Linnaeus University

Informatics/ DFM

Programme: Master of IS Date of delivery 2010/03/10

Title: “Worktask 2, Change management, Creative ways of empower action to change the

organizations: cases in point ”

Author(s): Pierazzoli Marco –Exchange student mp222ci

E-mail:pierazm@gmail.com

Course: 4IK005

Teacher:/tutor: Behrooz Golshan

Table of contents:

1. Resume

1.1. Introduction and overview

1.2. Aims and purpose

1.3. Main concepts

2. Cases of application

2.1. Retooling the boss

2.2. The worldwide competition

2.3. Making movies on the factory

3. Connections to IS area

4. Summary

1.Resume

1.1 Introduction and overview

Kotter and Cohen (2002), in their paper, describe various forms of change focusing the attention on

the obstacles to change. In the first part of the paper they describe many forms of obstacles and

disempowering forces from a theoretical point of view. According to them, these forces range from

bosses who disempower their employees to lack of information, from the wrong performance

measurement and reward systems to lack of self-confident and so on. In the second part of the

paper, on the other hand, they provide the reader with several case studies and examples to show

how to deal with these obstacles. The authors (Kotter and Cohen, 2002) face the effective change as

a creative force, and so they do with the ways to remove these obstacles.

1.2 Aims and purpose

Kotter and Cohen (2002) present the change as a vital part of organizations but often not so easy

and natural to implement. What they try to do with this paper, is to provide the reader with the right

tools to face the change and to be prepared for the obstacle he/she will find. While reading the paper

is self-evident the need for an organization to have positive examples of the kind: “I survived, so

you can, too”, I think that the main aim of the authors is make the managers aware of other

successful examples. The purpose to instructing the reader with examples is clear as well, and you

can understand it by the short theoretical explanation in the beginning, explained in each point far

more deeply with case studies and anecdotes later in the disquisition. Kotter and Cohen believe that

in order to empower the change is important to remove such obstacles and that is why they are

trying to “take away the tattered sails and give them better ones” (Kotter and Cohen, 2002, p.73).

1.3 Main concepts

The main concept of the paper is clearly explained in the first page: “empowerment, as the term is

used here”…” is all about removing barriers”. The main barriers illustrated in the paper are: the

boss barrier, the system barrier, the mind barrier, the information barrier. All these barriers are the

general ones. When you look in the specific and in the actual practice these barriers can be declined

in other sub or specific barriers. For instance, a boss barrier could refer to a top manager who is

fighting against the change alone or a middle management problem, in the meaning of a group

opposing the change. Nevertheless, a system problem, could refer to a reward system problem or to

an excess of bureaucracy in the firm that tend to block the change.

As said before, Kotter and Cohen (2002) before giving examples and case studies of the various

problems it is possible to face enhancing the change, they usually give a theoretical explanation of

the concepts. The first they deal with is the “boss barrier” (Kotter and Cohen, 2002, p73) concept.

This first problem often could be the biggest obstacle. Saying boss, the authors refer to an

immediate manager or someone higher in the hierarchy, from a first-line supervisor to the vice

president. When someone oppose the change cause his underlings to give up or to spend an

enormous amount of time trying to avoid the obstacle. Normally this kind of problem is handled in

three ways: ignoring the issue, sending the obstacle to a short training course or, rarely, firing,

demoting or transferring the obstacle. According to Kotter and Cohen (2002, p73) none of these is a

great solution. The first for obvious reasons, the second because it usually has a little effect and the

third because, if not handled well, could cause an escalation of the fear and become a

disempowering force itself. The best solution for the authors is to explain the situation to the

individual creating the problem and when explaining fails, as it often does, people should be

supposed to find other more creative solutions.

The second source of disempowering the paper deals with is the “system” barrier. A decade ago you

could have considered this as the overwhelming bureaucracy, layers in the hierarchy, rules and

procedures. Actually, even if this could still be true in the public sector, for what concerns the

private sector the authors refer to the performance evaluation and rewards (Kotter and Cohen, 2002,

p75). It is vital that the vision and strategy on one hand and the reward system on the other go in the

same direction. Is vital that the actors in the organization do not perceive this message: “we want

you to boldly leap into the future and you will receive ten cents if you succeed and a hammer on the

head if you fail” (Kotter and Cohen, 2002, p. 75).

The kind of barrier that follows in the description is the “mind barrier”. In this case the authors refer

to the lack of self confidence necessary to handle a big challenge as a change. Sometimes happen

that in the mind of workers raise psychological and irrational problems. They can be due to the fear

of the uncertainty, the fear to not be able to handle the situation or the new tasks, or, as we have said

before, the resistance to the change can be due to irrational reasons. Kotter and Cohen (2002, p 77)

state: “never underestimate the power of the mind to disempower…never underestimate the power

of clever people to help others see the possibilities, to help them generate a feeling of faith, and to

change behavior”. The solution in this case is to find someone with a strong leadership attitude who

can tell story or anecdotes of the kind “I survived, so you can too” (Kotter and Cohen, 2002, p 77).

