower others to take action, but on itself is never sufficient. Therefore, change requires the removal of obstacles that undermine the vision (Kotter, 1995).
2.4. Conceptual Model
FIGURE 1 Conceptual Model
Communication and Education
Individual’s Change
Readiness
- Discrepancy - Efficacy - Appropriateness - Principal Support - Personal ValenceParticipation and Involvement
Facilitation and Support
2.5. Research Method
In this section the research methods and techniques are outlined. The research is conducted through two methods: literature study and case study/interviews.
2.5.1. Case study
In order to gather data to answer the sub questions, the case is performed in two different ways: interviewing organizational members and interviewing the consultants themselves.
company sectors, was three interviews in the furniture sector, four in machine construction, four in the governmental sector and two in construction. Considering the success of change projects there was chosen to take two interviews at a company where the trajectory was terminated. The rest of the interviews took place with members of ongoing change processes.
Secondly, interviews with the three consultants of LeanEnt has been performed to gain insight into the background, idea’s and beliefs about the roadmap. These interviews will be used as identification of the intention of the steps in the roadmap on change readiness. Herewith distinctions between what is meant to happen with what did happen, concluding from the interviews with organizational members, can be made. This will come back in the results part of this research.
In both the interviews with the organizational members and the consultants the interviews were conducted through an interview schedule. The questions were based on the eight building blocks of Metselaar and Cozijnsen (2005). For each building block there was asked what the current state was and what the state of the building block was at the beginning of the roadmap. The source of the difference between the two questions was then identified by asking through. This leads to the understanding of the actions that have influenced the change readiness of employees.
2.5.2. Method for analysis
3. RESULTS
This section will show the results that have been obtained from the interviews. In the first part of this section, a rating of the individual attributes will be presented, which will make clear in what amount the individual attributes of change readiness are fulfilled and what has determined the rating. In the second part of this section, the influence strategies will be discussed, where the results will make clear what the importance of these strategies are, how the strategies are used in the process and in what manner they have influence on change readiness.
3.1. Individual’s Change Readiness
In the previous part there have been given five prerequisites for change readiness. These sentences are used and put in the table below. The rating for each of the prerequisites are discussed in the next five sections.
TABLE 1
Rating of Individual Attributes of Change Readiness
Individual Attribute Rating
Discrepancy
Employees perceive the change as necessary *
Efficacy
Employees believe they are able to successfully implement the change **
Appropriateness
Employees believe the specific change is an appropriate reaction to the discrepancy *** Principal support
Employees are convinced management is committed to push the change through to completion ** Personal valence
Employees believe they will experience benefits from the change **
3.1.1. Discrepancy
As can be seen in table 1, employees do not perceive the change as being necessary. In most interviews the urgency for change was felt to be low. Reactions from the interviewees varied from the satisfaction with the current situation or the disbelief in that things could get any better with any change that might be proposed. Only in three of the eleven interviews there was mentioned that the discrepancy increased during the change process. This is stated to be created by the increase in seeing the potential of the change in the course of the change process.
3.1.2. Efficacy
With efficacy was meant if employees believe in their own and the organization’s ability to successfully implement the change. As can be seen in table 1 the efficacy of employees is rated medium. Although employees seem to have a lot of experiences with changes and thus have some knowledge about change, their experiences in general have been rather negative. Previous changes are perceived as being negative because of a lack of involvement or simply because there have been too many changes in the past wherein the introduction of new changes are already announced, while the ongoing changes have not even have reached the stage of completion.
The participation in the process of diagnosing and redesigning the work processes seemed to have a positive influence on the efficacy of employees. It is noticed to increase the overview over the change process from start to finish, increase employees’ ability to visualize the road to the goal and herewith their ability to successfully implement the changes. Conversely, the employees that have not participated in the core team are mentioned not to benefit from this involvement in the change process.
3.1.3. Appropriateness
having a lack of understanding about the benefits the change has for the organization, was the main reason for it being lower in the beginning of the process.
The belief in the appropriateness of the change is, on the one hand, mentioned to be increased by participation with thinking about, analysing, and developing the process. On the other hand, it is argued to have increased by the results that the change has achieved. Noticeable is that the two interviewees, who mentioned a disbelief in the appropriateness of this specific change approach, are members of the organization in which the change has been adjourned.
