Intentional Change Project

Kevin Jones

Indiana Wesleyan University

Dr. Boyd Johnson

DOL-865 Advanced Global Leadership

October 10, 2007

Revised October 28, 2008

Revised February 13, 2009

Intentional Change Project

During the Change, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship course we were challenged to create an intentional change project within either ourselves or an organization of which we were a part. Those who chose to do the project within the framework of an organization were to use a survey known as the Strategic Concerns Evaluation. The tool is designed to assist in finding members of an organization’s views toward vision and communication as well as overall satisfaction with the organization. Respondents respond to each statement with a rating of how they believe it is now and how they wish it were. I chose to do this intentional change project based on one negative aspect of the results of the evaluation.

            Hersey, Blanchard, and Johnson (2001) point out that the “central issue is identifying the need to change (p. 377). This project was intended in part to do exactly that. Admittedly, most of this work was done through my eyes and the eyes of the members of CDL.

   The assistants who worked for the assistant directors in charge of the online Business & Management programs in the Center for Distributed Learning (CDL) made it very clear in the process of completing the survey that communication had broken down within their area of the organization. They felt as though the way we were operating made them uncertain as to whom they should ask questions of and report to directly. My change paper during the course had been on change theorist Tom Peters who is very critical of matrixed organizations. As a result of my study of Peter’s works I had become aware of what made our overall organizational structure within the College of Adult and Graduate Studies (AGS) seem uncomfortable to me.

Schein (1999) notes that typically when confronted with need for change one will “resist in order to protect your position, your identity, and your group membership even if it means experiencing survival anxiety or guilt” (p. 124). He goes on to address the need for leaders to create a system whereby leaders establish psychological safety for followers. This system includes “a compelling positive vision, formal training, involvement of the learner, informal training of relevant family groups and teams, practice fields, coaches and feedback, positive role models, support groups, and consistent systems and structures” (pp. 124-126).

I began to examine the structure which we had essentially copied from AGS into CDL and began to see where we might do things differently. At that time our assistants had been shifted, by the assistant directors including myself, from working by program into working by task. Part of the problem was that one of the assistants had been there significantly longer than most and was reluctant to grant the necessary accesses to the newer assistants for fear they would make mistakes. Due to the fact the other assistants were unsure of who they should speak to about this problem it was kept at subdued and none of the assistant directors were aware of the problem.

Once the problem had been identified I met with the other assistant directors and proposed that we move back into a direct reporting system and have our assistants once again begin to work by program as opposed to by task. Initially there was some resistance but after some time of dialogue the decision was to make the change.

Members of the Intentional Change Project Team

The members of the intentional change project team include the director of CDL, the three assistant directors for Business & Management, and the three assistants along with the assistant who was hired to specifically handle student issues. Some of their comments sent via email to me about the change can be seen as Exhibits A-C.

Processes

The change to a program oriented structure has been truly collaborative from the onset. The assistants listed the specific areas where they needed additional or, in most cases, new training in order to make this a success. They also asked the assistant directors to attend the training with them in order to better understand all of the duties of the assistant in CDL. The assistant directors saw this as being beneficial in two distinct ways: First, it would give us a better appreciation for what our assistant do, and second, would show the assistants that although we were very busy we valued them and their suggestions. As a result, we have designated all of the Mondays in October as training days and have successfully completed the first two sessions.

The change in organizational structure has also been collaborative in that every member has been involved in determining how the training is presented. Each assistant trains the remainder of the group in the area in which they had been working. This has led to greater involvement by the assistants and, frankly what is a by product we had not anticipated, in their greater willingness to bring their ideas and suggestions to the table in other settings as well.

Major Obstacles

The major obstacle we faced initially was the hurt feelings of the assistant who had been in place the longest. The first couple of weeks after the decision was made to move to the program based structure it was evident that we needed to let her know that she was indeed valued and her contribution would be crucial to the success of the change. She actually did the first two training sessions and did an outstanding job.

