One of the most important and difficult leadership responsibilities is to guide and facilitate the process of making a major change in an organization. A major change may involve a variety of different objectives, including attitudes, roles, technology, competitive strategy, economics, and people. The change process can be described as having different stages, such as unfreezing, changing, and refreezing. Moving too quickly through the stages can endanger the success of a change effort. People typically transit through a series of emotional stages as they adjust to the need for a drastic change in their lives. Understanding each of these change processes helps leaders guide and facilitate change.

A major change is unlikely to be successful unless it is based on an adequate diagnosis of the problem or opportunity that was the reason for making it$.$ This diagnosis should include sys$-$ tems thinking about complex relationships, multiple causes and outcomes, delayed effects, cy$-$ clical causality, and the potential for unintended consequences. When planning a major change, it is also desirable to anticipate likely resistance and plan how to avoid or resolve it$.$ There are

Chapter $5$ Leading Change and Innovation

many reasons for resisting, and resistance should be viewed as a normal defensive response, not sa acharacter weakness or asign of ignorance.

People are more likely to support radical change fi they have a vision of a better future that si attractive enough to justify the sacrifices and hardships the change will require. To be inspir$-$ ing. the vision must include strong ideological content that appeals to shared values and ideals concerning customers, employees, and the mission of the organization. The vision can be cre$-$ ated in na interactive process involving key stakeholders.

Aleader can do many things to facilitate the successful implementation of change. Political actions include identifying likely supporters and opponents, creating a coalition to approve changes, forming teams to guide the implementation of changes, filling key positions with competent change agents, making symbolic changes that affect the work, and monitoring the progress of change to detect problems that require attention. People$-$oriented actions include creating a sense of urgency, articulating a clear vision of the likely benefits, preparing people for change, helping them cope with change, providing opportunities for early successes, keeping people informed, demonstrating continued commitment to the change program, and empower$-$ ing people to help plan and implement change.

It is important for leaders to influence the acquisition, retention, and application of relevant knowledge that can provide a competitive advantage. Leaders can help to create the conditions fa$-$ vorable toorganizational learning and an appropriate balance of exploration and exploitation. New

knowledge and innovative ideas can be discovered through reflection, research, and systematic learning activities, or acquired externally by imitation, purchase of expertise, or participation in joint ventures. The discovery of new knowledge is of little use unless ti is disseminated to people who need it and used to improve products, services, and processes. Individual leaders can do many things to encourage and facilitate learning and innovation in their work unit or organization.

R e v i e w and d i s c u s s i o n Q u e s t i o n s

$\mathrm{.}1$ What are the major reasons for resistance to change?

$2.$ What are the process theories of change and how aer they useful?

$\mathrm{.}3$ What are the desirable characteristics for avision?

$4.$ What are some guidelinesfor developing acompelling vision?

$5.$ What are some reasons why efforts to change organizations often fail? $6.$ What are some guidelines to help leaders implement change?

$7.$ What is a learning organization and what kind of learning occurs ni it$?8.$ How can leaders increase collective learning and innovation?