the four-leaf clover

Once again a semester has come to an end… This one went by much faster than I expected, and I attribute that to the classes I was taking, one of them being Change Strategies. I felt engaged throughout the semester and enjoyed the activities and experiences we shared in this course. It’s a great feeling learning so much from my fellow classmates, and even though we are all different, we share the love of adult learning. I remember during the first class, Dr. Carter asked us if we had ever been involved in an organizational change. I had some thoughts about what one might be, but had never thought of or been involved in a change like this. I must say that now, through this course, my knowledge has grown about organizational change and the different intervention strategies we can use to help bring organizations together.

One evening before class started, Carol and I were discussing our text, Organization Change, Theory and Practice. Carol was saying how much she was enjoying the book and said as she was reading, she could specifically pin-point specific examples and experiences that had happened within past jobs. Basically, she emphasized a sense that it was all finally coming together as she was reading. I was somewhat envious, because I was struggling a bit more with the text. I found the examples in the book helpful and the concepts/theories interesting, but that same light bulb didn’t go off for me. This is how I usually am though, I find the text helpful as a guide, but I can relate and learn more through my classmates discussions, input, and experiences.

I found the chapter on levels of organization change very powerful. Change lies within the individual, the group and the larger system, “an organization is a totality, a whole with interacting parts or components.” It’s important to understand that all the parts of an organization affect the whole. I know I’ve used the dental school in many examples before, but I think this is a good example of the different levels of an organization. Through our various departments, clinical and administrative staff, faculty and students, we have many pieces and parts. It’s as if we are all tiny organizations (departments/clinics) within a larger whole (VCU School of Dentistry.) When one part is lacking or falling behind, it affects the various departments and clinics, and in turn affects the school. As the book states, change differs at different levels in the organization.

It’s also important to remember how individuals or organizations respond to change. In the text, Levinson stated that whether change is embraced or resisted, all change is a loss experience, particularly a loss of familiar routines. This is very true, and I will see it very soon within my department. We are in the process of looking for a new director, who will also be my new supervisor. There is a lot of resistance to this upcoming change on my part. To be quite honest, I don’t want another boss. We have formed a very solid, understanding relationship and it’s not going to be easy, nor do I really want to, put the effort into forming another relationship with a new director. He is also already aware of how our department functions together and it’s going to be difficult bringing a “stranger” into our “family.” However, I have also looked at it and realized I need to learn to embrace the new change. There are some aspects of my department that do need strict change and regulation, and bringing in a neutral person who has no past ties to the department may fix some of our underlying issues. This would have a huge positive impact. Needless to say, I can understand the different responses to change. It’s easy to resist it because we get comfortable with how things are, but in the end, we don’t know what positives could arise with the changes.

Writing the Burke-Litwin paper also helped to link the Burke-Litwin model to a real life organizational change. When I first looked at and read about the model, it became quite clear how all the factors within organizations are intertwining and affect each other. However, even after studying the model, I didn’t have a concrete example to use. Then Dr. Carter suggested NASA. This turned out to be a wonderful suggestion and I chose to analyze both the Discovery and Challenger tragedies and how these were results of organizational failure within NASA. While writing this paper and describing the factors in NASA that led up to these tragedies, the Burke-Litwin model started to come together in my mind. Not all the components of the model were used, but many of them were, and these affected others significantly. One of NASA’s biggest problems was hierarchy and leadership and their inability to listen to others. Analyzing NASA through the Burke-Litwin model helped clarify how organizations function and if all the components work well together, the organization will be successful.

The last, and I believe, most influential part of the course was learning about different change strategies and interventions through my classmates. Through one week of facilitation and the next of debriefing, we all became better “experts” in Future Search, Open Space and Appreciative Inquiry. I blogged a few times before on my thoughts and perspectives on these strategies, but what I appreciated most about each of them was their uniqueness. Each facilitation emphasized different themes; from bringing people together based on the past, present and future, to stating a theme and having lots of open communication, to focusing on the positive side of a topic. Now that I’ve gone through and learned more about these change interventions, I see how organizations can change and be successful using many different approaches. I also was able to see that I could take pieces of each of these strategies and apply them to my department.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this class. I think we were a great group and this allowed us to bounce ideas off each other and have valuable discussions. As I’ve said numerous times, I like when I can take things I’m learning in these courses and apply them to where I work. Change Strategies was definitely one of those courses. Congratulations to those graduating, we’ll miss you and good luck! To everyone else, I’ll see you either this Summer or Fall!