Re: Searching for LOs LO2431

JOHN N. WARFIELD (jwarfiel@osf1.gmu.edu)
Wed, 16 Aug 1995 07:54:26 -0400 (EDT)

Replying to LO2421 --

Alexia, in reply to Maria, talked about issues relating to the sequence
of activities, e.g., should one start in stage 1 to "build learning
teams" or should one try to "change the culture first".

In reading Alexia's comments, I was strongly reminded of many papers
given at the recent United Kingdom Systems Society conference. The
general tone imparted by the speakers was one of "intervention in
organizations" and was much like that expressed by Alexia who
mentioned looking back on "what we have accomplished".

More generally, it is clear that there is a collection of consulting
practice, whether inside or outside a host organization, that aimes at
various forms of "intervention" such as the "change agent" of Rosabeth
Kantor.

>From long experience relating to organizational change, involving
hundreds of organizations, and long residence in university cultures, I
still believe that the plan advocated many years back by Hedberg, et al,
which is to install in organizations processes that they can apply
themselves to work with their collection of issues, is the only one that
is clearly effective across and within organizations.

A question I pose is the following: In considering attempts to
systematize organizational change, is fractionation of activity by type
(create teams, build teams, change culture, solve problems) really
necessary? Is it possible that an overarching plan can do almost
everything at once, in which some things are targeted outcomes and others
are byproducts of applying well-designed processes?

A second question is this: Do you really believe that there are no
prototypical instances of widespread achievement in this area, and that
it is more important to keep reinventing than it is to discover what has
broadly succeeded and become a practitioner rather than an
inventor-practitioner?

--
JOHN WARFIELD
Jwarfiel@gmu.edu