Motivation and Change Management

Describe about the context of change management, resistance to change and managing change.

Central to today’s organizational change and development are the theories of change management and creative practices developed decades ago by prominent theorists like Maslow, Lewin or Senge. Abraham. H. Maslow is without argument one of the most important psychologists that the world has seen. His hierarchy of human needs and the motivational theory are one of the most enduring contributions to the world. After Maslow postulated his hierarchy of needs theory, individual development became a good in itself. Self-actualization was considered a pre-requisite for a change management. According to the theory of motivation, a person who has his needs in the lower part of hierarchy met, would then progress further towards realizing his potential. This thought serves as a paradigm shift in forming the basis of good leadership and a successful management.

One of the core premises that underpin the use of change management is motivation. Every concept about change all boils down to that one word. It is natural for people to become defensive or anxious at the prospect of a change which is something different from the routine a person is used to. Therefore, if an action does not primarily motivate people to put in the effort required to achieve the desired results, the probability of an improvement (change) gets lowered there. But motivation is not something that is achieved in a short run. While we must consider that the beginning of all successful journeys is bound to a little bumpy without motivation as a central part of the strategy, the entire process could easily fail.

And as a leader implementing the change, it is his/her duty to carefully undermine the difficulties that go into a change process. A change process begins with preparation or planning, change management, reinforcing and finally evaluating the change. It is during the first step of this process that Maslow’s theory of motivation plays an important role. It is a leader’s responsibility to make attempts to understand the physiological needs of those upon whom the change is inflicted and would be reflected. Any form of initial challenge would be posed by them and when they’re adequately motivated with all their hierarchical needs taken care of, initiating the change shouldn’t be as difficult.

We live in a world of unprecedented change. With businesses and organizations increasingly going global, competitive, complicated and unpredictable, change is something that has become inherently emergent. The continuous change has made organizations unstable, planned change is not the only kind that is acceptable. Purposeful, calculative and collaborative change processes are to be efficiently connected to unplanned, unexpected emergent changes. This requires immediate implementation as soon as a new trend is spotted. While a number of authors have attempted the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of changes, Kurt Lewin is the pioneer in the field. He identified three stages through which an organization traverses before the change becomes a part of the system: Unfreezing, Moving and Refreezing. The first step involves examining the status and requirement for change, the second denotes initiating the change by taking action and involving people and finally finalizing the changes and making them permanent.

Theories of Change Implementation

An expansion and modification to Lewin’s theory was provided by Rogers (1983) who described planned change to comprise of five phases including awareness, trial, interest, adoption and evaluation which was then further expanded by Ronald Lippitt (1958). These theories can be clustered together and while these theories are the best form of change implementation, it is a time consuming process considering all the stages of implementation. These may be suited for a business environment that is stable but during complex, dynamic period, a more quick thinking is required and emergent planning may be more suitable.

Figure: Comparison between change principles

Source: (Roussel, 2006)

And these are the main limitations of the Lewin’s theory wherein the theory assumes an organization’s environment as stable and these types of change management could be applicable in small-scale change products. Also, organizational power and politics have not been taken into account and is completely management driven. But the core theme of his work is that the group in which an individual is a part of influences his perceptions, feelings and actions and is most important in bringing about change whether it was at an individual level, group level or the organization level. His primary interest was in resolving conflicts through behavioral changes and to succeed he identified two requirements, an understanding of the formation and maintenance of groups and the motivation behind them and to change their behavior as required for the change.

The criticisms on Lewin’s work could be a result of narrow interpretation of his work. His view of organization wasn’t stable or fixed nor did he view change to be one-dimensional and his work demonstrates that he was aware of the limits to stability. Far from viewing change as predictable, he viewed it as an iterative learning process in which the final achievement would hold more value than the journey. His work recognizes that organizational transformation under certain conditions of crisis could be rapid but is limited to structural or technical changes while behavioral changes take time. Conflicts are an ongoing process and his approach with its basis on understanding, developing new insights, and testing solutions is relevant even in today’s world of business whether in organizations or the wider society.

