The Choice between Approaches in Major Changes

Today, the demand for executives is heavy when it comes to making clear strategic analyses, pointing in the direction for future business and corporate development. Thus, clear-cut strategies are important. But when you talk with executives from larger corporations there is another issue that in many cases is raised as the most difficult issue on the agenda – that is the issue of transformation:

The 9 proposed approaches are:

1. Expert approach
2. Learning approach
3. Guiding approach (trying to implement the change based on best-practise / benchmarks of similar change programmes. 
4. Power approach
5. Reward approach
6. Negotiation approach
7. Paradox approach
8. Temptation approach (implementing the change programme step by step. Letting stake-holders slowly realize the new direction of the company)
9. Transformation approach (changing the mindset of people – compare eg with all the efforts made by Nelson Mandela in changing the mindset of a nation – South Africa.)

Many executives have quite a clear view about the “what” and “where” issues – i.e. where the company should go – but they feel that the “how” issues are problematic - how the company should proceed to the desired position. In my experience we are in many cases trapped in traditional change approaches. The most traditional change approach is the expert approach. The expert approach of change underlines the rational argument. It says that if we just inform all our employees and stakeholders of the facts and the consequences – then they will realize the logic behind the proposed change and they will follow the new direction.

I have seen so many managers trapped in these type of change programmes. There are several problems attached to this view. Firstly, there might be a need to learn about the new situation before you can accept a new direction for the company. Maybe the stakeholders need to be involved in this kind of learning. In this case the learning approach might be a useful change tool for a change programme.

Secondly, stakeholders might see the relevance of the proposed change programme – but they realize that they will be losers within the new strategic orientation – in this case a power approach for achieving change might be useful.

The point is that we can win a lot in the early stages of change management if we actively address the particular inertia of the given situation. Why will it be difficult to accomplish change in this particular case? In my view there are at least 9 different change approaches that are worth considering, (based on the work of the Dutch researcher and consultant Frans Verhaaren). A framework for choosing a combination of change approaches will help executives in major transformations. The framework can be regarded – not as a tool – but rather as a tool for choosing between tools.

Let me give a short explanation of one of the approaches: the paradox. The paradox is an approach that is efficient in attacking the inertia of understanding or the lazy attitudes in the mind of important stakeholders. The paradox can be implemented by asking the question “why should it not be the opposite way around?”. The goal is at this point to unfreeze the old way of thinking – unfreeze the old paradigm – thereby enabling a more positive and constructive way of thinking around the new paradigm – the new strategy.

Let me give you one example. A couple of years ago I was working with a north European food company. They were acquiring a competitor, situated in a neighbouring country. The takeover had distinctive strategic and operative synergies. The ambition was to form a company that used resources from both companies. The true difficulty in this case was to persuade the management from the acquired company that we genuinely wanted their competence and their resources in the new group. They rather expected to be playing a secondary role in the new company. In this case we used the name as a paradox for unfreezing their expectations of playing the secondary role. We told them the following: your company will have to change name. We will not have the same name for this subsidiary as the parent company, rather we will go back to the old domestic name of the company. This message confused the management of the acquired company. They had not expected to go back to the old domestic name. This confusion made them eager to learn more about the takeover rather than taking a negative standpoint. The paradox approach was thus successful in establishing a good start for the change programme – the integration of the two companies in a friendly rather than a hostile atmosphere.

The point is that an executive will be more efficient if he finds and uses the relevant approaches, combines them in an intelligent way and also finds the relevant order/chronology. Some of the approaches are better used in early stages of transformation such as power or paradox. Others are better used in later stages (expert and reward). The change approaches are the meta-tool for choosing between different change alternatives.