The “Course Topics” series from Manage Train Learn and Slide Topics is a collection of over 4000 slides that will help you master a wide range of management and personal development skills. The 202 PowerPoints in this series offer you a complete and in-depth study of each topic. This presentation is on "Responding to Change".

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Responding to Change
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
Responding to Change
CHANGE MANAGEMENT

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Responding to Change
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
The Course Topics series from Manage Train Learn is a large collection of topics that will help you as a learner
to quickly and easily master a range of skills in your everyday working life and life outside work. If you are a
trainer, they are perfect for adding to your classroom courses and online learning plans.
COURSE TOPICS FROM MTL
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Copyright Manage Train Learn 2020
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Responding to Change
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
ARE YOU READY?
OK, LET’S START!

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Responding to Change
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
INTRODUCTION
Our survival depends on responding to what is happening in
our surrounding environment. If we ignore the needs and
expectations of others, perhaps out of fear, insecurity,
idleness, defiance, lack of awareness or too much looking
back, we will find our attitudes and skills redundant. We will
become casualties of change. If, on the other hand, we
respond with courage, a new sense of security, application,
humility and looking forward, we can not only survive but
grow. We can be champions of change.

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Responding to Change
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
RESPONDING TO CHANGE
Change can come to us in two guises: as something we
originate or as something imposed from outside.
When change originates with us, it may be because we see
the need to develop ourselves, our teams or our
organisations. We are then likely to be the principal change
agent and it will be down to us to sell the change to others.
When change is imposed from outside, it may come as a
sudden unannounced shock, a half-expected development
or as a welcome event. It is not surprising therefore that
people normally respond to change in a variety of ways. For
some, the standard response to change may be to bury their
heads in the sand and do nothing; for others, it may be to
do anything and, when this doesn't work, to panic and do
everything. For some, it is to devise a strategy and manage
the response.

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Responding to Change
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
DO NOTHING
The "do nothing" response to change is the response of the
frog that boiled alive in the heated-up water without
moving.
It is also the response of the Peruvian Indians of the 16th
century who on observing the approaching ships of their
Spanish invaders believed they were just sea monsters and
wouldn't harm them. As a result, they were invaded, did
nothing to protect themselves and were overrun and
conquered.
We may do nothing for a number of reasons...
1. we don't know there is a need to change
2. we know but pretend it's not important
3. we claim that everyone else is in the same boat as us so
it doesn't really matter
4. we don't think we can do anything about it
5. we could act but don't know what to do
6. we aren't allowed to do anything.

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Responding to Change
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
REASONS NOT TO CHANGE
The following are nine reasons why people, and
organisations, do nothing to change.
1. we think our ways are right and so become complacent
and routine-bound.
2. we dwell on the past and the emotional security of what
is familiar.
3. we lack the originality to change until we see someone
else doing it first.
4. we overplay the downside of change.
5. we prefer to stay with what we know and understand, not
what we don't know and don't understand.
6. we rely on management as we've relied on them up to
now. Unfortunately, management are often deeply
committed to the existing ways of working.
7. we like the way things are now.
8. we live too much in the present and assume things can
last forever.
9. we simply cannot be bothered to make the effort.

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Responding to Change
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
DISCOUNTING
Discounting is a term borrowed from Transactional Analysis
in which we ignore any facts or evidence that conflicts with
our view of things.
An example of discounting may be a business that decides
to do nothing about a steadily worsening market share. Its
do-nothing thinking may be based on six discounting levels...
1. discounting the evidence by not having information.
2. discounting the problem by having evidence but not
believing it is anything unusual.
3. discounting the will to change by saying "Yes, OK, but
there's nothing we can do".
4. discounting the options because the remedy might be
worse than the disease.
5. discounting the solutions by saying they won't work.
6. discounting the action because "they" won't wear it.

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Responding to Change
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
EXCUSES, EXCUSES
These excuses have been stifling change for years...
1. We've never done it before. Nobody else has done it
before. We tried it before. They tried it before.
2. We've been doing things this way for years. Why change?
Things are working okay. We're fine as we are.
3. It's too much trouble. I don't like it. It won't work. It's too
radical.
4. They say it's impossible. It can't be done. The boss won't
buy it. It won't work in our type of company. The Unions
won't buy it.
5. We don't have the money. We don't have the time. We
don't have the expertise.
6. It needs more thought. I'm not sure. Let's have a report
first. Let's do a study on it.
7. You're right but we're not ready for it. That's not us. It's
contrary to our policy.
...and so on and on.

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Responding to Change
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
DO ANYTHING
When recession hit large Western companies in the early
1990's, many companies rushed to grasp the latest guru
thinking on how to save their businesses.
One of the popular ideas at the time was business process
re-engineering, part of which was the idea of "downsizing".
The resultant re-organisation, reduction in costs, and
reduced workforces seemed to be an answer to the
problems of the day. Moreover, it could be implemented
from outside using consultants with new computers to work
out just how to pare organisations down to their core
businesses. Edward Deevy estimated that $20 billion was
spent each year on consultants during this period.
However, for many organisations, the experience was a
costly disaster. They had been grasping for a quick fix,
looking for easy answers and doing anything rather than
managing their need to change.

