FREE online courses on Strategies for Managing Change - Using Weak Signals to Manage Change - Comparison of Methods

 

Table below compares the advantages and shortcomings of several methods.  We need to recall that all of these methods are `heavyweight,' requiring considerable attention and energy from management, and that they become useful and necessary only when the change in strategy requires what Machiavelli called, introduction of `a new order of things.'

 

As the figure shows, because of the high failure risk, crisis management is an undesirable substitute for the coercive method, but it has to be used whenever the management either fails to anticipate a crisis, or does not have enough power to force a timely response.

 

 

 

Method	Applicability	Advantage	Shortcomings
Coercive Adaptive Crisis	§         High urgency §         Low urgency §         Survival threat	§         Speed §         Low resistance §         Low resistance	§         High resistance §         Slow §         Extreme time pressure §         Failure risk
Managed resistance	§         Medium urgency §         Recurrent discontinuities	§         Low resistance §         Tailored to time §         Comprehensive capability change	§         Complexity

 

Table:  Comparison of change methods.

 

The adaptive approach is the slowest, but it provokes the least resistance and requires the least commitment of managerial attention and resources.  It is useful in environments in which threats/trends/opportunities are highly predictable and the urgency is therefore low.

 

The managed resistance method is to be preferred whenever urgency is not so great as to require the coercive change.  Its chief advantage is that it strikes the best possible tradeoff between reducing resistance and use of power, within the limits of the available time.

 

As the Table above shows, the managed resistance method is also effective under conditions when the environmental discontinuity is not singular but repetitive and the firm needs to develop a permanent change-responsive strategic capability.  It is also more effective than the brute force introduction of strategic management which has repeatedly been used in the past.

 

Objectives

After studying this chapter, you should be able to:

1.      Understand how change is affecting the companies

2.      Understand the processes of managing disruptive change

3.      Learn to recognize weak signals and act on them