Decision making in dynamic situation is complex especially when the decision-making process has indirect, delayed and have a number of effects. Yet, in organizations today, managers are constantly put in such situations where they are expected to act. According to the systems thinking approach of Senge (1990), its practice begins with understanding of feedbacks. This basic understanding will then pave the way in enabling people identify recurring patterns. This proves that managers no longer have the liberty of ignoring feedbacks nor misperceive them. And as the strength of feedbacks increase and the time delays happen, the performance in an organization deteriorates markedly.

Comparison between Change Principles

In his book, The Fifth Disciple, Senges relies on the concept of Mental Models which according to him are very important in paving the way in which an individual perceives reality which is in turn shaped by his/her view of the world. The systems perspective allows managers to look beneath the surface into the underlying structures of attitudes and behaviors which aids in gaining the necessary leverage to change which is not accessible by concentrating on only specific events. The basic aim is to achieve growth not by pushing for growth but by limiting the obstructions in the path of growth. But Senge’s principle is limited in that it did not explore the fundamental structural, social and economical limitations in the growth of an organization because doing so would have been contradictory of his basic goals. But still, the conditions for the operation of an organization are generalized in his book.

This way of thinking can be defined as viewing the connections and relationships between things. Instead of considering the individual parts and pieces of an occurrence, systems’ thinking considers the interdependency between the parts and appreciates it as a whole. According to this theory, an organization is composed of a number of subsystems. The hierarchical needs, bureaucratic relationships, process flow, individual attitudes, perceptions, production, service, sales, quality control and assurance and a number of other factors. And any change to one subsystem will definitely have an impact on the other systems because of the interconnectedness of the subsystems. People in different levels of organization hold diverse perceptions on a particular action and that is what is appreciated in systems thinking perspectives. This leads to a recognition of the underlying structures and map them to the complexity of the change and understand factors that have remained invisible otherwise.

Therefore, the three theories of change management aren’t dated but are still central to today’s organizational change management but not as individual theories but are interconnected to each other. These theories are holistic in their view and applicable universally. As argued by Burnes (2014), the best theory for change management would be the one that brings different disciplinary angles together. The system’s perspective is valid in its claim that the organization is divided into subsystems that are interrelated and while considering that, the systems theory may seem the best way to go about. But whether the change proposed is organization wide or on the systems of the organization, the ultimate change will have to be effected by the individual and group behaviors and would be reflected on them and in that case, the relevance and applicability of Maslow’s and Lewin’s theories cannot be ignored.

Criticism of Lewin’s Theory

Employee resistance to change is inevitable and at any point of time, a management must be prepared to respond to it. It is the individuals within the organization that are thwarted and affected by a change and they resist it primarily due to the fear of the unknown. That is, there is a general fear of the effect the brought about change would have on their job performance, their work place relationships and other factors associated with the job. According to Fine (1986), these individuals together have the power to thwart the implementation of any change. People need time to adjust to the changes and this fear of unexpected is more rational than irrational. Weinbach (1986), Malinconico (1983) demonstrate that individuals belonging to an organization are more accepting of changes when the organization management tries to ease their anxieties in a number of ways.

These can be achieved by firstly letting the employees know in advance about the change plans. And in specific, the management must provide those employees that are directly affected by the decision with the complete information regarding the changes. And in any case, the management must continuously provide clarified answers to all of the employee questions and provide the employees with the time to reflect on the effect the proposed change will have on themselves and the organization as a whole.

For instance, let us consider an example from a study conducted by two communication researchers. The study was about a government agency that had plans to move to a new office building. The workers in the office were old fashioned and used to working under the conditions present in the current building and even though the plan for change had been discussed within the senior management for a while, the plan was not communicated to the employees. The study was conducted by separating the employees into three groups where in one of the group would receive positive information about the change, the second group would receive negative information and the third group would have no information at all. Consequently, one group was informed that the new building would have better amenities and better furniture, the second group was informed that the environment in the new office would hinder privacy and third group was given nothing (Miller, 1985).

As expected, the group that received positive information responded positively to the change but the surprising part was that the group that had negative information also responded positively compared to those with no information at all. This made it clear that, be it positive or negative information, sharing as much information as possible with the employees made them better adaptable to the change rather than keeping them in the dark. Another common reason responsible for resistance is when people are apprehensive of the new job-related expectations that a said change could bring. According to a study by Sagie et al (1985), emphasized that individuals who are more experienced at performing a particular job are more resistant to change than the lesser experience employee because they’re used to doing it in a certain way for a long period of time. Debra Shaw (1986) emphasizes on increasing employee participation to reduce resistance to change.

