By: jonathan smith

jonathan smith — Sun, 02 Mar 2014 18:16:03 +0000

I work mostly in Africa, Asia and the “Arab world” . I’m guessing that my exposure to change happening in the work place is perhaps slightly different, in that grass roots and lone wolf are not much what I’ve witnessed. The pushes for change that I mostly see would be those which are donor-driven, e.g. the “conditionality” attached to loans and grants; or simply technology-driven, e.g. outside forces which drive the organization to go along in order to get along. In both cases, such change drivers end up being under the “approved” category you define. (I like your categories, by the way…pretty succinct and well defined). Connected to the development programs with which I am familiar, and which often bring change through the doors of organizations, is the fact that many governments that benefit from donor-driven programs have, themselves, set out on programs like Vision 2020, which are pushed from even the President’s Office. But, again, those are hand in hand with world-wide pushes such as Millenium and what have you. One interesting donor-driven approach I saw, and have always liked, is to get mid-management and key technical staff into training events, such as “taking charge of change” programs, instead of first getting top management involved in such programs (top management is supposed to know everything, so it is often un-seeming that they “take training”…it sends the wrong signals). When mid-management come out of such training events , often with concrete “decisions” to create workplace changes (your co-creation scenario), top management will sometimes get nervous, because they see their subordinates leaning and knowing new concepts and even techniques which they, top management , actually do not know. Then, as is often the case, top management request similar programs for them, since they do not want to be left out or left behind…

Comments on: Four Ways Change is Introduced Into Organizations

By: jonathan smith