FREE online courses on Change Management - Change Management - Four Basic Strategies - Strategy

 

Strategy	Description
Rational-Empirical	People are rational and will follow their self-interest - once it is revealed to them. Change is based on the communication of information and the proffering of incentives.
Normative-Reductive	People are social beings and will adhere to cultural norms and values. Change is based on redefining and reinterpreting existing norms and values, and developing commitments to new ones.
Power-Coercive	People are basically compliant and will generally do what they are told or can be made to do. Change is based on the exercise of authority and the imposition of sanctions.
Environmental-Adaptive	People oppose loss and disruption but they adapt readily to new circumstances. Change is based on building a new organization and gradually transferring people from the old one to the new one.

 

Note: The fourth and last strategy above is not one of those presented by Bennis, Benne and Chin. It is instead the product of the author's own experiences during some 30 years of making and adapting to changes in, to, and on behalf of organizations. An excellent example of this strategy in action, albeit on an accelerated basis, is provided by the way in which Rupert Murdoch handled the printers of Fleet Street. He quietly set about building an entirely new operation in Wapping, some distance away. When it was ready to be occupied and made operational, he informed the employees in the old operation that he had some bad news and some good news. The bad news was that the existing operation was being shut down. Everyone was being fired. The good news was that the new operation had jobs for all of them-but on very different terms That there are also elements of the rational-empirical and power-coercive strategies at play here serves to make the point that successful change efforts inevitably involve some mix of these basic change strategies.