AOM MOC 2012 Tucker, Hendy & Barlow - Sensemaking and Social Accounts of Middle Managers

Danielle Tucker, Imperial College, London, UK

Jane Hendy, University of Surrey, UK

James Barlow, Imperial College, London, UK

Sensemaking and Social Accounts

of Middle Managers

Academy of Management Annual Meeting 2012 3-8th August, Boston, MA

Background

• Limited previous research on large scale change in healthcare

– no guidance

• Need for planning

• Need for stakeholder engagement

• Long term sustainability and embedding of practices

Our interests:

• Communication and understanding - impact on current decision

making and planning processes

• Sensemaking and social accounts

• Approaches to engaging stakeholders and their impact

• The use of tools and agents in managing change

• Transformational strategic change

Imperial College Business School ©

Theoretical Framing (1)

• Sensemaking

Sensemaking is a narrative process through which mental models of

the world are created, shared and maintained. Clusters of

knowledge or experiences which act as reference frameworks

(interpretive schemes), allowing us to make sense of an event in

reference to the knowledge which we already have (Balogun and

Johnson 2004).

Organisational transformation requires all employees to change

their sensemaking of the organisation.

If sensemaking is not transformed organisational behaviour

will remain entrenched in its old design.



Employees form new sensemaking by gathering information,

communications and actions from their surroundings.

During large scale organisational redesign they must use perceptual

filters to manage communications.

• Social accounts

“the explanations one gives another for the decisions and actions he or

she has made” (Cobb and Wooten 1998:p75).

We do not understand why some social accounts are incorporated

into the new sensemaking and others are rejected.



Importance of middle managers:

• Receivers and givers of social accounts

• Translate strategy to implementation

• Filter of key messages

• Often overlooked in change management process




Old

Schema

Social Account

Reject account

Accept account

New Transformed

Schemata

Redesign Sensemaking

Existing

Schemata of

Middle

managers

Behaviour supports new

design

Entrenched Schemata

Behaviour resists new

design

Senior

Management

Case Study

© Imperial College Business School

Drivers for Change and Context:

• Aging facilities

• Reconfiguration of Services within

the Trust

• Infection Scandal, Healthcare

Commission Report – 2007

• Change of Board – 2007/2008

• Political & community opposition to

reconfiguration of maternity services

Project Overview: Redesign and rebuild of two old hospitals and reconfiguration of services within an English NHS Trust. 100% single occupancy room design. All acute services for county to be consolidated at one site.

Middle Manager Change Agents


Executive Team

New Hospital Development

Team

MMCA

Clinical Division

MMCA

Clinical Division

MMCA

Clinical Division

MMCA

Clinical Division

Middle Manager Change Agents:

•2-year project mgmt role

(18months prior to stage 1 move)

•Seconded from Clinical Divisions

•Link between project team and

clinical divisions

Data Collection


Data Source Phase 1

(January-September

2010)

Phase 2

(October 2010-

January 2011)

Transition A

(January

2011)

Phase 3a

(February-July

2011)

Transition B

(September

2011)

Phase 3b

(August 2011-

January 2012)

TOTAL

Formal Interviews: (Jan-April) (Oct-Dec) (March-April) (Dec-Jan)

Executive Directors 3 6 4 1 14

Other Trust Management 4 3 - 2 9

Project Management Office 7 4 1 2 14

Divisional Directors - 4 4 5 13

Managerial Change Agents 4 5 2 4 15

Lower

management/Frontline

staff

- - 3 7 10

Total 18 22 14 21 75

Observations (hrs.):

Total 2 4 3 2 11

Documents:

Total 29 13 34 28 104

Findings (1)

Mechanisms for creation of new sensemaking:

• Consensus and Alignment

• But how do they work as mechanisms?

• Another level of analysis uncovered that:

• Managers often used comparisons to explain the change process

• Relied on underlying assumptions of the organisation

• Sensemaking requires significant room for interpretation

Two attributes which ‘hook’ onto existing schema and form the basis of new

sensemaking:

• Concrete hook – allows interpretation and assimilation

• Credible hook – decision to accept or reject account


Findings (2)

1. The ‘concrete hook’

• Concrete – being able to interact with information using our senses

• Abstract ideas were difficult to remember

• Managers failed to interpret accounts which were not concrete

“I think maybe at that point I hadn’t translated that that would actually affect

us within [name of department] as well, it hadn’t kind of come home. I know

when, probably about two years ago when they were still talking about

building it, what we ended up with was not how I understood that it was going

to be from that time” (03-33: 71-75)


Concrete Hook No Hook

No transformation

Findings (3)

2. The ‘credible hook’

• Credible – an evaluation of alignment between the account and the

organisations objectives and actions

• Evidence – whether the account was based on accurate understanding of

the situation

• Legitimacy – whether the motives for the account were genuine

“People were saying, there’s a gap here, right okay, we’ll plug it with a role. We’ll

call them [job title]. This is what we’ll say after... this is what we’ll say they’re

looking after because that looks like it splits nicely and I’ve pulled those out of a

hat and I think they’ll all go nicely together but on the other hand we’re not really

sure what their role will be but, you know” (02-18: 175-180).

“Probably because they had nothing else to do with me, [on the project] this year

and then after September next year I’ll be gone. They’ll get rid of me.” (02-20:

444-446) © Imperial College Business School

Process model of middle manager sensemaking


•

Social Account

Reject account

Accept account

New Transformed

Schemata

Redesign Sensemaking

Existing

Schemata of

Middle

managers

Concreteness

Behaviour supports new

design

Entrenched Schemata

Behaviour resists new

design

Figure 1 - Change Agent Sensemaking

Senior

Management

Credibility

Ignore account

Conclusions

We identify two mechanisms by which explanations (social

accounts) are incorporated in the development of new

sensemaking during organisational change.

- The need for accounts to have a ‘concrete hook’ on which new

sensemaking can be based.

- The outcome of a credibility evaluation, which may lead to the

acceptance or rejection of an account.

This understanding contributes towards explaining the success or

failure of managerial sensegiving and sensemaking activities and

subsequent successful organisational change outcomes.


Thank You

We welcome your questions or comments.