3.1.4. Principal Support
As can be seen in table 1, the interviewees are partially convinced that management is committed enough to push the change through to completion. In all the cases the CEO, a member of the board of directors or someone in a similar position got acquainted with LeanEnt and initiated the change in his company. Therefore, support from, at least, that individual was present and was in three companies shown in a canteen presentation, kickoff meeting or at the start of the workshops.
Conversely, the interviewees were not entirely convinced of the management support. Interviewees mentioned that this is caused by a lack of participation or availability of (middle) management and a lack of agreement among management about the change.
3.1.5. Personal Valence
Achieving personal valence has to do with gaining benefits from the change. Experiencing positive benefits from the change is believed to be achieved by eight of the interviewees. Interviewees in general mention decreased work pressure, more overview of their own work and that of others, more efficiency in their work and being able to complete tasks without interruptions as the most important benefits.
Nevertheless, it is remarkable that for the perceived personal valence in the beginning of the process, this was mentioned eight times to be low. In the beginning, interviewees mentioned a disbelief in possible improvements for their work and fear for a higher degree of work pressure, potential loss of jobs, and less freedom in their work as being responsible for this negative view on this subject.
In the end, from these eight negative views on the personal valence, three still remain negative. Two of these, as might be expected, are the case at the project that has been terminated. Lack of results, either outcomes beneficial for the company or employees, are mentioned as the main causes for these two, while achieving results, as mentioned earlier, is mentioned as the most beneficial cause for improving personal valence.
3.2. Strategies to Influence Change Readiness
In this part there will be a discussion of the strategies that can influence change readiness. The results from the interviews will be presented for one strategy at the time. Enclosed is the importance of the strategy, to what extent the use is perceived as sufficient, and in what way it is seen as influencing the change readiness.
3.2.1. Communication and Education
During the interviews, communication was mentioned as an important strategy in the change process. This sounds logically as it is one of the most discussed strategies in literature and, as mentioned earlier, can deal with all of the individual attributes.
resignations. Therefore, this same message can create uncertainty about employees’ job security.
Secondly, showing the results that are achieved as a result of the change process is perceived as beneficial for change readiness. The interviews revealed that achieving positive results during the change processes is having the most beneficial influence on change readiness. In nine of the interviews the importance of achieving and communicating results was affirmed.
Thirdly, communication is important for employees to increase their knowledge about the principles of Lean. This educational part of communication is twofold, because it has a different function for members and non-members. For core-team-members education about Lean is necessary to increase their ability to diagnose and redesign, with the help of the LeanEnt consultants, their production processes; in being able to communicate about the changes during informal meetings; and being able to eventually implement the changes they have developed by themselves. For non-core-team-members communication in this sense is important in understanding how they can successfully implement the proposed changes to their own working environment.
Fourthly, for the non-core-team-members communication is perceived important to increase their involvement. By the use of a core team, and herewith creating participation for only a small part of the employees in diagnosing and designing the production processes, there is the danger of creating differences in change readiness between these core-team-members and the non-core-team-members. Therefore, communication between core-team-members and non-core-team-members about what is discussed in the meetings is crucial, as well as giving the non-core-team-members the possibility to share their ideas concerning the change.
communication. Of course there have been several communication means that have been used, like workshops, canteen presentations, newsletters, notice boards, presentations, work meetings; and some of the change readiness attributes have been discussed through these channels. Nevertheless, this does not seem to be consistently applied in all the change processes. It is confirmed by LeanEnt that they do discuss these issues during the first meetings with the initiator at the organizations, but that the decisions about the what and how of communication are made by the organization. This explains why there are different subjects that are communicated through different means for every change trajectory.
3.2.2. Participation and Involvement
In the interviews, participation was mentioned as an important strategy in the change process. In eight of these interviews it was remarked as having a positive influence on change readiness.
Being involved in the diagnose and development of the changes has many different implications for individual’s attitude towards the change. First of all, by walking around in the organization and seeing how the product flows, or maybe the term ‘crawls’ is in some situations more appropriate, through the organization, the core-team-members acquire a picture of the current situation. This leads in some cases to dissatisfaction with the current situation.
