A COMMUNICATION CHALLENGE: HOW TO EFFECTIVELY COMMUNICATE AN ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE (A RECYCLING PROGRAM)?
Gideon Falk, Purdue University Calumet
ABSTRACT
This paper will discuss a multi stage process of communication to attempt to change the behavior of students, faculty and staff of a medium size university. In stage one of the change process the university administration established a goal of enhancing and expanding a campus
recycling program. In stage two a small group of a faculty member, a clerical staff, two administrators and the President of Student Government tried to improve the communication and the change process. In stage three the previous group expanded its efforts. The paper will discuss the challenges, the methods attempted and a revised plan to improve the implementation. Change models from the field of Organizational Behavior will be used to analyze the shortcoming of the strategy. Visual posters developed by students will be shared to show the plans for future expansion of the communication/change plan.
INTRODUCTION
Recycling is a practice that communities and organizations have been implementing for a long time. However, what and how to implement an effective recycling program has been a challenge for many communities and organizations. The challenge has always been how to get many individuals and organizations to put in the effort required to effectively and efficiently implement such a program.
My state university has been involved in recycling of paper and cardboard for 10 or 15 years. Similarly, the university has been involved in recycling of large florescent light bulbs and automotive oil. A new President took office at the main campus and implemented an expanded
recycling program at the central campus. At some point, the regional campus was given the instruction to expand its recycling program to include aluminum and tin cans, as well as glass and plastic bottles. There were two goals: first, become a greener university in line with many
other universities and organizations. Two, to reduce the amount of garbage (which is costly – payment to Waste Management) by moving much of the recyclable waste to the category of recyclables (which is far less costly). After discussion with Waste Management, the contractor for the campus garbage and recyclables, it was decided to acquire large green totters which will serve as a place to drop all recyclable material: cans, bottles, paper and cardboard. Facility services (the unit in charge of collecting all waste) will empty the totters 2-3 times a week. All
office workers would get a blue bin for recyclable, separate from a brown garbage/waste basket.
This paper will describe and analyze the change process which is still taking place.
Specifically, it will discuss two stages of the implementation process, will analyze mistakes which were made and discuss ideas how to improve the process. In addition, it will analyze the process in terms of two change models. Specifically, the elements that were neglected leading to imperfect results. A new communication strategy and an expanded change strategy will be proposed.
TWO COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES
Stage one: Administrative Change
On December 10, 2008 a middle level administrators sends an e-mail to everyone on campus informing them of a new Recycling Policy starting in January 2009. A copy of this email is in Appendix A. Following the message large green Totters (containers) were located on every floor in every building on campus. The Totters had no sign on them: Not what should be
deposited in them or what should not be dumped into them. In the following months faculty, staff and some students deposited recyclable material (paper, bottles, cans and cardboard boxes) in these totters together with paper cups with fluids, food, chip and candy wrappers and other onrecyclable material. Campus facility would empty the totters 2-3 times a week and would measure the amount recyclable.
In this section I’ll analyze the strength and weaknesses of this ommunication strategy which was based on a single e-mail. In short, it was a very poor way to implement a significant organizational change. The assumption that a single e-mail message, from an administrator who
is not know to most faculty and staff, can change the behavior of 600 to 1,000 people is an invalid assumption. In my subjective judgment this attempt was at best only a partial success.
Stage two: A Recycling Team Revised Communication Strategy
A faculty member who has passion for recycling and has some understanding of organizational change was not satisfied with the way the change was implemented as discussed above. Thus, he developed a new change and a new communication strategy. The following are key elements of a Revised and Expanded strategy:
1. Develop a change coalition which would include the chair of the clerical staff organization, the chair of the administrative staff organization, the president of student government, the supervisor of the cleaning staff (which collects the garbage as well as the recyclable material) and a faculty member.
2. Have several meeting to coordinate activities and communication.
3. Faculty member sent an e-mail to all faculty members asking them to announce in their classes the location of the green totters and ask the students to recycle.
4. Develop a sign to be posted on all green totters what should be recycled and what should not be deposited in the green totters.
5. Ask the University Senate to pass a resolution in support of the Enhanced Recycling program.
6. Ask for the support of student Government. The President of student Government was supportive and passed a resolution in the Students’ Senate in support of the expanded Recycling program.
7. Communicated with the supervisor of the cleaning staff to coordinate activities.
8. Approached the Vice Chancellor for Administrative Services to ask for his support and asking whether he would be willing to send a letter to the campus community.
9. Sent an e-mail to the secretaries of the 6 Schools asking them to inquire whether any faculty needs an office recycling basket (bin). These blue bins are in faculty offices, used to drop paper in the office which then has to be taken to the green totters by the faculty.
At least two schools followed.
10. At least one E-mail was sent by the faculty to all teaching faculty asking every faculty to announce the starting of an expanded Recycling program and asked instructors to tell students the locations of the nearest green Totters to the class.