Systems Thinking Approach

People differ in ways they respond to change. Oreg (2003) established the concept of dispositional resistance to change which embodies the differences in reaction of different people. A scale called the RTC was used to measure dispositional resistance to change in which the structural and predictive validities of the resistance was measured. The studies demonstrated that dispositional resistance was related to yet very difficult from intolerance for secrets, aversion to risks, dogmatism or other traits. The trait, according to him comprised of four dimensions including routine seeking which involves the extent to which an individual relies on the stability of an environment, emotional reaction referring to the individual’s reaction of discomfort and stress as a result of the change imposed, short-term focus which denotes the inconvenience caused due to individual’s pre-occupation with the short term problems that the change might cause without looking into the bigger picture and cognitive rigidity that refers to the stubbornness and a willful resistance to innovative ideas and changes. Dispositional resistance may prompt people to be not accepting of the changes even if the changes are docile and has a comparatively welcoming context (Jones, Jimmieson and Griffith, 2005).

Another important notion crucial to the understanding of resistance is the depth of intervention. The notion was advanced by Harrison (1970) who identified some of the most important factors that have to be considered when making a choice about the depth of intervention. The depth here is associated with the extent to which a person’s individual feelings or cognitions are identifiable and the degree to which an individual is emotionally involved in the change process. The depth of intervention choice and time will also depend upon the strategy involved in the change process. For instance, when considering a change in the organizational culture which is part of a fundamental change, the depth of intervention is to be pitched at a depth level and if it is done superficially, the level of resistance will be high and the change process is bound to fail (Jabri, 2012).

The cognitive dissonance theory demonstrates that people who are inherently committed to a particular course of action will become insensitive to the potential benefits of the proposed change (Jermias, 2001). In his study, Jermias demonstrated that people refused to accept change even if they are faced with negative feedback on the current system. People who are in general convinced that they should decide objectively instead of being subjective still unconsciously make preconceived decisions towards the course of action to which they find themselves committed. And in applying these to principles to change management of an organization, if the proposed change is out of proportion to the general mindset of people concerned, the proposition is bound to be met with resistance unless a change in attitudes of those involved prevails (Burnes, 2014). And in cases where there is minimum level of dissonance, the resistance will be minimum and the attitude problems negligible. The scenario turns upside down in case of crisis situations when the attitude change among concerned people can be brought about rather quickly and a radical change is the only way to overcome dissonance.

Mental Models and Growth

Involvement of employees can be explained by another concept called the psychological contract. For an organization to effectively implement change, an understanding of the employees is more important than they understand change. Employees of an organization are bound by a set of unwritten expectations based on a person’s degree of self-worth and prestige and when it is threatened it leads to unrest. If a person employed in particular position, location or sector is suddenly transferred to a new position, it is imminent that he feels threatened and concerned about his job security, performance and convenience. Hence, psychological contract is another important area that has to be dealt with caution. Therefore, any proposed change by a company needs to be a well thought about plan including the level of employee involvement rather than a hasty situation that is bound to create unrest (Burnes, 2014).

While change may have been broadly classified as planned and emergent, there are other dimensions to change that find relevance in today’s business environment. Transformational change identified by Kotter (1996) is a key type. In his first paper, Kotter identified eight key areas of concern that leads to an organization’s transformation efforts to fail. And subsequently went to identify an eight stage process every organization must go through in order for their transformation to be successful. McDonald’s is one such company that has undergone a number of transformational changes in recent years.

McDonald’s underwent transformational change to reposition them in the food market and re-brand them. When the company faced increased censure due to the campaigns from anti-obesity and anti-junk food protesters, McDonald had to change its culture entirely to suit the growing needs of people that had suddenly become very different than what it was a few years ago. And the change was necessary to bring it back into profit. This change though broadly can be classified as emergent change, fits more prominently into the category of transformational change. It was not planned as McDonald’s clearly did not see it coming and had to undergo a radical transformation. One of the major characteristics of transformational change that differentiates it from the other styles is the effort of the leaders to involve self-esteem, efficacy and confidence of their employees (Shamir et al, 1993).

