Upload
tamarie-musangeya-magaisa
View
108
Download
1
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Tamarie Magaisa
Institutional Strengthening Specialist
ATTRIBUTES FOR ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Attributes for Organisational Change: Tamarie Magaisa: Institutional Strengthening Specialist: 9 March 2016
Attributes for organisational change
In my previous article I spoke about “how to bring change in a complex organization, when you have
minimal authority”. Today I talk further on the attributes required for change management. In order
to achieve “Change Management” there should be a symbiotic relationship between the organization
and the Change agent. The key attributes for the organization to receive assistance in change
management are: vision, funding, receptive environment, leadership, systems and staffing. The
Change agent should have the following attributes: passion, funding, social intelligence, including
emotional intelligence, a good network of collaborators and professional experts, information about
the organization and expertise in the subject matter. The table below defines the six attributes
required for a successful change process.
Organisational attributes Change agent attributes
Staffing Expertise
Right skills to receive skills transfer and to undertake the tasks
Knowledge and expertise in the subject matter, ability to mentor, coach, facilitate, train
Systems Information
Policies & procedures, plans Understanding current systems and blockages to determine the to-be,
being innovative and creative solutions
Leadership Network
Leadership support
Ability to understand power relations, protocol and maintaining good relationship with leadership, building networks of influencers and
stakeholder management in order to gain authority. Ability to create Champions
Environment Social intelligence/emotional intelligence
Enabling environment, organisational culture The ability to effectively navigate and negotiate complex social
relationships and environments. Good interpersonal relationships, governance mobilisation and strengthening, focused support
Funding Funding
Financial resources to implement required changes Availability of funding to implement change processes
Vision Passion
Well known and accepted vision and values Visionary maker, passionate about the subject matter, shared vision with
the organisation, share the same values as the organisation leadership
Successful change
Most organizations make a mistake of choosing a Change agent only based on expertise in the subject
matter and expect everything to run smoothly. A Change agent requires a variety of attributes to
become effective. Effective Change agents should be passionate about what the organization does,
share the same values and vision with the organization’s leadership.
Organizations seek the assistance from a Change agent because they need it, but they should ensure
that the leadership has a clear vision and understand the organizational values in order to influence
the bulk of the organization below management level who may resist change. This means an
organization must select champions who will work with the change agent in order to influence the
rank and file. Resistance to change from the other employees is usually the cause of failed change.
Every organization or company runs into resistance that can slow down, or even rail change, whispers
Attributes for Organisational Change: Tamarie Magaisa: Institutional Strengthening Specialist: 9 March 2016
are heard among middle management and the rest of employees, the whispers often negative, result
in a failed change.
Blaming resistance as the cause of organizational change failure is pointless. Leadership should look
at whether there was a correct mix of attributes for change in the first place before embarking on a
change management process.
In order to utilize the six attributes, a weight is given on each of the six attributes using a spider web.
The spider web below ranks the attributes and it shows a low and a high weight of the symbiotic
relationship between the organization’s attributes and those of the Change agent.
The attributes are ranked between 1 and 6 with 1 having the highest score as indicated in the Table
below;
Ratings 1-6 with 1 having the highest
Organisational Attributes Score Change agent attributes Score
Staffing 6 Expertise 6
Systems 5 Information 5
Leadership 4 Network 4
Environment 3 Social intelligence 3
Funding 2 Funding 2
Vision 1 Passion 1
When the scores are analysed using the a spider web, which looks like a dart board it shows low
weights in the outer web threads and highest weights in the centre of the spider web.
The attributes in the centre have high weights. Therefore, shared vision, passion, funding, social
intelligence, conducive leadership environment and a strong network of professional experts are
indicated as important to any successful change. It shows these are the cornerstones to a successful
change management process. Just like a spider it sits in the centre of its web. It is quite interesting to
know that a spider sits in the middle of its web in order to monitor the radius threads vibrations. If an
0
1
2
3
4
5
6Staffing 6 Expertise
Systems 5 Information
Leadership 4 Network
Environment 3 Social intelligence
Funding 2 Funding
Vision 1 Passion
Attributes spider web for a successful change
Attributes for Organisational Change: Tamarie Magaisa: Institutional Strengthening Specialist: 9 March 2016
insect gets caught in any part of the web, the spider will feel the motion through the radius threads
and makes its way to the vibration source. Embarking on a change management process where the
Change agent and the organisation do not share the above six key attributes, the change management
process is bound to fail.