Handbook Change Management

2.1 Reengineering, Restructuring and Crisis

Hammer and Champy initiated Business Process Reengineering (BPR) trend in 1993 with their book "Reengineering the Corporation". The objective of this practice is to attain increased customer satisfaction and organizational performance of revolutionary magnitude - "we are talking quantum leaps". The business model needs to be fundamentally redesigned in order to prepare the organization for new market demands. To lower costs and increase service quality, a radical redesign and reorganization of an enterprise is necessary. The concept is fundamentally top-down oriented and is especially successful when a high pressure situation, or crisis, dictates perception.

The principles are:

• Alignment of core business processes
• Focus of critical business processes on the customer
• Emphasis on core competencies
• Use of modern information technologies

Reengineering concepts are rather mechanical in their approach, while people play a minor role. Focus is on a strategic remodeling and restructuring of the organization. The change manager follows these four steps: positioning, process description, process design and controlling.

2.1.1 Positioning

Positioning is the base for a successful initiation and fulfillment of the BPR process. The change manager must:

• Analyze the performance of existing processes
• Redesign operational and strategic goals of the organization
• Outline organizational infrastructure
• Describe existing corporate culture

The change manager can use the following Business Reengineering tools:

• Benchmarking
• Monetary models
• Value chain (according to Porter)
• IT tools
• Process cost mapping
• Change Management
• Controlling

2.1.2 Process description

Process analysis and description are very important in this concept and are conducted using the following steps:

2.1.3 Process redesign

In process redesign, operational practices are aligned with strategic challenges pursuing the following targets:

• Decisions and responsibilities are transferred to the process teams
• Consolidation of positions, minimizing of interfaces
• Performance of tasks by optimal location (principle of origination)
• Parallelization of process steps
• Combination of centralized and decentralized tasks

2.1.4 Controlling

Applied measures and reorganizations need to be monitored. If necessary, processes will be continuously improved.

2.1.5 Conclusion

Hammer and Champy themselves admitted that reorganizations fail approximately nine times out of ten. The presumption is that revolutionizing organizations is not a model for success from a mechanical point of view. It is difficult to illustrate the complexity of reality in a purely mechanical way. Excluding employees in the process generates a resistance that works against an otherwise reasonable concept.

2.2 Strategic redesign

Reengineering concepts are the basis for an approach that is similar in thought, but focuses more on maintaining resources and self-organization. Like reengineering, the goal is to adapt the organization to the needs of the environment and is a top-down process. The considerable difference lies in the involvement of employees and middle management in the thought process and implementation. In addition to the methods for "operational optimization", methods for employee involvement are introduced, allowing employees to identify with the change process. An intervention design is created to identify when and to what extent employees are being engaged in the process and what "interventions" are being employed.

When designing interventions, it is important to realize that they can happen on different levels (Willke, 1995):

• Factual dimension: The main focus and objectives of the processes, such as promoting potential options for the organizational structure within the change process framework.
• Timely dimension: The scheduling of interventions to create a timetable for framework and contexts of meaning, such as a clear beginning and end of a process, benchmarks and content delivery deadlines for plenary and group processes, locations and time off, or even content related working depth.
• Social dimension: Who is working with whom in what kind of structure to come to what type of events? Are decision makers included, whose attendance is required to solver certain problems, what topics can be discussed in what type of social settings (i. e. a conflict in a large group setting of more than 20 people, in several smaller sub-groups of 5 - 20 people, in small groups of 2 - 5 people, or individually).
• Spatial dimension: Where are interventions held - inside the organization or outside, in a hotel or outdoors, what does the work area look like (tables, seating arrangements, location for securing results, rooms for small groups, all the way to the atmosphere in the room, such as lighting or colors)?

2.2.1 Interventions

Within the framework of intervention design these three types of interventions should be considered:

• Role interventions
• Relationship interventions
• Communication interventions

2.2.1.1 Role interventions

In a role intervention, those involved in a change process are assigned a role. Roles tend to broaden, especially during phases of change, which often leads to uncertainty about the division of responsibilities, resulting in frustration. The main goal of role interventions is to provide involved and concerned parties clarity about, or to redefine, their roles.

Management Workshops for those involved in the change process can be helpful in answering the following questions:

Competencies and responsibilities

• Are employees ready to take on specific roles?
• Do they understand the responsibilities involved in these roles?
• Can they achieve their personal visions in the redefined roles?

Mental models

• Which mental models (images of self and environment) role definition and responsibilities are being used by team members?
• Which collective mental model of shared work can be identified?
• Are there differences between "thought" and "action"?

Common goals

• Are defined roles aligned to reach a common goal?
• What responsibilities need to be outlined in order to reach the common goal and how are the tasks assigned?
• How are the various roles distributed across the dimensions of highly engaged (commitment) to unengaged (apathy)?

Know-how

• What is the "know-how" of the team across the given role distribution?
• As in sports, if individuals play together as a team, is the result less or more than the sum of the individual pieces?
• Does common knowledge exist? If not, what are the obstacles in achieving it?

2.2.1.2 Relationship interventions

Social relationships are shaped by personal, social, factual, and emotional factors and can be observed in verbal and non-verbal communication. Relationship interventions target patterns of social relationships. Communication is the basis of social activities, but each communication has a relationship aspects. These relationship aspects are often apparent when observing the differences between verbal and non-verbal communication, as well as between formal and informal relationships. Workshops can help in determining the following:

• Relationship network: Where are the observed relationships across the dimensions of consensus and control? Can relationships be described as passive, overloaded, floating, or active?
• Relationship pattern: Where do relationships between members stand across the dimensions of autonomy and coherence? Are they clear forms (hierarchy, network, and democracy) or mixed forms?
• Allocation of tasks: How are tasks distributed among employees? Are there tasks conducted the majority? Are there dependencies across tasks? How are tasks relevant to others?
• Evaluation of intervention opportunities: Which parameters of social relationships appear to be critical intervention points? Are there correlations between tasks and relationships?

2.2.1.3 Communication interventions

The pre-requisites for successful communication are 1) relevant information, 2) penetrating connection (docking), and 3) willingness to communicate. Communication...