Academic Leadership

Chapter 11 – Innovator

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11.3 Strategies for Managing Change

(click the activity index number to take you back to the activities index)

Three common approaches to managing change are identified by Quinn, Faerman,
Thompson, McGrath, and St. Clair (2007, p. 288–292): telling, forcing and
participating. The first two approaches are less effective than the last.
The first stage in managing change often involves the telling strategy. This is when
people are told it is in their best interests to change; there are good reasons for this
change and the leader assumes that just telling people what those reasons are will be
sufficient to ensure compliance. This strategy is only effective if the change is easy to
implement. That is, it doesn’t require major changes to the way people do things; no
new learning is required and only minimal, if any, adjustment to feelings or attitudes is
required.
The forcing strategy often follows unsuccessful use of the telling strategy. It
involves the imposition of punishments or sanctions of some sort. This strategy may
work for a short time but people will soon go back to their old ways of doing things.
The more effective third strategy is to involve those who are affected in the change
process:

• Collaborative decisions are taken.


• The leader brings others with her/him.


• The reasons for change are articulated (as they are in the telling strategy), but the
  leader invites and welcomes the views of others as equals in the change process.
  This often involves working through conflicts but the emphasis is on communication,
  collaboration, and cooperation.

The leader needs to use active listening techniques (see Section 7.1, ‘Learning to
Listen’). This is called the participating strategy. The goal is to achieve a win-win
result. To this end, all who will be affected by the change are invited to participate in an
open dialogue, where supportive communication is modelled. In this approach, there is
almost constant monitoring of processes designed to engage participants in the
decision-making process. The aim is to move towards consensus.

Nominal Technique

In trying to build consensus, you may want to try the Nominal Technique. This strategy
involves inviting staff to participate in an experience which is managed by a chairperson.
Once everyone is briefed on the issue or change initiative that needs to be explored,
individuals write down their ideas. Once everyone has completed their written
responses, one by one, everyone submits their ideas, which are written on flip charts or
large sticky notes (which can then be moved around).
Only one person speaks at a time as they share their idea, and no one is allowed to
say anything until all ideas are up on the flipcharts or sticky notes. This prevents egos or
people in positions of power from influencing the generation of ideas. It may take
several rounds until all ideas are exhausted.
Once the ideas are all made public, duplications are removed and each item is then
assigned a number. The group then decides which are the most important and rank-
orders the ideas (this is why sticky notes are great as they are movable). Once the
ideas have been rank-ordered, the group can focus on the top priorities, e.g., the top 5 or
top 10.