This thread is concerned with change top down. I am still formulating this question, but central to it is change as growth.
This other thread is concerned with a bottom up approach to change as loss/ grief:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Good_GRIEF_are_people_ready_to_MOURN_the_passing_of_what_they_cherish_but_took_for_granted_in_the_NEW_AGE_of_INFINITE_TURBO_DISRUPTIONS
The question of work organisation is fundamental, particularly in a field such as occupational risk prevention. It is important to listen to the worker when the organisation of production is to be changed and it is useful to involve him in the changes.
For several years now, the development of information and communication technologies has had the effect of undermining the importance attached to the voice of workers, particularly in the case of partially automated tasks in which the worker and the machine are required to work closely together. The Covid-19 health crisis has had the effect of accelerating these phenomena. This is described in the articles and presentations cited below:
Article Medium-term consequences (5 years) of the Covid-19 crisis on...
Book In what ways will work evolve in the next five years? Synthe...
Conference Paper Bicycle delivery drivers: prevention prevented
Presentation What consequences will the Covid-19 pandemic have on the org...
Article Evolution of working conditions under the impact of ICTs
Presentation About the proper use of automation to improve working conditions
Article Amazon and Tesla: Men Subordinate to Robots
Article How techs are transforming work and why the current accelera...
Book Modes and methods of production in France in 2040
Michel Héry I share your concern. Certainly Covid is a catalyst. I think there's no better vision of what we're now facing than the stunning acheivement of Metropolis. The director considered it as a distopia whilst Hitler thought otherwise. Like the kids in the movie, we are letting our kids drown in digital strew.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx-vMdGqL3A
Sooner than conducting their own experiments in the field of organizational change and change management, it appears, academics prefer to observe the success or failure of practitioner experiments to generate theory; and so, practice seems to drive theory development rather than the other way round. A development that academia did not anticipate are Uber-type organizations. Uber was an experiment by practitioners that turned out to work; a lot of experiments do not.
Article Forestalling Change Fatigue
Hi Olivier Serrat Über makes me twitchy. Too much association with Über Mensch. As for the Uber Business Model, it owes its rise to lobbying power...
Uber lobbied and used 'stealth' tech to block scrutiny, according to new report : NPR
https://www.npr.org/2022/07/11/1110794294/uber-lobbied-to-block-scrutiny-according-to-a-new-report
Leaked Uber Files reveal history of lawbreaking, lobbying and exploiting violence against drivers | TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/10/leaked-uber-files-reveal-history-of-lawbreaking-lobbying-and-exploiting-violence-against-drivers/
About the Uber Files investigation - ICIJ
https://www.icij.org/investigations/uber-files/about-uber-files-investigation/
“We’re just fucking illegal”: Uber Files reveal a pattern of shady behavior around the world - Rest of World
https://restofworld.org/2022/uber-files-rest-of-world/
“Uber Files”: Investigation Exposes Ride-Sharing Giant's Secret Political Influence, Driver Exploitation | Vanity Fair
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/07/uber-files-investigation-exposes-ride-sharing-giants-secret-political-influence-driver-exploitation
A Closer Look at The Guardian's "The Uber Files" - Competitive Enterprise Institute
https://cei.org/blog/a-closer-look-at-the-guardians-the-uber-files/
Uber Facing Class Action After News of Guardian Leak Hurts Stock Price
https://www.classaction.org/news/uber-facing-class-action-after-news-of-guardian-leak-hurts-stock-price
5 takeaways from "Uber Files" investigation into company's influence-peddling - CBS News
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/uber-files-investigation-ride-share/
Uber | Technology | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/uber
Uber Files - Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uber_Files
About the Uber Files data leak - The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/uber-files-investigation/
Uber broke laws, duped police and secretly lobbied governments, leak reveals | Uber | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/10/uber-files-leak-reveals-global-lobbying-campaign
Hi Kaukab Abid Azhar Here's to everybody talking, no one says a word, everybody connecting, no one is engaging...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuuhsqA95iA
Top-down transformations are changes implemented by senior managers who decide how to implement the transformation, fully understanding how it will affect all organizational levels. In this case, change is faster and forces employees to adapt to the pace of change, quickly eliminating the problems that arise during the process. Bottom-up change is a transformation carried out by employees operating at the lower levels of an organization and gradually rising upwards until it is felt throughout the organization.
Managers engage employees at all levels to participate in the transformation process in order to get their input into the process and reduce their resistance. By reducing the uncertainty that employees experience during change, a bottom-up approach helps to unfreeze the situation and increases the likelihood that employees will consistently exhibit new types of behaviors they have learned during change.
In order to develop a new shared vision that will lead to action, it is first necessary to change the existing structure that reflects the interests of people, so that it allows them to see their new interests and perspectives. The organizational structure should be structured in such a way that managerial roles are not mixed. Significant changes in the functioning of the organization should be accompanied by simultaneous changes in its management bodies.
D. A. Timofeev I am afraid the unfreezing and refreezing is for the Fossil Age. It's old school, old tree approach. It's the MELTED and STAY LIQUID ERA we've entered. Being FLUID is FASTER, more RESPONSIVE, TURBO FLEXIBLE. What do you think? We've time to pop the ice into the champaign bucket?
No things are HEATING SO INCREASINGLY FASTER, ICE BELONGS to the ICE AGE in the land of MAMMOTHS.
