COLUMN -
Change Management
The Three
Shades of Change
"What type of Change
are you trying to implement?" To most people that's a
nonsensical question. A typical response is, "Type? What
do you mean 'Type of change?' We're implementing a Change!
Change is Change!" Or, they might have some sense that
they can distinguish different types of Change. Some
changes are "easy", others are “difficult”... this is an
"organizational change", while that one is a
"Technological change".
There are fundamental
problems with distinctions of easy vs. difficult, and
technological vs. organizational. They either fail to
cover the entire spectrum of possible changes or the lines
separating the categories are too fuzzy.
At what point along the
spectrum does a Change project shift from "easy" to
"difficult"? Where do we place the Change "Learning to
play the bagpipes"? Organizational? Technological? Or do
we need another category? Painful?
Another failing is that
the distinction between one category and another doesn't
provide us any benefit. How is "organizational" Change
fundamentally different from "Technological" Change?
Unless the scheme we use adds value to the process, it
only adds confusion. What is required is a division which
makes "sense". Usually, after such a scheme is proposed,
the reader responds with, "Of course! Why didn't I think
of that? It's obvious!"
Perhaps worse than
choosing inappropriate categories, is using no categories.
This strategy leads to confusing assertions such as
"People resist Change", spoken by people who have
willingly embraced huge personal changes; gotten married,
had children, moved house, learned a second language etc.
etc. By continuing to think of Change as "one thing" they
ignore the consequent contradictions.
There is a way to split
Change up into three distinct and useful categories.
Consider the following division based on the "source" of
the Change relative to us as individuals:
Type I – That
which is done to us.
Type II – That
which we do to ourselves.
Type III – That
which we do to others.
(Note: These could
be broken down further into sub-categories. These deserve
a discussion all of their own and will be the subject of
future essays.)
As a rule nobody
likes Type I Change. We hate being told what to do.
Why? Because it interferes with our definition of "self",
it violates our sense of independence, freedom and control
of our own destiny. This is the type of Change we're most
likely to resist within the context of organizational
Change.
Type II Change is
different, very different. We're in control. We're
deciding for ourselves that doing something different is
necessary. Because it's our decision, we don't "resist"
our decision to Change. This does not mean Type II Change
is easy. Learning to play those bagpipes or to speak
Chinese, losing weight, moving to a new city, starting a
new job or position, are all difficult tasks, but we don't
resist them in the same way we resist when someone else
tells us we have to do these things.
Type III Change is
Type I Change from the other side of the fence. If
we're inflicting Type III Change, then they perceive it as
Type I Change.
Relocating the
Factory:
Let's assume Management
has decided, for a variety of reasons, to relocate the
factory. This Change falls into all three categories
depending on who's looking at the relocation.
For Management, the
relocation is obviously a Type II Change. It's their idea,
they're in control. While relocating is difficult, it's
something they've embraced by deciding it is necessary.
Coping with this self inflicted Change is relatively easy.
For Management, it's
also a Type III Change. It is one they are going to
inflict on their employees. Inflicting Change is different
than coping with it.
And for the Employees,
this is a Type I Change. Change is forced on them by
someone else.
Where we typically make
our mistake as management, and where Change becomes
difficult, is we assume that because this is a Type II
Change for us, it's a Type II Change for everyone else.
Unless we take into
account how we react to Type I Change and accept that our
employees see this as a Type I Change, then the relocation
will be unnecessarily difficult.
 ©
2003, Peter de Jager – Peter is a Change Management
seminar leader, speaker and consultant. Contact him at
pdejager@technobility.com or visit him at
www.technobility.com
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