With my report deadline coming up, I started listing my references. One book I've not mentioned is "Making Sense of Change Mangement" by Esther Cameron & Mike Green. I find it particularly interesting because it is a very readable, practical but theoretically underpinned book on a variety of frameworks and models about change and transformation.
What did I select from this book for my change project?
The work of Carl Rogers.
Carl Rogers is one of the founders of the humanstic movement. Rogers (1967) highlighted three conditions for development for individuals within organisations:
- genuineness and congruence: to be aware of your feelings, to be real, to be authentic. "The more genuine and congruent the change agent is in the relationship, the greater the probability of change in the personality of the client." (Cameron & Green, p.50)
I focused on this condition in my approach for the project. - Unconditional positive regard: an acceptance of whatever feelings are going inside the members of the change project. I can honestly say that the teachers involved in the project can have mixed or negative, or positive feelings towards the innovation.
- Empathic understanding: I understand the conditions that the teachers have to work in, and I "see" them as they are. I am aware of my own perceptions as a change agent; my past-driven realities do not influence my relation to the other (Presencing, Scharmer, 2002)
Schein's elaboration of Lewin's model
According to Schein (2006) three stages occur in change:
1. unfreezing: creating the motivation to change;
2. learning new concepts and new meanings from old concepts;
3. internalizing new concepts and meanings.
It looks like 1 and 2 are going OK in my project, 3 is something else ...
Team change
What is a group, and when is it a team?
Morgan et al (1986) suggest that 'a team is a distinguishable set of two or more individuals who interact interdependently and adaptively to achieve specified, shared, and valued objectives.' Groups, on the other hand, are a collection of individuals who draw a boundary around themselves. A team is, generally, toghter and clearer on its common purpose (Cameron & Green, 2012).
> It is good to think about and analyse this some more. I have a mix of "a group", and some are "parallel teams". Parallel teams are not part of the traditional management hierarchy, they run parallel to the existing structures. The setting of the micro-design teams in my project are setup like this.
I'm listing all of my references in this googledoc. The research tool is great for automatically listing your references.