Taylor Clarke Blog

Bringing About Changes In Organisations - by Bill Roxburgh, Principal Consultant

June 25th, 2007

How do YOU make sense of the umpteen theories and models of organisational change that are on offer?   I’m not sure I’d have been able to put a theory or approach or model into a helpful framework or historical context before Birkbeck College introduced me to Chin and Benne.  (Not to be confused with Bill and Ben).

Chin and Benne suggest that there are really only three broad strategies for bringing about changes in human systems.

1.  Empirical-rational approaches, in which human rationality is assumed.   In respect of organisations, the empirical-rational approaches include, at for example, the big or “molar” level, the “classical” business strategy approaches, and Taylorism and neo-Taylorism.  At the smaller or “molecular” level these approaches include personnel selection.

2.  Normative-re-educative strategies.  These assume human rationality, but also take into account the effects of culture on behaviour.   Human Relations approaches and Organisational Development belong here, as do the more optimistic advocates of cultural change in organisations.  

3.  Power-coercive strategies.  Here, the application of power (political, economic, moral, etc.) is seen as central.   An even broader term is the “contextual” strategy.  Contextual strategies have produced a flood of work in recent years.  Examples include highly critical views of culture, and accounts that throw doubt on the predictability of plans. There wasn’t a great deal about power in organisations in the organisational psychology literature until recently.  It’s hard to see why this should have been so.  It’s not as if the significance of power had never been recognised.  At least one handbook has been available for a few hundred years, i.e. Machiavelli’s “The Prince”.   But there are still plenty of lively advocates of normative-re-educative strategies.  Bet you know some? Reference:  Chin, R. and Benne, K.D.  General Strategies for Effecting Change in Human Systems.  In Bennis, W.G., Chin, R., and Benne, K.D. The Planning of Change. 

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