11. At this point the lead team is assessing the level of success of the expanded change attempt.
THEORETICAL EVALUATION OF THE CHANGE
Analysis: Tying Lewin’s Change Model to the Change Attempt Lewin (1951) developed a conceptual change model which has three stages. They are
unfreezing, changing and refreezing. The first is the unfreezing stage; in this stage those involved in the change process and are expected to change their behavior need to be told and need to accept that the current state of affairs is not acceptable and need to be changed. In other words this stage explains the need for change and ideally those who need to change their behavior accept that reality.
This did not happen in this case. No one attempted to communicate the need for change and the reasons for it. It was assumed that students and faculty will understand the need for recycling and are already persuaded to accept such a change. It did not happen in either stage 1 or stage 2 as described above.
Stage two in Lewin’s model is changing. There needs to be an effective and clear communication of the change. The author believes that this did not take place in either stage one or two in this Recycling change.
Stage three of Lewin’s model is Refreezing – solidifying a change in behavior by supporting it, reinforcing it, and institutionalizing it to become a part of institutional practices and policies. Obviously, since the first two stages did not work properly, there is no need to discuss this stage.
Analysis: Tying Kotter’s Change Model to the Change Attempt
The first step in Kotter’s model is Establish a sense of Urgency (1996). It is pretty clear that the university community doesn’t feel a sense of urgency in terms of attitudes, feeling and logical beliefs. As discussed above the need for the change and its importance was not communicated.
Kotter’s second step is “Create a Guiding Coalition”. The description of this step is to “Create a cross functional, cross level group of people with enough power to lead the change.”
This has been attempted in the second stage of the change as described above. The Guiding committee is composed of a faculty member, the chair of the clerical and service staff, the chair of the “Administrative and Professional Staff”, the President of Student Government and a Representative of the Administration in charge of garbage collection and Recycling. On the surface it looks as if this might be a good coalition. However, there are two problems. First, the members don’t have much power to influence their respective constituencies. In particular, the
most critical group is the 10,000 students. The President of student Government has no (minimal?) influence on students’ recycling behavior.
Similarly, the faculty member does not have either legitimate power, or expert power or personal prestige to influence the 300 to 600 instructors on campus. It doesn’t seem that the instructors (faculty) are in support of the “enhanced Recycling” effort. They can do more to persuade the students in their classes to make the effort to recycle. It is doubtful that most are willing to do that.
Step three is “Develop a Vision and Strategy.” There is no strong and clear university vision in regard to being “Green.” The University Senate passed a resolution in support of the Enhanced Recycling program. The Student Government Senate passed a similar resolution. The vision, if there is one, is not shared by the university Community. There are a few elements of a strategy, but it is not comprehensive.
Kotter’s 4th step is “Communicate the Change vision.” Since there is no clear vision it is difficult to communicate it. No attempt was made to communicate a Green Vision to the campus community.
“Empower broad -Based action” is the 5th step in Kotter’s model. Since the Recycling initiative did not originate from a senior manager – leader on campus it is difficult to speak about empowerment where authority to take actions and make decisions is delegated by people with authority downward. Here, the initiative is coming from the rank and file and this step is not
applicable to this bottom level initiative.
The sixth step in Kotter’s model is “Generate short term wins.“ It is difficult to point to short terms wins at this stage. It may be possible to get data to indicate the increase in material recycled and a reduction in the amount of garbage collected by the external contractor. This data
is not yet available to the author. Furthermore, one can argue that several elements of the change strategy have not yet been implemented, and therefore it is premature to talk about short term wins.
Kotter’s seventh step is “Consolidate gains and produce more change”. Since there are no visible gains it is too early for this change.
The last of Kotter’s steps is to “Institutionalize the Change.” This is very similar to the third stage of Levin’s model of Refreezing. The new practices have to be solidified. Not applicable in this case.
Developing a Plan for Stage Three of Communication and Change
What is next?
1. Developing closer ties with top campus leaders to get them involved.
2. Developing a broader coalition with more instructors and faculty.
3. Developing closer contact with the Chronicle – the students’ campus paper. It is hoped that the paper will print several articles in the paper.
4. Getting the Vice Chancellor for Administrative services to be involved: Either sending a letter to the campus community, cosigning a letter with the lead faculty and/or getting the Chancellor to send a letter to the campus community.
5. Get student clubs be involved, Assist in the recycling in some building.
6. Develop an experiment, in which recycling containers or boxes will be in one building in each classroom. One or several student organizations will take the classroom recycling material boxes and empty them into the green Totters. Compare recycling data from previous month to the month of the experiment.
7. Post Recycling posters in many classrooms. The recycling posters have been prepared by students in computer Graphic courses.
REFERENCES
Kotter, J.P. Leading Change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996, 20-25.
Lewin, K. Field Theory in Social Science. New York: Harper & Row, 1951.
found on: http://blue.utb.edu/lfalk/2010V2BRY.pdf#page=222
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Organizational Change: Mission Impossible?
from http://missionstylehutch.bannee.com/2010/06/14/organizational-change-mission-impossible/
Many factors such as globalization, technological advances, deregulation, privatization, mergers or acquisitions coupled with a movement of labor-intensive projects to less expensive locations and changing customer demands are forcing organizations to constantly review their purpose, vision and future strategy. Most of the organizations have the objective of ‘maximization shareholder’s wealth’ but there are other key indicators that exhibit the need for adaptability to change for the company (Laurie & Frans 2002).