Second of all, the participation of core team members in the development of new work processes and the plan of how to get these processes implemented obviously provides a satisfaction with the proposed changes. Being able to reinvent, with a group of colleagues, your own processes, is mentioned to make the solution sound more appropriate, than when they are delivered by management.
organization. The other employees, consequently, perceive that the support of that, usually change averse and sceptic, employee must mean that the change proposal must have positive consequences for themselves and the organization
By making use of a core team, a small group of employees is directly involved in the change process, but simultaneously there is a larger group of employees, the non-core-team-members, that is not directly involved. This is realized by the interviewees as they noticed that it is necessary to involve this group in the change process. Herewith they do not mean letting them follow the new work instructions, but involving them during the change process and giving them the opportunity to influence the change process by making use of feedback session or the reservation of time in departmental meetings.
During the change process, participation is perceived as an important element of change readiness. It is difficult to determine to what amount the benefits of participation are used in the creation of change readiness. Since participation is mentioned to have a positive influence on change readiness, I only can assume that this indeed is the case in the processes of LeanEnt. Of course, as mentioned above, there are some areas in which the participation in these processes could be improved, for example, the involvement of the non-core-team-members. This will be further discussed in the discussion section of this paper.
3.2.3. Facilitation and Support
It is difficult to state whether both facilitation and support are important in the creation of change readiness. On one hand, support is seen as being important, as it is mentioned by seven of the interviewees as an important factor in change. On the other hand, facilitation has not been mentioned directly in the interviews.
layoffs; perceived it as beneficial when the possibility to discuss this with their manager was present.
Management support is mentioned as an important element in the success of change implementation. Especially in the case of the terminated project, the lack of line managers was noted to be a drain in the success of the change. Also in one case middle management was passed over, which lead to scepticism and resistance against the change. When they subsequently were involved, their resistance decreased, but their scepticism about the appropriateness of the change remained.
Noticeable is that there is a lot of difference in the way interviewees perceived the facilitation aspect and especially the sufficiency of time and manpower to implement the changes. The general tendency is that managers or change coordinators had a less positive view on this compared to the workforce. On the one hand, managers, in general, believed that time was scarce and the daily jobs of the employees might interfere with the change implementations. On the other hand, the employees believed the change was given enough priority and they had enough time for the changes and their daily routine.
4. DISCUSSION
Following from the results, now feedback on the results from a literature perspective and the interpretations of the influences the strategies have on change readiness will follow. Furthermore, there will follow some action that should be included in the change process to improve the weaker parts in the change readiness of employees. In the results section it already came to the fore which attributes scored well and which poor. This will be constructed further and results in an answer to the research question:
“What strategies influence the attributes of change readiness, in the lean transition processes of LeanEnt, and in what way does LeanEnt apply these strategies to their roadmap?”
4.1. Strategies to Influence Change Readiness
In this section the results will be discussed from a literature perspective. Furthermore, the important areas that the strategies cover will be noted.
4.1.1. Communication and Education
Communication is both in literature and in the interviews seen as being very important in the creation of change readiness. Sharing information about change to the fullest extent possible is one of the fourteen prerequisites mentioned by Kanter (1985) to create commitment and herewith readiness for change. As mentioned before, it can deal with all the individual attributes that determine change readiness.
on change communication, which means that practitioners have little to guide them on successful models of organizational change communication (Frahm and Brown, 2003). After all, Burnes (2004) provides us with a general guideline that anything from management has to be stated at least six times in six different ways before people start giving it credence.
In the change processes by LeanEnt, the decisions concerning how the change process is communicated and what is communicated is left at the organization itself, which leads to organizations giving their personal interpretation to this. While one could say that management knows best what its employees need, it is stated in literature that one of the most made errors in change is undercommunicating the vision by a factor of ten (Kotter, 1995). Therefore, the consultants of LeanEnt should take the initiative by creating guidelines for communication that management or the change agent can use during the change process. For example, one guideline might be the following:
“Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people” - William Butler Yeats -
Resulting from the findings in the results section, the most important areas that communication and education should cover are the communication of the current state, the picture of the future, and the discrepancy between both; education of employees to increase their knowledge and herewith their efficacy to implement the changes; and communication of progress and results for showing the appropriateness and personal valence. Propagating these messages also show the importance management gives to the changes and thus increases the perceived principle support of employees.
