Turn And Face The Strain

"Managing Change: Cases and Concepts"
- Todd D. Jick
- Maury A. Peiperl

Three perspectives on change:
(1) Developmental change - improvement of what is.
(2) Transitional change - implementation of a known new state. Management of the interim transition state, over a controlled period of time.
(3) Transformational change - Emergence of a new state, unknown until it takes shape, out of the remains of the chaotic death of the old state. Time period not easily controlled.

When to Change?
- basically, when things are going well, when results are mixed, or when a full-fledged crisis is upon it.
- involves an exquisite sense of timing: have we waited too long or have we started too soon?

Reacting to Change:
- traditionally grouped under resistance to change are intertia, habit and comfort with the known.
- resistance if frequently a reaction to a loss of control, not necessarily to the change itself.
- the further away a person is from knowing the rationale for the change and the implications of that change and how the change is to be operationalized, the greater the threat to that person's control over his or her environment.
- change also may be perceived an indictment of previous decisions and actions. It is difficult for people to change when they have been part of creating the conditions that precipitated the change.

Let's skip over to:
Module 4: The Recipients of Change
"can a recipient of change in one situation use that experience positively? Or is the once-burned-twice-shy adage inevitable?"
- what obligations exist?
- what "right" is there to either demand change or superimpose it on a person or group?
- conversely, is there a right to threaten viablity by refusing to change?