The “calm waters” metaphor envisions the organization as a large ship crossing a calm sea. The ship’s captain and crew know exactly where they’re going because they’ve made the trip many times before. Change appears as the occasional storm, a brief distraction in an otherwise calm and predictable trip. Until recently, the “calm waters” metaphor dominated the thinking of practicing managers and academics. The prevailing model for handling change in such circumstances is best illustrated in Kurt Lewin’s three-step description of the change process.8 (See Exhibit 6–2.)

Exhibit 6–2

The Three-Step Change Process

According to Lewin, successful change requires unfreezing the status quo, changing to a new state, and freezing the new change to make it permanent. The status quo can be considered an equilibrium state. Unfreezing is necessary to move from this equilibrium. It can be achieved in one of three ways:

• Increase the driving forces, which direct behavior away from the status quo.

• Decrease the restraining forces, which hinder movement from the existing equilibrium.

• Do both.

Once the situation has been “unfrozen,” the change itself can be implemented. However, just introducing change doesn’t mean it’s going to take hold. The new situation needs to be “frozen” so that it can be sustained over time. Unless this last step is done, the change is likely to be short-lived, with employees reverting to the previous equilibrium state. The objective, then, is to freeze at the new equilibrium state and stabilize the new situation by balancing the driving and restraining forces. (Read more about Lewin and his organizational research in the Classic Concepts in Today’s Workplace box.)

Note how Lewin’s three-step process treats change as a break in the organization’s equilibrium state.9 The status quo has been disturbed, and change is necessary to establish a new equilibrium state. Although this view might have been appropriate to the relatively calm environment faced by most organizations during the twentieth century, it’s increasingly obsolete as a description of the kinds of “seas” that current managers have to navigate.

As former chair of Nielsen Media Research (the company best known for its TV ratings, which are frequently used to determine how much advertisers pay for TV commercials), Susan Whiting had to tackle significant industry changes. Video-on-demand services, streaming technologies, smartphones, tablet computers, and other changing technologies have made data collection much more challenging for the media research business. Here’s what she had to say about the business environment: “If you look at a typical week I have, it’s a combination of trying to lead a company in change in an industry in change.”11 That’s a pretty accurate description of what change is like in our second change metaphor—white-water rapids. It’s also consistent with a world that’s increasingly dominated by information, ideas, and knowledge.12

In the “white-water rapids” metaphor, the organization is seen as a small raft navigating a raging river with uninterrupted white-water rapids. Aboard the raft are half a dozen people who have never worked together before, who are totally unfamiliar with the river, who are unsure of their eventual destination, and who, as if things weren’t bad enough, are traveling at night. In the white-water rapids metaphor, change is the status quo and managing change is a continual process.

To get a feeling of what managing change might be like in a white-water rapids environment, consider attending a college that had the following rules: Courses vary in length. When you sign up, you don’t know how long a course will run; it might go for 2 weeks or 30 weeks. Furthermore, the instructor can end a course at any time with no prior warning. If that isn’t challenging enough, the length of the class changes each time it meets: Sometimes the class lasts 20 minutes; other times it runs for three hours. And the time of the next class meeting is set by the instructor during this class. There’s one more thing. All exams are unannounced, so you have to be ready for a test at any time. To succeed in this type of environment, you’d have to respond quickly to changing conditions. Students who were overly structured or uncomfortable with change wouldn’t succeed.

Well, maybe not every manager, but it is becoming more the norm. The stability and predictability of the calm waters metaphor don’t exist. Disruptions in the status quo are not occasional and temporary, and they’re not followed by a return to calm waters. Many managers never get out of the rapids. Like Susan Whiting, just described, they face constant forces in the environment (external and internal) that bring about the need for planned organizational change.

At the Wyndham Peachtree Conference Center in Georgia, businesses bring groups of employees to try their hand at the ancient Chinese water sport of dragon boat racing. Although the physical exercise is an added benefit, it’s the team-building exercise in which participants learn about communication, collaboration, and commitment that’s meant to be the longest-lasting benefit.13

Most organizational changes don’t happen by chance. Often managers make a concerted effort to alter some aspect of the organization. Whatever happens—especially in terms of structure or technology—ultimately affects the organization’s people. Efforts to assist organizational members with a planned change are referred to as organization development (OD).

In facilitating long-term, organization-wide changes, managers use OD to constructively change the attitudes and values of organization members so they can more readily adapt to and be more effective in achieving the new directions of the organization.14 When OD efforts are planned, organization leaders are, in essence, attempting to change the organization’s culture.15 However, a fundamental issue of OD is its reliance on employee participation to foster an environment in which open communication and trust exist.16 Persons involved in OD efforts acknowledge that change can create stress for employees. Therefore, OD attempts to involve organizational members in changes that will affect their jobs and seeks their input about how the change is affecting them (just as Lewin suggested).

Any organizational activity that assists with implementing planned change can be viewed as an OD technique. The more popular OD efforts in organizations rely heavily on group interactions and cooperation and include:

1. Survey feedback. Employees are asked about their attitudes and perceptions of the change they’re encountering. Employees are generally asked to respond to a set of specific questions regarding how they view such organizational aspects as decision making, leadership, communication effectiveness, and satisfaction with their jobs, coworkers, and management.17 The data that a change agent obtains are used to clarify problems that employees may be facing. As a result of this information, the change agent takes some action to remedy the problems.

2. Process consultation. Outside consultants help managers perceive, understand, and act on organizational processes they’re facing.18 These elements might include, for example, workflow, informal relationships among unit members, and formal communications channels. Consultants give managers insight into what is going on. It’s important to recognize that consultants are not there to solve these problems. Rather, they act as coaches to help managers diagnose the interpersonal processes that need improvement. If managers, with the consultants’ help, cannot solve the problem, the consultants will often help managers find experts who can.

3. Team-building. In organizations made up of individuals working together to achieve goals, OD helps them become a team. How? By helping them set goals, develop positive interpersonal relationships, and clarify the roles and responsibilities of each team member. It’s not always necessary to address each area because the group may be in agreement and understand what’s expected. The primary focus of team-building is to increase members’ trust and openness toward one another.19

4. Intergroup development. Different groups focus on becoming more cohesive. That is, intergroup development attempts to change attitudes, stereotypes, and perceptions that one group may have toward another group. The goal? Better coordination among the various groups.