4.1.2. Participation and Involvement
participation is enclosed. The use of a core team is standard in every change process, since its creation is one of the steps of the roadmap. Also in this case, like with the decisions about communication and education, the determination for which employees join the core team is made by the organization. Hereby, the consultants always give the advice to think about the compilation of the team. The advice is given to include one or two potential resistors and/or opinion leaders. This opinion is supported by Burnes (2004), who states that identifying and enrolling those whose assistance is necessary and those who are essential to make change happen is important to create change readiness. The selection for the team might be based on the information someone brings in or the motivation the employee has, but the presence of sceptics, people prepared to challenge assumptions and ask awkward questions, can be useful too. Furthermore, it might be wise to involve key opinion-formers (Burnes, 2004), since their approval for change can be decisive in the acceptance of change by the employees that are not involved in the process. As Burnes (2004) mentions further, the appointment of a key person might be more concerned with its ability to block or promote particular changes than with its level of authority.
from these views it sounds logical that participation, or at least involvement, of non-core-team-members should become more common.
Conversely, participation of all employees concerned with the changes might be impossible too. Nevertheless, when participation of the entire workforce is not desirable, it does not mean that you can not involve all employees during the change effort. The non-core-team-members, therefore, should be involved instead of participating in the process. In literature these concepts, participation and involvement, are intertwined, but the question rises if these concepts really are the same. Participation might be more situated within the change process, with employees taking part in, for example, planning and decision making. Conversely, involvement in change processes might not necessarily mean employees taking part in the steps of the change process. Receiving information about the change process might also be a form of being involved. Thus, involvement might be a much more general concept than participation. Therefore, non-core-team-members can be involved, while participation of the entire workforce is not desirable.
From the findings on participation and involvement, it turns out that the areas which participation and involvement should cover, are the creation of dissatisfaction with the present state, resulting from the participation in the diagnose of the current processes; the creation of agreement for the proposed changes, by inventing their own solutions; the involvement of non-core-team-members through feedback possibilities; and the creation of a powerful coalition.
4.1.3. Facilitation and Support
Moreover, management support, and the repeated demonstration of management’s commitment, is an important element in the creation of change readiness (Kanter, 1985). The CEO or the change leader plays an important, maybe even critical, role in creating the impetus for motion (Jansen, 2004). Since the success of Lean transitions depend critically upon full buy-in of senior managers (Crabill et al., 2000), possibly the most critical factor for the failure of one project was the absence of the heads of two departments. In addition, in one other case middle-management was passed over, preventing support from that managers, which is said to have slowed down the implementation process until they were given a greater say in, and herewith more ability to commit to, the process.
The importance of the availability of resources is mentioned in literature (Pinto, 2007), but does not correspond with the results from the interviews. Especially the difference between the perception of the availability of time and manpower during the process was eye-catching. Management or change agents in general had a more negative view upon this than employees on the work floor. Possibly this is caused by employees devoting more time to change efforts and less to their normal work, where management seeing the normal work lagging behind and preferring, but not being able, to deploy additional resources. In addition, in the case of employees spending extra time and energy in their work because of the change implementation, this should lead to some form of compensation (Kanter, 1985), either in the form of rewards or as Kotter and Schlesinger (1979) argue, giving employees time off after a demanding period.
and reward pioneers, innovators and early successes. This serves as models in the creation of change readiness. Rewarding behaviour that leads to the implementation of change increases employees’ personal valence.
The important areas that facilitation and support should cover are listening to employees and providing emotional support; look after the availability of management and its support and involvement; providing additional resources when necessary; remove obstacles that prevent change.
4.2. Actions to Create Change Readiness
In the previous section implications of the results from the interviews and the literature were discussed. In the following part a discussion will follow with actions to increase the change readiness during the change processes. These actions are based on the flaws in the processes that have been researched.
4.2.1. Create a picture of the future
Creating a clear picture of the future, developing a guiding vision, or other similar expressions repeatedly return in the literature. Also in the interviews expressions of uncertainty about the future and the consequences for work have come to the fore. Therefore, it is necessary to use the advice from the literature and to create a vision about the future state. A vision ‘clarifies how the future will be different from the past and how you can make that future a reality’ (Kotter, 2008). Furthermore, a clear picture of the change, a vision with details about the new state is one of the commitment, and thus change readiness, creating actions that Kanter (1985) notes.
