« Team Building Activity: Creating a Teaming Environment | Home | Leadership Skill: Distrust »
Change Management Strategies: Four Attitudes Toward Change
By harveyrobbins | November 4, 2007
There are four attitudes toward change, created by leaders, with which an organization can be managed. They run the gamut from maintaining control (Old Age management) to distributing control (New Age management). Four points can be designated to demark four attitudes about control.
1) Pummel. Terror. “Do what I say or you will die.” The bad old days. This time-honored method seeks control at any cost and can be used to force either change or non-change. The worker is a slave.
2) Push. Distress. “Do what you must do or the enterprise will die.” This is conventional motivation, the deliberate use of fear to galvanize positive action - the burning platform from which people must jump (change) or perish. Push uses force, like Pummel, but it is not brutal force. It encourages people to act by loading them up with negative information. In the hands of some, this is the big lie. The worker is a rat in a Skinner Box.
3) Pull. Eustress. “Do what you must do to achieve the future you dream of.” Imagination, inspiration. It is less control than a willingness to lead coupled with a willingness to follow. Pull is Push plus empowerment - workers motivate (scare) themselves. The manager is a human being with no power to coerce; the worker is a human being with free will. A kind of fear is involved. Urgency might be a better word for it. This is the hardest way to achieve change, but the way with the best long-term results.
4) Pamper. Torpor. “Do what you feel like doing.” This is the realm of entitlement, the supposedly good new days. Pamper is Pull minus accountability. Zero fear, maximum empowerment, slack performance, scant measurement and evaluation. The worker is a child. The first two are related, characterized by fear, manipulation, and disrespect for the worker. The second two are also related, characterized by an acknowledgment of the worker’s humanity. The first and last categories are the extremes, but these extremes are common. Anyone who has been in many different organizations knows that a lot of them operate on these extremes of sadism and permissiveness. The best hope organizations have for making successful change lies in utilizing a balanced combination of the middle, more temperate two - Push and Pull. Push to get people’s attention and start them thinking. Pull to leverage people’s knowledge and creativity to put the change over.
Topics: Change Management Plan |
November 5th, 2007 at 3:09 am
The 5 main drivers of change in the current world according to Roger Gauthier are:
1. Entrepreneurial workforce
2. The Internet Age
3. Baby Boomer Exodus
4. Workforce Retention
5. Globalization and competition
A thorough discussion of the above may be found here:
http://change-management.bestmanagementarticles.com/Article.aspx?id=6711
Good luck,
Ismael Tabije
http://www.BestManagementArticles.com
http://change-management.bestmanagementarticles.com/
November 5th, 2007 at 3:55 am
[...] Jason Giacchino wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptchange consulting firm management, change management consultant, change management consulting, change management model, change management plan, change management process, change management system, change management training, … [...]