McDonald’s transformation was at broad organization level wherein the organization adapted itself to the environment. The main vision behind McDonald’s transformation was to become a health conscious food outlet as opposed to being categorized as junk food (Kapica, 2004). The company repositioned its products as being more nutritious and aligning itself to a new brand image of health and fitness. In the year 2003, McDonald’s began this initiative and started serving salads. Their lifestyle initiative strategies included adding nutritional information about the food served in serving trays and their brochures and the year saw McDonald’s selling hundreds of millions of salads (Boje and Rhodes, 2006).  

Systems Thinking

Jim Cantalupo, the then CEO and Chairman of McDonald’s brought about the change my drastically changing the menu and introducing McSalads and launching campaigns for fitness nutrition. Governments and other influential health advocates around the world pointed to McDonald’s as a reason for their obesity levels increase. America, the country native to McDonald’s is the country with the most obese people. The ongoing Menu changes were then promoted with a new slogan, “McDonald’s. But not as you know it.” The main aim here was to make changes to people’s thinking about McDonald’s products and create awareness about the new products for which direct mailing of brochures was done to nearly seventeen million households in the UK.

Another problem with McDonald’s image emerged when in 2001 the company was accused of using natural beef extracts in its fries enraging vegetarians and Hindus around the world. The consumer base in those sections of the society felt cheated by the apparent misleading of the company even though the fries were never claimed suitable for vegetarians by the company. After a protest on the use of animal fats in the oil used for frying, McDonald’s switched to using vegetable oil frying oil and to make up for the lost flavor because of the switch, natural beef flavoring was added to the fries before frying and this did not go well with vegetarian groups. The FDA at the time did not require the company to list ‘natural’ flavorings in the nutrition table and this controversy came to light when an Indian origin vegetarian living in Los Angeles went to the Headquarters of McDonald’s and learnt about the use of natural beef flavors. McDonald’s also found itself subject to a number of lawsuits accounting to millions of Euros (Schlosser, 2001).

The controversy then came to an end when the company admitted to the use of beef extract and claimed that it had never announced the suitability of the fries to vegetarians. They also declared a public apology for the confusion created (Davis, 2001). But strict compliance was followed in India and other Hindu and Islamic countries. And since beef is banned in India and is opposed to the religious beliefs of the people there, McDonald’s changed their menu offerings customized to the needs of the country. The menu did not include pork and beef. Similarly, menus in other countries around the world were customized according to the preference of the local community. This transformational change made McDonald’s to return back into profit books.

Quite recently, the fast food giant also spent a billion in Canada for their brand transformation in the hope of reinvigorating its image in the country. The project will include renovating the stores to make the customers feel more inviting when they enter the outlets. The majority of the investment has been designed to make changes to the store interiors but a part is also accounted to making changes in the menu to include premium salads and healthy beverage alternatives. The company understands that the needs and wants of its consumer bases are changing continuously and adapting to the change is the only way for them to remain continually successful. It has also revised several of its locations as 24-hour operations (Moran, 2011).

In spite of all the fast and convenient options and healthy menu option aimed at the baby boomers, the challenges that the company faces today are far more serious than they were a decade ago. Today’s generations put calorie count and health ahead of everything else when it comes to their food choices and unfortunately when you think of low calorie food McDonald’s is not the first place that comes to our mind. A major overhaul planned in the company features more fruits and vegetables. According to Don Thompson, chief executive officer of McDonald’s, the rebranding strategy will look at the company from top to bottom in order to create better value for the customers, good service, effective marketing and adhere to sustainability options.

In 2014, it was announced that the rebranding would take a year and a half to be effective. And as a most recent announcement, the company after facing a weak first quarter in the current year announced in New York city involving eighty eight restaurants that an isolated McDonald’s delivery experiment where full menus will be available for delivery and some even with round the clock delivery options (Gasca, 2014). This McDelivery service is aimed at achieving a more competitive position. The company hopes to strip away the bureaucratic layers and attain a more effective decision-making model. The aim is to achieve a turnaround in the business (Soergal, 2015). Considering this, while the transformation change of McDonald was successful a few years back, it still has a long way to go before attaining the success it once enjoyed.

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