| Creating Conversations for Change: Lessons from Learning History Projects |
| | Roth, George L. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | groth@mit.edu | (617)-253-8407 |
| | Learning from experience - taking an initiative that has been successful on one part of the organization
and building upon it in another part of the organization - has challenged firms as for long as there have
been improvement efforts within them. Several dozen projects based on a "learning history" process
were undertaken as an experiment in documenting and using conversation to capture and diffuse
organizational experience, learning and change. This paper describes the learning history approach,
and the insights gained from the successes and failures of these projects. |
| | Keywords: organizational change; conversation; learning |
| Overcoming Emotional Barriers, Control Imperatives, and Power Disparities in Organizational Transformation |
| | Seo, Myeong-Gu | Boston College | seom@bc.edu | (617)-552-0173 |
| | The author argues that the existing action learning theory has not explicitly and adequately addressed three dilemmas inherent in initiating organizational transformation: 1) emotional barrier, 2) managerial control imperatives, and 3) power disparities. Several ways to overcome these dilemmas are explored in this paper, which include 1) up-building positive affects, 2) leveraging dialectic forces, and 3) bringing external legitimacy into organization. The strengths and weaknesses of each approach are discussed. A brief case is also provided for illustration. |
| | Keywords: organizational transformation; action learning |
| It's Not the Seed, it's the Soil: Social Psychological Influences on Outcomes of Organizational Change Programs |
| | Edmondson, Amy C. | Harvard U. | aedmondson@hbs.edu | (617) 495-6732 |
| | Woolley, Anita Williams | Harvard U. | awoolley@hbs.edu | 617-496-6928 |
| | Scholars and managers alike question the efficacy of programmatic
organizational change; indeed, tales of organization-wide change
programs failing to meet their stated goals are commonplace. Such
reports tend to treat the success or failure of a change program as
dichotomous and as monolithic at the organization level of analysis.
We argue instead that a well-designed change program can reach
different degrees of success in different parts of an organization,
depending on group-level factors. We studied the results of an
organization-wide change program designed to promote learning in a
large manufacturing company and found-in contrast to the notion of
program success or failure-substantial variance within the company in
the use and outcomes of the program. As expected, many participants
reported a lack of behavioral or organizational change coupled with
pronounced cynicism about the program; however, we also found
individuals and dyads who reported meaningful success attributable to
the program. In this paper, we propose that the appropriate level of
analysis for understanding these results is the work unit-small numbers
of individuals who work closely together-and we introduce a theory to
explain how this works. The results of our study suggest that the
efficacy of an organizational learning intervention can vary within an
organization as a function of interpersonal expectations characterized
by psychological safety. The implications of these results are that
such change programs can create change if work units are characterized
by psychological safety, which provides a fertile soil in which the
seeds of a change program can bear fruit.
|
| | Keywords: Intervention; Organizational Learning; Psychological Safety |
| Dialogue as a Path of Change and Development in a Pluralistic World |
| | Hazen, Mary Ann | U. of Detroit Mercy | hazenma@udmercy.edu | (313)-993-3356 |
| | Postmodern organizations comprise a turbulent global system. We who work in such organizations need a way to orient ourselves while connecting with a variety of people with diverse points of view and responding to multiple, often conflicting, demands. We need a way to understand how to grow and flourish as individuals as well as build organizations that honor the uniqueness of each person. Dialogue is one such process. The process is always interpersonal, yet it is one through which individual and organizational change occurs. It is especially relevant in contexts in which there are multiple, perhaps contradictory or clashing, perspectives and discourses. Scholars from many different fields have written about various aspects of dialogue. I use their work to build a non-linear, non-sequential, holistic model of dialogue that can be used in intrapersonal, group, organizational, or community settings. I give examples of dialogue and discuss implications for individual and organizational change and development in a pluralistic world. |
| | Keywords: Participation; Dialogue; Development |