This should generate self esteem and enough confidence in themselves to face the fear.

The last barrier described by Kotter and Cohen in their paper is the “information barrier”. Actually,

this is a sort of sub-barrier in the sense that you can find it in all other barriers. Lack of information

of how other people handled the same situation for instance. Kotter and Cohen refer to lack of

information in the meaning of feedback too. Often when we get feedback, it comes from another

person and it could sound like subjective or a precursor of sanctions (Kotter and Cohen, 2002, p

79), it need not to be that way. Receiving impartial feedback information that sound like a

suggestion and not a warning is a very powerful tool to enhance change.

It is vital, when you are trying to handle the change in an organization not to do everything at once,

otherwise the obstacles will seem insurmountable and overwhelming, this way people will act

cowardly. A good practice is to divide the work and face one problem at a time (Kotter and Cohen,

2002, p 81).

2. Cases of application

Kotter and Cohen (2002) provide the reader with many cases of application, one for each theoretical

problem described. These case study are really interesting and they perfectly exemplify what the

authors mean for each problem.

2.1 Retooling the boss

In this case study the authors face the problem of a boos opposing the change. The authors describe

him in this way: “he was basically a good man, a talented man, and a man with a lot of valuable

experience who was stuck in an old paradigm” (Kotter and Cohen, 2002, p 74). This person was a

superintendent and after twenty years of work in the same firm he developed an attitude aimed to

protect products and he was no more condescending with customers. The managers tried to avoid

the issue until an important customer asked to replace this superintendent. Seeing that they did not

want to lose the human capital brought by him they looked for a creative way to solve the problem.

Considering his incredible reluctance to change his attitude, the higher management forced him to

work at the customer firm for six months at his own firm expense. He and his boss were very

reluctant at this idea but after six months he had completely change his point of view and his way to

consider and watch their product. Once he came back he started working as a customer

representative, inspecting products specifically for the customer he worked for. Nowadays

according to Kotter and Cohen (2002, p 74) he is the best inspector the customer has ever had. This

experience helped the superintendent to leap into the future and a disempowering manager became

one who empowers. It is important not to consider the middle management just as a barrier, a rock

that will never change but try to enhance their change through creative ways. As the higher

management would like the middle management using another point of view, they should do the

same when it comes to deal with underlings. Another way to see this case study is to consider the

wrong attitude of the superintendent as a lack of information. A lack of customer point of view

awareness (Kotter and Cohen, 2002, p 79).

2.2 The worldwide competition

When a firm decide to make real breakthroughs, when they want dramatic improvements they need

dramatic recognition program, something very different than what they had been doing in the past

(Kotter and Cohen, 2002, p 75). In this case, the firm we are talking about wanted to improve their

performance of 50%. The problem in this case is to remove system barriers. If a structure does not

work how it is supposed to do it is necessary to completely change the way people work. This case

study is focused on finding another way to present improvement ideas. Instead of the usual

bureaucratic procedure, this firm has organized a sort of championship in which teams can present

their ideas for a 50% improvement in the field they are most interested. The firm that organized it is

a global multinational company. Once the team registers, they start working on their “improvement

idea” and are judged against other teams at the local level. The winners move to the regional level

and then they move onto a global competition. The finals, moreover, are always hosted somewhere

special, not at the headquarters. The teams have twenty minutes to present their idea and this must

be done in a creative way too. All the teams after presenting their idea are judged by some of the

top manager and the reward in this case are not just money in the pocket but a ceremony. The aim is

that the drama touch the feelings deeply, then become vivid stories that are told and retold to others

not in attendance at the event. The moral is clear: “the company wants you to leap into the future,

will cheer when you leap and cares deeply when you leap” (Kotter and Cohen, 2002, p 77). The

results were remarkable. The joining of teams has been growing continuously and now this firm

concretely use some of these ideas, but it is not the most important result. The important result is

that people break rules (in a good way), get creative, become enthusiastic, take up issues they would

have never taken before: people feel empowered to change. “As the stories of this championship are

told and retold, they can hit a chord that behavior really change” (Kotter and Cohen, 2002, p 77). It

is very important in this situation, nevertheless, not to underestimate people, they must not perceive

that you are using the championship as a cheap way to manipulate them, in fact, sincerity is crucial,

2.3 Making movies on the factory

At a certain time a firm decided to cancel the plant inspections because of a new change effort. So,

they decided to empower the workforce giving them more decision-making power. They divided

the workforce in teams and organized some improvement meetings. People, unfortunately, did not

really know what to do because they had not received the right tools and the meetings started very

soon to deteriorate into moaning session. Skepticism was growing. The decision then was to try

something new. They took two of the teams more open to try new things and started to film them at

work during a full cycle of manufacturing a product. When the workers could actually see them at

work they really realized where it was possible improve their tasks. The movie surprised people and

so they paid attention. Spontaneously the workforce started to propose solutions in a creative way,

they were motivated by the fact that they were perfectly aware of the situation. Seeing a full cycle

of work broke the information barrier that kept them from thinking good solutions. They received

very good feedback on their work and this motivated them because, for the first time, they saw

aspects of their actions of which they were unaware. The possibilities for making their work lives

better jumped out, creating for many an excitement and a we-can-do-better optimism. In addition to

that, when the changes worked well, people saw this, pride blossomed, and the virtuous cycle

continued (Kotter and Cohen, 2002, p 79-81).