The second major obstacle is that the amount of work is overwhelming for our assistants and they will not master it in the first month. There will be mistakes made and, while we need to mitigate them as much as possible, we also need to let the assistants know that we understand that and we want them to continue to find the best ways to do their job. There is no one correct way to perform their tasks outside of the parameters given to them.

References

(Hersey P Blanchard K H Johnson D E 2001 Management of organizational behavior: Leading human resources)Hersey, P., Schein (1999) Blanchard, K. H., & Johnson, D. E. (2001). Management of organizational behavior: Leading human resources (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

(Schein E H 1999 corporate culture survival guide)Schein, E. H. (1999). The corporate culture survival guide. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc.

Appendix A

Kevin,

Thanks for spearheading the reorganization of the Business and Management department.  The meeting we had was productive.  I have recapped our meeting below. 

Change department structure to be linear, not matrix.

Allow each support specialists to perform all aspects of the position that deal with the specific program area

Assistant Directors will be responsible for management of all aspects of their program

Benefits

AD’s have more direct responsibility for improvements to the program.

Specialists have a direct report to monitor progress towards personal and department goals.

Let me know if I missed something.

Take care,

Jeanne Craig

Assistant Director, Associate Online Programs

Appendix B

In September Kevin Jones and Jeanne Craig, Assistant Directors approached me and another co-worker, Rhonda about the structure of our department. The current situation was that there were three assistants and there were three programs – but no one was assigned to a specific program.

In other words:

  Carol would make calendars and take care of payroll for all three of our programs: Associates, Bachelors and Masters Programs. She also worked on new programs and took care of some training.

  Rhonda was scheduling facilitators for the Associates & Bachelors programs. She also took care of the new facilitator information for all three programs.

  I was scheduling facilitators for the Masters program.

Kevin suggested that each program would have an assistant. For example: his assistant would be Rhonda. She would be responsible for calendars, payroll, scheduling and helping with the new facilitators. I would do the same for Jeanne in the Associates program.  A training schedule has been set up and we have been putting into practice what we are learning as we go. Each Monday afternoon in October we are trained on a different aspect of our job. All of the Assistant Directors and the Assistants train together. This is also a good idea because it shows the Assistant Directors the “behind the scenes” jobs that are taken care of.

I feel that the change in structure will greatly benefit our company because we are being cross-trained on all four areas of our jobs. If one Assistant is absent – another one can step in and help the Assistant Director.  I see how each part is working together to make a whole. The work load is being evenly dispersed among the Assistants. Before this was implemented I was always looking for work to do. This left me feeling very unsatisfied at the end of the day. I am busy now and I enjoy feeling like I have worked for my paycheck.

Thanks so much,

Penny Campbell

IWU Online

Business and Management Program Support Specialist 

Appendix C

When I began working in CDL one person was in charge of all of the support functions of each program.  Three of us had the same responsibilities such as calendars, scheduling, payroll, and student issues but we were only responsible for these items in one program.  Changes were made that tried to streamline the three programs in an attempt to make it more efficient so that one person took care of a specific aspect of each program and there was not a separation by programs.   This was very frustrating for me from the beginning mainly because I felt that daily I was becoming more inefficient at my job because I was limited to what I was allowed to do.  I think the original idea made a lot of sense but when we tried to implement the change it just was not as efficient as we originally had thought it would be.  The jobs are too intertwined to separate them completely by job and not by program.  Each program has its own quirks that make it slightly different from the others.   I started spending most of my days only scheduling facilitators.  Anything else I was asked to do had to be given to the person in charge of that area.  If that person was gone or busy, the request was just put off until the person in charge had time to do it. 

It became obvious that the new changes were not working and the decision was made by Kevin Jones and the other assistant directors that we should revert back to the old way of doing things.  They made the decision that everyone would learn the procedures, even the assistant directors. We are now training in each process together.  It has already given my job back some variety.  It is very difficult to always do the exact same thing daily and not get bored. 

Rhonda Watts

IWUOnline Business & Management 

Program Specialist