Your mid-manager could have told you. But he's 🔥 to keep the HIERARCHY FLAT. Time to TEAR apart those MBAs. Spreadsheets - too DESKTOP. So last millennium. Will you even have any workers left? Will you even need them? Will they need you?
Next BOT please come forward! Please keep drinking by the water cooler. Only 💧 need apply here, one drop at a time!
Dear Tieu-Tieu:
Thanks for asking question that make us think differently than usual, I´ll try to order my thoughts to answer properly. I would say there are many answers.
1) As a OD practitioner, I would say that change has to have a top down structure in order to succeed, that is what OD states.
2) Experience however says that, change works different according to the industry. That is linked to many aspect, only to name a few: culture competitiveness and complexity.
3) Examples: let´s think of an easy and hard changing process, like a sugar plantation. Most probably a top down approach for a new process will work properly because the employees there are used to follow orders and they are not to litterate. Now let´s go to the other extreme, think of an IT company thriving in the modern world. Most probably the employees have a lot of new ideas that they would like to share and their managers would follow in order to make the company grow. In this case a bottom up approach would make it better.
In the end, I would rather say that top down changes or bottom up ones work properly depending on the conditions of the environment.
Regards
G. Concari
Gustavo Concari I gladly agree with you that it's ALWAYS CONTEXT SPECIFIC, but there are MACRO STRUCTURES to which we are bound to, lobbying power, etc. We have MONOPOLIES and CARTELS to deal with...
Maybe the ORGANISATION IS DEAD... playing 😈 advocate here! But most likely, it's terminal comatose, living on borrowed time from lenders who are yet to be born, sucking all kinds of life support.
In my experience, the organisational strategy, including how to change, and the changing of change management, is very much determined by the (deepness of) understanding of 'organisational learning' as the core driver of change. So, if there is strong corporate leadership on be(com)ing a learning organisation, on growing organisational wisdom, this makes all the difference. It opens the door for changing how we (try to) change.
Irina Rokosz
Top management can do whatever they like, but if there's an unhealthy relationship with the bottom, toxicity, sabotage, & theft become the norm. What can management do if they are beating a dead horse? People literally get sick and tire of changes, especially when top management has bungled vision and keep reversing gear - this happens because we're dealing with accelerating regime mutations.
Lieke Sluis-Hoogerwerf I agree with you, for me it prompts the following question:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/In_the_time-space_space-time_of_turbo_flux_why_must_the_Learning_Organisation_be_governed_not_by_the_CEO_but_the_Chief_Learning_Officer_the_CTO
Top Management will lead the organizational change, but managers will organize the transition. It means managers will run the show of change management, even though Top Management will direct and review the result.
Hi Wirawan Tedja here lies the cogent issues evolving around managers, especially mid-management which I have discussed here:
Preprint CyberRain: Learning to Assess, Manage & Communicate Informat...
Irina Rokosz
I understand the need to distinguish between OCM and Corporate Culture. Leadership certainly plays a major in setting tone, mood, and culture. This strikes me abit like the chicken and egg problem. Lets put this in the public sphere as a way to clarify the circularity. Do governments drive change? Or the popular culture? Does popular culture drives change of government?Bi-Direction FLOW OF CHANGE & HEALTH of CORPORATIONS
Of course much of the distinction rests on how we define OCM and CC. Change is going from one state to another. Corporate Culture to me is bi-directional, hence the central purpose of the question above. But sure how a corporation is managed affects, lets call it instead, the HEALTH of the organisation. Alot of workplaces have become unhealthy for the bottom, and arguably, even the top.
The TV show SUCCESSION nicely enacts what a toxic culture is, no one isafe, and there's altogether an absence of trust, even between man and wife. It's a culture based on board room struggles, do they count as OCM?
File & Rank Rebellions
Or take Apple, they totally reorganise the workspace (furniture re-arrangement is a favourite tool for OCM), it came from above, but from the bottom, it becomes a total LOSS of MORALE - is that Corporate Culture too?
But for others, the company’s refusal to listen to its own workforce is becoming a bigger sticking point, particularly during an era when the balance of power is shifting away from managers and toward rank and file employees — at least, everywhere but Apple.
https://www.theverge.com/22700898/apple-company-culture-change-secrecy-employee-unrest
Changing Rules of Chane Management & Employees Engagements
All due respect, lots of the discussions sound to me like what is taught in a MBA degree. I am not saying this in a disparaging way, I merely wish to signal that maybe the rules of the game has changed, which changes one's playbook/ gameplay. We're not talking about going faster in one regimentation, whereas - as catalyse by Covid - a seismic shift has already taken place. The Great Resignation highlights how workers are asking themselves different questions about their work expectations. They asking quality of living, commuting and costs saving.
In terms of disillusionment, workers are asking is work healthy for, especially mental health? Why would we work so hard when dream of owning one's place and getting ahead becomes more and more remote? Old enticements like free food, ping pong table, and slippery dips are not going to cut it.
Here I wish to highlight that SPEED GAMES are not the same as ACCELERATION GAMES, which something I hope to explore here:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_ACCELERATION_GAMES_are_NOT_the_SAME_as_SPEED_GAMES_hint_BASIC_PHYSICS_Why_the_tortoise_won_in_THE_END
In short, only healthy things grow. A sick plant, unless given timely care, will perish - sooner or later.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Phytochemistry
- Extracts