Consequently, in change initiatives a clear vision of the future must be developed and communicated throughout the organization, using all the means that can contribute in this. “Without a sensible vision, a transformation effort can easily dissolve into a list of confusing and incompatible projects that can take the organization in the wrong direction or nowhere at all” (Kotter, 1995).
A useful rule of thumb provided by Kotter (1995) is: “If you can’t communicate the vision to someone in five minutes or less and get a reaction that signifies both understanding and interest, you are not yet done with this phase of the transformation process”.
4.2.2. Create a sense of urgency
Since the performance in the creation of discrepancy, or in other words urgency for change, is the lowest of the five attributes of change readiness and employees’ readiness for change depends on it (Cummings and Worley, 2005), additional efforts should be initiated to increase it.
On one hand, as mentioned in the previous action, creating a vision partly deals with this matter as it creates a rosy picture of the future. On the other hand, the other side of discrepancy, the dissatisfaction with the present state, has a much higher weight on the sense of urgency. Communication and involvement are essential to gain people’s understanding for the need to change (Burnes, 2004). Therefore, they should be informed on a continuous basis of the vision, the market pressures an organization faces and the performance of its key competitors (Burnes, 2004). Burnes goes even further by stating that through this approach employees appreciate that change is not only inevitable, but is being undertaken to safeguard rather than threaten their future.
feedback session, and many more. However, take into account that informing takes place through informal as well as formal channels of communication (Burnes, 2004). As mentioned before, try to exploit the advantage of the influence possibilities of key opinion-leaders who not only understand and know the message, but also have a positive opinion about it
4.2.3. Educate about Lean
One of the things that came to the fore in the results section is that there is a lot of uncertainty of what the implementation of Lean means for employees’ work. Especially the message of doing more with less is often interpreted in the wrong way. Thereby, the appropriateness of Lean is seen as being low in the beginning of the process, which sounds logically, because employees have no idea what it means. Consequently, the appropriateness increases through the use of participation and obtaining and showing results. This of course is a good case, but it might also be interpreted differently.
For example, the greatest influence on the appropriateness of Lean is mentioned to be the results. But results are, almost only, obtained in and after the implementation section, while change readiness should be present during the whole process and thus before implementation phase too. Burnes (2004) mentions that “communication should not be a regular rather than a one-off exercise”. The same thing can be said for change readiness. Nevertheless, the dependency on gaining results is high. When the results are lagging behind, the change process might be terminated because employees, and eventually management, lose faith in it, if that was even present.
Therefore, it is necessary to increase the appropriateness of Lean more in the beginning of the process. The workshop has a positive influence on the appropriateness of Lean, while on the contrary it also has its drawback. Employees mention to have difficulty in the application of the workshop to their own workplace.
the core team, a workshop is perceived as increasing the appropriateness. Of course, not always it is possible to give everyone a workshop. But increasing knowledge about Lean is necessary to increase the change readiness within organization, which is essential to successfully implement the changes.
4.2.4. Facilitate and support the change
As mentioned earlier it is important to have support from the management and the departmental chiefs in change processes. In some case the support or availability of management lacked. Kotter (2008) mentions that the creation of a powerful coalition is crucial in the change process. As he mentions (1995), “perhaps worst of all are bosses who refuse to change and who make demands that are inconsistent with the overall effort”.
Employees need facilitation to be able to work towards the vision. Without facilitation barriers remain blocking employees’ paths preventing them to follow the vision. Furthermore, as mentioned in the results, employees need emotional support from their managers to deal with their uncertainties and anxieties. Without dealing with these issues, the credibility of the change might suffer, employees’ belief in their ability to deal with the change may descend, anxieties remain intact, and eventually resistance against the change can grow which might lead to employees falling back into their old routines.
Creating a powerful coalition that facilitates the changes and provides support can prevent this from happening. Making sure that important management positions are occupied, the guiding coalition supports the change, barriers are broken down, attention is paid to employees’ uncertainties and fears, and employees are rewarded in their efforts to follow the vision; stimulates the change readiness of individuals.
4.2.5. Gain short term results and communicate them
communicating results has its advantages. It proves to the employees that the change proposal is right. This increases the personal valence and herewith provides renewed energy to implement even more change. Therefore, “in successful transformation, managers actively look for ways to obtain clear performance improvements, establish goals, achieve the objectives and reward the people involved with recognition, promotions and even money” (Kotter, 1995).
