"Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn."- Confucius
Replace
the word ‘me’ with ‘us’ and ‘I’ with ‘we’ in the quote above and you will have
an understanding of why Large Systems Intervention exists. Large Systems Intervention
(LSI) is an approach that incorporates the active engagement of stakeholders of the
whole system (organisation) in order to build sustainable change. It is a process
in which all these stakeholders work in groups (small or large). It is an
excellent way to approach changes concerning the whole system.
Whole
system process for organisational change is one which involves both internal (organisational
members) and external (customers and other stakeholders) in the change process.
What stands this process apart from others is the deliberate engagement of all the
people of an organisation (internal or external) which allows for active
participation in:
- Understanding the
need for change.
- Implementing and
supporting change to make it work.
- Ideating on how
to change the current ways of working.
- Deciding on what
needs to change by analysing the current situation/reality.
Why do a lot of Large Systems
Interventions (LSI) succeed while change fails? Research shows that close to 70
percent of Change interventions fail. Almost all of the Leaders of organisations
are heard saying “People are our greatest assets”. External environments in
which these organisations are functioning change at a rapid pace, performance
metrics and targets take precedence than the emotions and changing needs of
people as a consequence of this in order to keep the organisation up and
running. This could be one of the reasons why such a substantial percentage of
change interventions fail. And if people don’t adapt and change their behaviours
to align with the new ways of functioning, positive changes in organizations
will continue to be uncertain.
Most of the times change
initiatives introduced are not communicated effectively within the organisation.
Mere communication would not help the employees to embrace the change efforts
and move organisation in the positive direction, this change also needs to be
marketed effectively to motivate and energise the employees to adapt to these
new set of desired behaviours which are aligned with it. Fear and Inspiration
i.e. negative and positive energies are important to create a sense of
inadequacy and motivation to drive organisation towards desired change. Though
fear alone does not ensure the sense of action, it does help in building the
sense of inadequacy showing that the level of success achieved in the past is
not enough to drive the organisation towards desirable change. These positive
and negative energies help the organisational members move from chaos to the
level of complexity which is more comprehensible.
Traditional change approaches are
top-down that create major resistance and take a lot of time to be
implemented. LSI, on the other hand, is a bottom-up approach, as the people
at the bottom level in the organisation who are actually directly in contact
with the market can sense the irritants for the organisation. LSIs are designed
for helping people to collaborate effectively and act from a whole-systems
perspective. They engage the whole system at the same time because they are
based on collaboration, integration, shared information and hence help to
lessen the resistance, build motivation across the entire system.
In Force Field Analysis, Kurt
Lewin proposes that any organisation, in the realm of its change journey, moves
through three stages: Un-freeze, Change and Refreeze. Positive change starts
from the moment you are able to reduce the amount of resistance within the
organisation in lieu of change initiative. There is a set of behaviours, called Emergent behaviours (E), which act as a catalyst in this change journey in
managing the Resistance to change(R). In a large system people are always working
on multiple things at the same time with different priorities and as an OD
practitioner you need to be aware of what impact would change in some parts of
the organisation have on the other interconnected components of the
organisation, that is to say, you need to have a Systems thinking perspective
while driving change. The role of an OD practitioner here in Large Scale
Interventions with whole systems is that of a facilitator. You need to
facilitate the workgroups to come up with a compelling Vision(V) for
themselves based on the Dissatisfaction(D) created earlier through positive and
negative energies(inspiration and fear). Depending on the number of factors
like size of the participants, time available for the intervention, different
methods of LSI like Simu-Real, Open Space, World Café, Real-Time Strategic
Change, and Future Search are adopted. These help the organisation to come up
with the first action steps (F) to be taken in order to move towards the
positive change by reducing the resistance further. This framework of DVFE is
helpful in reducing the resistance for change in the organisation.
Dissatisfaction(D) x Vision(V) x First Action Steps(F) x Emergent
Behaviours(E) > Resistance to
change(R)
While this is an effective way to increase the
chances of successful change in the organisation, it is also important to
ensure that the way in which change is being driven stays and does not get
limited to the impact on performance. For this, interventions need to have a
learning impact rather than a mere performance impact. It is also important for successful organisations to ensure that the inadequacies are created in
order to build a case for change. Job rotations play a significant role in such
scenarios to get a new pair of eyes to look at the problem from different
perspectives. Also during the LSI groups’ formations, you as an OD practitioner
need to ensure that there is a heterogeneous mix of people present in the group
as participants because transformations do not happen at a large scale if the
groups are homogeneous. Also how you create a boundary-less organisation so
that the external stakeholders (Suppliers, Customers, Vendors, etc.) can
provide honest feedback. The orientation of an OD practitioner and the
impact of the same on interventions for change play a pivotal role in this
change journey, helping the practitioner to quench his/her thirst for a successful
change intervention that sustains.
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