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DO EVERYTHING
Frank Price in his book "Right Every Time" reminds us that
taking major action to deal with change has long been a
knee-jerk reaction of large organisations. He quotes Gaius
Petronius describing yet another Roman Army re-
organisation in AD 66...
"We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were
beginning to form up into teams, we would be re-organised.
I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new
situation by re-organising and a wonderful method it can be
for creating the illusion of progress, while producing
confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation.“
Not long after this period, the Roman Empire began a slow
decline that was only reversed by surgical action by the
emperor Hadrian, who abandoned the Eastern Provinces
and shored up the defences in the outermost countries.

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Change Management
MTL Course Topics
CHANGE INDIGESTION
Many organisations believe that change requires a constant
stream of initiatives, new ideas and brilliantly-conceived
strategies, all sent down from the top.
This frequently fails to work because...
1. it is based on a mechanistic view of how organisations
work
2. it requires others to change, not those at the top
3. the answers are believed to lie with those at the top
4. the amount of change becomes too great for those
down the line to handle.
"A contributory factor to failure is that many top managers
are now so removed from their underlings that they wildly
underestimate how long it takes to embed really
fundamental change. All too often impatient managers
signal a new direction before those at the bottom have had
chance to digest the last one." (Simon Caulkin)

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Responding to Change
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
DEFY CHANGE
Defying inevitable change is an option undertaken by many
organisations who think they are big enough and strong
enough to resist what is happening around them.
Defying the changes is not an option for most of us. It is the
Canute-style of management. If we sit and defy the
incoming waves, they will sooner or later devour us.
Only a few organisations can point to defying change. One is
Coca-Cola whose 100 plus year-old drink has the same taste,
packaging and advertising today as it had when it started.
However, Coca-Cola are still ready to meet change: they
test-market a brand new soft drink every month.

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Change Management
MTL Course Topics
RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
Changes are often introduced into organisations when a
sensible case has been made out for them and the feasibility
study shows they will work. Unfortunately, change needs
hearts as well as minds.
The Dvorak Simplified keyboard is a case in point. This was a
new keyboard devised to replace the traditional typewriter
keyboard when personal computers became popular. Its
novel idea was to concentrate all the most popular letters of
the alphabet on the middle row which would now read
AOEUIDHTNS instead of ASDFGHJKL. Similarly, the number
row, instead of reading 12345 etc would read 7531902468.
The savings in operator efficiency were put at 40%.
Unfortunately, few people were willing to change their skills
or pay the cost of change. The Dvorak Simplified keyboard
sank without trace.

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Change Management
MTL Course Topics
TINKERING AROUND THE EDGES
There are two different ways we can look at organisations:
1. as machines with fixed parts which can be taken out
and replaced without any affect on any other part,
2. as growing plants where everything is part of a whole
and change cannot happen to one part without
affecting the rest.
When change arrives, the "machine" organisations tinker
around the edges. They seek out old parts that are rusty and
past their best. These are disposed of and replaced. Other
parts get up-graded or taken out for a while and given an
overhaul - perhaps a crash training programme or a spot of
re-organisation.
Those who see their organisations like growing plants know
that the answer to managing change lies in tending the soil
of culture, management and growth.

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Responding to Change
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
EVOLUTION
Evolution as a way of handling change is the Darwinian
approach to management: constant, gradual, incremental
change.
This can be a highly effective way of developing the
organisation when there is time. For example, the biggest
maker of buggy whips in America at the turn of the century
is now the biggest maker of carburettors with an enviable
record of keeping up with changes in technology, design,
transport needs and fashion.
But in turbulent times, even evolution may not be possible.
"You think you understand the situation, but what you don't
understand is that the situation just changed." (Putnam
Investment advertisement)

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Change Management
MTL Course Topics
RELY ON OTHERS
Relying on others to guide you through times of change is a
high-risk strategy. You expose yourself to two possible
unwanted outcomes.
1. Your leaders may be so immersed in the "old" order that
they are unable to comprehend the need for change and do
nothing.
2. Your leaders may try the "Cortes trick". The "Cortes trick"
is the action which the Spanish conquistador Cortes took
when he landed at Vera Cruz in Mexico in 1518. Faced with
the might of the Tlaxcala and Cholula Indians, his soldiers
favoured going home.
So Cortes burnt the ships.

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Change Management
MTL Course Topics
MANAGE CHANGE
The only viable option in responding to major change is to
manage it.
This means managing each of the following key strategies to
take you through change.
1. Process: managing the change cycle
2. Structure: managing cores and peripheries
3. People and policies: managing paradox
4. Action: managing risk
5. Growth: managing learning
6. Personal development: managing the process of change
7. Information: managing uncertainty
8. Putting it all together: managing organisational change.

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Change Management
MTL Course Topics
THAT’S
IT!
WELL DONE!

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Responding to Change
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
THANK YOU
This has been a Slide Topic from Manage Train Learn