It has been evident recently that customer’s expectation towards organization’s behavior goes beyond compliance with the legislation (Papers4you.com, 2006). The customer has become more vigilant towards employment practices, human rights and emerging issues like standards of ethical conduct, caring for environment and partnership with stakeholders. Thus drawing upon Handy (1994) it can be stated that the pressure for change to survive and gain a competitive advantage in highly turbulent environment has grown in its importance in the management literature.
The literature has shown that organizational change has its implications in some of the non-tangible assets of the organization (Heather, 1994). These include corporate strategy, power distribution, corporate culture and the control systems. The process of change highlights the importance of continuous learning, flexibility, proactive strategy and risk management (Papers4you.com, 2006). Although there are numerous models and steps provided in the literature for successful change management but there are four popular characteristics shared within the literature (Chorn, 2004):
1. Make sure that the organization and people understand the pressure of change – why do we need to change?
2. Develop and share a clear vision about where the organization is headed – where are we going?
3. Put in place the individual, group and organizational capabilities for change – what do we need to make the change?
4. Have a plan of action that outlines what has to be done to get it all started – what do we have to do tomorrow when we come to work?
It can be concluded that ability of an organization to change has become a basic competency of an organization to survive in the increasingly competitive environment. It can further be stated that effective change management within a limited time frame can be one of the sources of competitive advantage for the companies in the long run.
References:
Chorn, N. (2004), “Strategic Alignment”, Richmond
Handy, C. (1994), “The Age of Paradox”, Harvard Press, Boston, 1994
Heather Höpfl (1994), “The Paradoxical Gravity of Planned Organizational Change” Journal of Organizational Change Management; Volume: 7 Issue: 5; 1994 Conceptual Paper
Laurie A. Fitzgerald, Frans M. van Eijnatten, (2002), “Chaos in organizational change”, Journal of Organizational Change Management; Volume: 15 Issue: 4; 2002 Conceptual Paper
Papers For You (2006) “P/M/672. Organisational change from theoretical perspective”, Available from http://www.coursework4you.co.uk/sprtmgt22.htm [22/06/2006]
Papers For You (2006) “P/M/665. Theories of chaos and complexity in the context of organizational change”, Available from http://www.coursework4you.co.uk/sprtmgt22.htm [21/06/2006]
Many factors such as globalization, technological advances, deregulation, privatization, mergers or acquisitions coupled with a movement of labor-intensive projects to less expensive locations and changing customer demands are forcing organizations to constantly review their purpose, vision and future strategy. Most of the organizations have the objective of ‘maximization shareholder’s wealth’ but there are other key indicators that exhibit the need for adaptability to change for the company (Laurie & Frans 2002).
It has been evident recently that customer’s expectation towards organization’s behavior goes beyond compliance with the legislation (Papers4you.com, 2006). The customer has become more vigilant towards employment practices, human rights and emerging issues like standards of ethical conduct, caring for environment and partnership with stakeholders. Thus drawing upon Handy (1994) it can be stated that the pressure for change to survive and gain a competitive advantage in highly turbulent environment has grown in its importance in the management literature.
The literature has shown that organizational change has its implications in some of the non-tangible assets of the organization (Heather, 1994). These include corporate strategy, power distribution, corporate culture and the control systems. The process of change highlights the importance of continuous learning, flexibility, proactive strategy and risk management (Papers4you.com, 2006). Although there are numerous models and steps provided in the literature for successful change management but there are four popular characteristics shared within the literature (Chorn, 2004):
1. Make sure that the organization and people understand the pressure of change – why do we need to change?
2. Develop and share a clear vision about where the organization is headed – where are we going?
3. Put in place the individual, group and organizational capabilities for change – what do we need to make the change?
4. Have a plan of action that outlines what has to be done to get it all started – what do we have to do tomorrow when we come to work?
It can be concluded that ability of an organization to change has become a basic competency of an organization to survive in the increasingly competitive environment. It can further be stated that effective change management within a limited time frame can be one of the sources of competitive advantage for the companies in the long run.
References:
Chorn, N. (2004), “Strategic Alignment”, Richmond
Handy, C. (1994), “The Age of Paradox”, Harvard Press, Boston, 1994
Heather Höpfl (1994), “The Paradoxical Gravity of Planned Organizational Change” Journal of Organizational Change Management; Volume: 7 Issue: 5; 1994 Conceptual Paper
Laurie A. Fitzgerald, Frans M. van Eijnatten, (2002), “Chaos in organizational change”, Journal of Organizational Change Management; Volume: 15 Issue: 4; 2002 Conceptual Paper
Papers For You (2006) “P/M/672. Organisational change from theoretical perspective”, Available from http://www.coursework4you.co.uk/sprtmgt22.htm [22/06/2006]
Papers For You (2006) “P/M/665. Theories of chaos and complexity in the context of organizational change”, Available from http://www.coursework4you.co.uk/sprtmgt22.htm [21/06/2006]
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