Feature articles

CHANGE: a concept of organizational

Joan Marques is based at n the course of the past two years I organized and co-chaired several workshops in
Woodbury University,
Burbank, California, USA. I the Los Angeles area, attended by leaders of local for-profit and non-profit
organizations. Among the attendees to these workshops were leaders from the
academic environment, from locally and internationally operating business corporations,
and from community development organizations. During the workshops, my associates
and I facilitated various brainstorm sessions about ways to enhance the quality of life at
work.
As the evaluator and analyzer of the collected data from these workshops, I found that there
were some consistent mutual perspectives among the workshop participants:
B they all found that in their workplaces the promotion of learning was a great motivator for
employees; and
B they all found that change was adopted more easily when employees felt that they were
closely involved in the process.
When executing a workshop for the employees in one of the local non-profit organizations,
the above displayed perspectives were underscored in the employees’ feedback. This led
me to believe that, increasingly, today’s organizational leaders become aware of the
necessity of promoting the habit of learning among workers at all levels in their organization.
In separate, in-depth interviews with three Los Angeles based business leaders to verify
this perception, the leaders admitted that they are, indeed, promoting learning among
their employees, in order to enhance ‘‘meaning’’ – a sense of belonging – in their
workplace, as well as to establish an environment that remains alert on the expediency of
processes executed within the workplace. These leaders are aware that it is vital to
keep questioning the status quo in order to continue upgrading the work itself, and
thereby also ensure efficiency and return on investment, as well as employees’ job
satisfaction.

CHANGE
There are various theories in existence on how to encourage organizational learning and
subsequently ensure advanced quality in processes and procedures. This article introduces
a straightforward process that can easily be followed in organizations that strive for optimal
performance, efficiency in input, and maximization in output. The process to be introduced
was developed on the basis of analyses of various workshops for business executives, for
employees in the workplaces of some of these executives, and through in-depth interviews
with three of these executives. This process is also easy to remember, because it is called:
CHANGE, whereby each letter of the word represents a step in a continuously applicable
process. Here’s what CHANGE is all about:

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 Checking
Whether a manufacturing entity or a service oriented organization, it is important to
continuously keep a finger on the pulse of current operations. Scan the work environment on
the actuality of rules and procedures, and use an attentive mindset to regularly question the
validity of each procedure in place.

Harvesting
Once a rule or procedure that could be eligible for an update or replacement is identified,
management should assemble a team of workers involved in applying this rule or process on
a daily base. The task of this team is to investigate the rule or process in order to obtain as
deep and broad an understanding of its function in the production process, as well as the
impact that a change in this rule will have on other inner-departmental and interdepartmental
processes. It might be smart to include an interdepartmental change team at this stage.
Along with this organization-wide, change focused team; the department workers should
form a collaborative team in order to start a brainstorm session regarding possible options.

Advising
As soon as all sensible options are reviewed and listed, the collaborative team will bring out
advice to top management. This step is particularly important in cases where the most
favorable alternative represents a costly investment, a radical change in operations, or if it
will have significant effect on processes and procedures in other departments. Depending
on the size of the change to be implemented, the collaborative team should also advise top
management for approval to scan the industry and other important stakeholders of the
organization (customers, for instance), for other useful procedural alternatives. This may be
helpful in determining whether the investment in the favored alternative will really be efficient.

Navigating
After top management has approved the industry review, the navigation process can start.
This can either be executed by members of the collaborative team; by members of the
marketing department of the organization (if there is one), or by external consultants.
Regularly navigating the industry is a wise strategy anyway, and should become part of a
regular procedure, even when there are no rules or processes subject to change. The
philosophy behind this suggestion is that, through regular industry review, the organization
can keep itself current in the ever-changing environment, and can respond to changes on a
very short term. Better even: by regularly navigating the industry, the organization’s creative
reviewers may get inspired toward developing a ground-breaking trend that could transform
the organization into a leader in its industry.

Granting
When the navigation process is finalized, the collaborative team will present top
management its overall findings and bring out a recommendation. Top management will
then make the decision on the new rule or process to be implemented. Once this is agreed
upon, department workers’ skills will have to be reviewed in order to ensure that they harbor
the right skill set to implement this change. Two main points of attention are crucial here:
1. there should be communication with these workers from a very early stage on in order to
keep them informed and involved; and

‘‘ . . . increasingly, today’s organizational leaders become aware

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VOL. 21 NO. 3 2007 DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING IN ORGANIZATIONS PAGE 7
 ‘‘ The members of this team should be cross-functional: they
should derive from various departments and position levels
throughout the organization; they should all be advocates of
organizational learning, and consequently geared toward
change. ’’

2. depending on the size and complexity of the change, learning interventions (on-the-job,
or through formal education outside the work environment) may be appropriate.

Executing
Once approval from top management and alignment of departmental workers to the new rule
or process are achieved, the implementation becomes a fact. It could be wise to hold a close
review, particularly in the early stages of the changed process, to limit complications. And
even while this stage is still being executed, the process of ‘‘checking’’ on procedures and
rules within the department, and throughout the organization needs to continue.
One thing that became very clear throughout the workshops and the interviews used for data
collection toward this paper is, that CHANGE will work in for-profit, non-profit, small, medium
sized, and large corporations if implemented with the right constituents and on a continuous
basis. Another thing that became apparent is that for every learning organization, an
interdepartmental change team, like the one mentioned above, should be established. The
members of this team should be cross-functional: they should derive from various
departments and position levels throughout the organization; they should all be advocates of
organizational learning, and consequently geared toward change.

Figure 1 Process of change and organizational learning

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 Although this team should be altered on a fairly regular basis to prevent groupthink, two
particular types of employees should always have a seat in this team:
1. a representative of higher management, in order to guarantee a fast decision-making
movement; and
2. a representative from Human Resources, in order to protect the employees’ positions;
ensure guidance through the change process; and facilitate employee training when
needed.

The presence of these two organizational representatives in the team is also crucial from
Keywords: another point of view: the long-term vision of the organization will continuously be
Workplace training, considered in the options offered for a revision or replacement of a rule or procedure.
Organizational change Figure 1 illustrates the presented process of CHANGE and organizational learning.

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