Conversely, the dependency on obtaining and communicating results might be this high as a result of the neglect to increase the perceived personal valence and appropriateness in the earlier stages of the change process. This dependency on results might turn out into a situation that is uncalled for when the results lag behind. For the project that has been terminated, the reason for bringing the project to a halt is mentioned to be caused by the results staying behind, in the perception of the employees too. Therefore, change readiness should not depend this heavily on results in order to reach the desirable level.
Nevertheless, it is necessary to actively create short term results, like the example with a file cabin that creates more overview for employees, to benefit from the advantages that obtaining results has on change readiness. Especially in the eyes of employees who generally “won’t go on the long march unless they see compelling evidence that the journey is producing expected results” (Kotter, 1995).
4.3. Implications for LeanEnt
charge of the implementation of Lean, but is necessary for the rest of the organisation too. While LeanEnt guides this team through the process, direct influence on multiple decisions preceding and around the process lacks, while organizations often lack experience in the guidance of change processes and the creation of change readiness within
Therefore, next to the task of creating change readiness within the core team, LeanEnt should be involved in the creation of change readiness throughout the rest of the organization. They should help management in the creation of conditions to increase change readiness. This means that the strategies to influence change readiness should be discussed with management and guidelines need to be given for how the change readiness can actively be improved throughout the whole change process. Agreements about what is being communicated and how are necessary; how employees will be educated about Lean; what employees will participate in the process and how the rest of the organization can be involved; and what conditions are necessary within the organization for management to facilitate and support employees in their efforts to implement the changes.
Recapitulating, possibilities to influence the change readiness within client organizations are available. Unfortunately, LeanEnt depends on the client organization and their willingness to put time and effort into the creation of change readiness. Nevertheless they are able to discuss the strategies with management and the members of the core team. Therefore, they can steer the dose of attention that is contributed to this subject and they are able to put this subject on the map within the client organizations.
4.4. Limitations
the majority of the interviewees were situated closely to the concerned departments and because of their positions they had a good view on the readiness within these departments. Furthermore, insights from six different organizations are used in this research, which makes it broadly applicable. Hence, sufficient interviews are held to provide a general picture of the readiness within the organizations.
Secondly, the selection of companies and interviewees is eventually made by the LeanEnt consultants. Another, more autonomous, method for the selection of companies and interviewees might have provided different or additional insights. Although the eventual choice for the companies and interviewees was made by LeanEnt, the researcher was involved in the selection phase. The criteria used were determined by the researcher and LeanEnt by mutual agreement. Therefore, a high variety of companies was researched which provides the reader with a comprehensive picture of LeanEnt’s projects.
Thirdly, eight of the respondents have been interviewed about a change process in the implementation phase. Therefore, they were asked to think back in time about change readiness developments from the start of the change process. The selectivity of human memory might have lead to incomplete or biased answers. As a result, it is possible that important activities or interventions, that might have been crucial in the creation of change readiness, have been missed by the respondents. To counteract this limitation, interviews are held with two members of an organization to create a comprehensive picture of the change process.
4.5. General Conclusion
Although the limitations of the research are present, this research can serve as a helping hand within change processes. There has been some discussion in literature about, for example, the influence of organizational culture on change readiness (Cunningham and Woodward, 2002; Madsen, Miller & John, 2005). Nevertheless, there is little said about strategies within change processes and the influence on change readiness.
Despite the research about the context of change processes and change readiness, the latter is frequently scarce at the beginning of change processes. Scepticism about the change, dissatisfaction with former changes, satisfaction with the current situation, and so on all prevent change readiness from being present in the beginning of change processes. Therefore, it is the role of the consultant, together with management, to pay attention to the concerns of employees and take actions all the way through the change process to increase this vague area of change readiness. Despite all the good efforts that contribute to the change readiness within organizations, it might take all the way through to the implementation and the achievement of results before change readiness might achieve the desired level. Consequently, this research has learned us that the creation of change readiness is not a one-off effort, but that it might take from the beginning of the change process until the end, that it is interwoven in all the steps of the change processes, and that attention is necessary in all phases from the beginning through until the last drop.
commitment of employees to the change and the success of change, while, on the contrary, lacking results seems to have the opposing effect.
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