3. Connections to the IS area

Kotter and Cohen (2002) do not deal with connections to the IS area in their paper. What I can say,

nevertheless, is that normally the use of IT enhance communication through the organizations.

Removing information barriers, as we have seen before, is a tool to empower the change. I assume

that using platforms to share contents and feedbacks between the workers could be a powerful tool

to make them cooperate each others and removing the information barrier that disempower change.

In that sense knowledge management can help organizations to grow, change and achieve the

performance they wants. Moreover, due to my studies I have always consider the change something

related to the introduction of the IT. Thanks to Kotter and Cohen I have understood that the change

is something more complicated that does not necessarily concern IT but it can assume many facets

and meaning.

4. Summary

It is possible to sum up the paper by Kotter and Cohen (2002) listing what works and what does not.

Finding people with change experience who can bolster people’s self-confidence with we-won-you-

can-too anecdotes, recognition and reward systems coherent with the vision, the right vision-related

feedbacks and “retooling” disempowering managers by giving them new jobs will empower people

and motivate them to change. On the other hand ignoring bosses who disempower their

subordinates, solving the boss problem firing them or taking away their powers, giving in to youre

own pessimism and fears, and trying to remove all the barriers at once will not work (Kotter and

Cohen, 2002, p 82). I think that a message we can perceive from this work is that the solution are

never obvious. You should be creative looking for a solution and there is not a single way. Even if

we can define and describe the typical problems an organization will face during change we can not

do the same for the solutions. Common sense, creativity, consider other workers and their point of

view are the keys for a possibly successful change.

MCQ

1. You are a manager of an international manufacturing firm. You decide that in order to be

competitive in the modern market your company needs to have a shorter lead time in innovating

products. Even if everybody agree and are motivated to do better you can not reduce the lead

time as you want because any new idea must be approved too many times. What kind of barriers

are you facing?

A: mind barrier

B: bosses barrier

C: system barrier

Explanation

A: wrong. The mind barrier concerns the lack of awareness that the wanted result is achievable and

it causes people to give up earlier.

B: wrong. The boss barrier pertain to the situation in which bosses do not agree or do not want the

needed change and they try as much as they can to obstruct it. This is not the case because it is

clearly stated that “everybody agree”

C: true. This is clearly a system barrier. The most suitable solution is that the overwhelming

bureaucracy slow down the application of new ideas.

2. The same manufacturing company decides to entirely change the way they build their products

and to increase the productivity more than 30%. You organize an assembly to communicate the

upcoming change and after a brief explanation of the new goals, a turmoil rises and the situation

start to be quite difficult to handle. What do you think you should do to calm them down and

keep on working on your vision? (Kotter and Cohen, 2002, p 77-79)

A: call someone to tell them an anecdote about someone else that had the same problem

B: divide them into teams and let them face the situation themselves in order to give them more

decision-power and motivate them

C: be strong and impose your vision, they will understand sooner or later

Explanation

A: right. Even if it could sounds odd, hear a success story or an anecdote about someone that

succeed in what you are going to do can help to grow confidence. Such thing normally help people

to develop confidence through an “I survived, so you can, too” approach.

B: wrong. Even if it could be a part of a good solution, give people just decision power without any

other tools generally does not lead to successful change. For this reason it is not the optimal

solution, at least in this very situation.

C: wrong. Impose a change without explanations of any sort is dangerous because it will never be

accepted. The best solution is to explain the situation to the individual creating the problem. When

explaining fails you should try to find more creative solutions

3. An engineering team leader has to work, with his team, to a big new product development.

He/she has several problems some of them totally out of control like the corporate compensation

system. He/she decides to cross the problems out of control off and focus only on solvable

problems: one related to engineering team leaders who brutally beat on new ideas and a lack of

any formal process for capturing new-product brainstorms. After a meeting with a part of the

entire team, they outlined a mechanism that could allow people to speak more and offer product

ideas, it was more or less a suggestion box just a little more complex. Over the following two or

three months ten new ideas were generated and it seems that this method will soon give birth to

a big product prototype. Why do you think their approach was successful? (Kotter and Cohen,

2002, p 81)

A: because it was a unanimous decision and everybody were motivated

B: because they focused just on some issues to work on

C: because the system was well known

Explanations

A: wrong. It was not a unanimous decision, in fact people not at the meeting reacting with suspicion

or total disinterest

B: right. That is the real reason. They played pragmatically and more focused. As said in the paper,

it is vital not to do everything at once

C: wrong. The system was not well known, in fact they developed it during the meeting and it was

an ad hoc solution to face just some issues over all they had.

Bibliography

Kotter, J.P. and Cohen D.S. 2002, Creative ways of empower action to change the organizations:

cases in point, Journal of organizational excellence.