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Large Systems Intervention- mitigating the Resistance to change



"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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