The white paper for Symposium 7, Shifting from “Change Management” to Systems Sensemaking and Design, by Dr. Terri Griffith, is now available in our library. Dr. Griffith, Professor of Management, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University, will present her paper at next week’s symposium in Chicago.
“Organizational change programs continue to fail more than they succeed,” states Dr. Griffith.
The goal of her report is to push for greater sophistication on the part of those people bringing about change, equipping them to meet the demands being placed on them, and providing greater organizational support for their activities.
It begins by tracking the evolution of change perspectives. The major recent changes in the evolution of change management theory are a stronger focus on the perceptual nature of change and a greater recognition of the role of participants in bringing about change through their understanding of the work system and the possible options for the work system’s use. Sensemaking describes how individuals and groups come to create the mental models/frameworks that they use to understand and to take action within their world (e.g., Weick, 1995). These mental models/frameworks both set boundaries upon and enable the role that participants play in finding ways to accommodate and adapt work systems to address management’s vision, pressures and demands from the environment, constraints of existing work systems, and the potential of the tools available. The limits of how work systems can be used are defined by the perceptions of the participants as they grapple with often-conflicting pressures and constraints.
Her paper proposes a new framework for work system change that builds on the underlying sensemaking process.
Dr. Griffith’s paper is available for download for NewWOW members only.
