My interest
in change management has been driven by my varied experiences across the
for-profit and not-for-profit sectors where I have been involved in the
management of many change initiatives, all generally driven from a top-down
response to a broad range of external environmental challenges. These
experiences have been further reinforced by an exposure to the management of
organisational change from a consulting perspective within the not-for-profit
sector, where the challenges of such change are potentially further
‘complicated’ by a number of sectoral characteristics that both enhance and
inhibit the process.
This
progression of experiences has fed into my PhD research where I am
investigating change management within the Not-for-Profit sector, and given the
size and disparate structuring of this sector, am focusing on a case study
approach at the Seventh Day Adventist Hospital in Sydney, where I have been
given the opportunity to study the change program which supports the
implementation of their E-Clinical Pathways systems. In this manner, the
research is longitudinally based, which makes this research somewhat unique in
the context of change management research, especially given its not-for-profit
focus.
In the
context of change management, I have written often in the past, about Action
Learning as a ‘tool’ that I have been actively involved with in the support of
change programs across the not-for-profit sector. Stemming from an
Organisational Development response to the challenges of change management, it
underpins my professional focus that people within organisations are best able
to respond to these challenges once they are provided with appropriate
frameworks and structures that can guide them. In this manner, substantial
focus is afforded to building organisational capacity as part of the change,
and not merely focusing on progressing through the change in isolation of
longer-term considerations. In other words, sustainable change becomes the
focus as distinct to purely a particular and discrete change outcome.
In this
context, a further approach for consideration, and also stemming from the Organisational
Development approach to the management of change, is a process referred to as
Appreciative Inquiry. This approach considers change from what is referred to
in academic parlance as the “Positive Model of Change”. Whilst Action Learning
may be viewed from a ‘deficits’ perspective, that is, focusing on the
organisation’s problems and how they may be solved so that it functions better,
Appreciative Inquiry works more from the perspective of what the organisation
is doing well, with a view to understanding what these things are,
deconstructing them to better understand them and then seek to replicating them
in other aspects of the organisation. In this manner, an Appreciative Inquiry
approach has five distinct phases, being:
- Initiating an inquiry to focus on what the subject of change may be within the organisation,
- Inquiring into best practices that exist within the organisation,
- Discovering themes and deconstructing these practices,
- Envisioning a preferred future whereby members examine these themes, challenge the status quo and reconstruct a future vision, and then finally
- Designing and delivering ways to create that future view.
One thing to
keep in mind regarding these approaches, namely Action Learning and
Appreciative Inquiry, is the fact that both conceptual and practical overlap
exists and these two approaches to the management of change are not necessarily
mutually exclusive, rather, elements of each can be utilised within an
overarching framework to manage many planned change programs.
Change is
ubiquitous and requires considered application in order to foster enhanced
organisational capability so that sustainability of change, as well as the
organisation’s readiness for ongoing change, can both be achieved.
David
Rosenbaum’s research and practice within the change management arena can be
readily applied to solving your organisation’s change management challenges. Contact
David to further discuss how
Action Learning and Appreciative Inquiry may prove valuable to your organisation.
David Rosenbaum can be contacted drosenbaum@optimumnfp.com.au or visit the web site at www.optimumnfp.com.au
