Abstract

States that change is a topic of crucial concern to all organizations in these turbulent business times. Its impact increasingly leads to business demise, in spite of the wealth of information purporting to help managers solve change-related problems. Contends that, in dealing with change, and ultimately in ensuring business survival, the mindsets of the organization’s managers are the most critical factor. Approaches influencing management thinking positively based on two simple notions: first, that the best way to deal with mindsets is to keep them from hardening; second, that by changing activities and tools we can change habits of thinking and learning. Calls an organization operating according to these principles an evolutionary organization (EVO). Illustrates that the EVO flourishes in the region of disequilibrium between an organization’s formative and normative operating modes. The key to maintaining this balance in the EVO is the judicious exercise of leadership and strategy. Explores literature relevant to the EVO and describes systemic initiatives designed to renew mindsets and confer high potential for business competitiveness. Illustrates the approach by detailing the case of a major financial service organization.

Peter A.C. Smith is President of The Leadership Alliance Inc., Holland Landing, Ontario, Canada.
Hubert Saint-Onge is Senior VP, Strategic Capabilities, Clarica and formerly VP, Organizational Development, CIBC at the time this article was written.
First published in The Learning Organization, Volume 3, Number 4, 1996, pp.4-21 MCB University Press ISSN 0969-6474

Introduction /p>

The wealth of material in books, journals and our tribal memory of addressing change as a topic in one form or another is overwhelming. This accumulated lore has surely been building since the dawn of mankind, and includes the scholarly [1,2], the populist [3] and the futuristic [4,5]. Unfortunately, if current business news is to be believed, this body of knowledge contributes little to organizational survival. Modern-day managers, immersed constantly in life-or-death competition, can hardly be blamed for echoing Ackoff [6] who wrote "What in the world is happening to the world?"

The learning organization has been described as an organization that has the potential to assist managers successfully to address critical change-related business issues [7]. A practical definition of the learning organization and its application to "change proofing" has been provided by Drew and Smith [8]. In spite of cases cited in this journal and other publications, and a recent how-to-do-it book [9], the learning organization as "journey" [7] has turned out to be both difficult and hazardous, with few demonstrably successful passages. Garvin’s [10] remark in 1993 seems to ring as true as ever "… despite the encouraging signs, the topic (Building a Learning Organization) in large part remains murky, confused, and difficult to penetrate."

We continue to believe that the learning organization is a useful organizational metaphor for dealing with change, but feel that the explicit emphasis on "learning techniques" in modifying mental models [7] has been counter-productive, and that implementation methods have been largely impractical. In our experience, current psychosocial [11] and cultural [12,13] methodologies are also not helpful initially.

In this paper we will examine evidence from many sources for our contention that in times of complex change, the critical step towards organizational effectiveness, and ultimately for organizational survival, is unfreezing managers’ mindsets, or preventing them setting at all. In the following sections we will review in detail how these mindsets correlate with successful organizational change, or more typically the lack of it; unfortunately, like the officers on the Titanic, managers minds often remain stubbornly fixed as they bear down on their business icebergs.

Our approach, which we will describe and illustrate with a successful case study, results in what we call the evolutionary organization (EVO). The approach is based on two simple notions: first, that the best way to deal with mindsets is to keep them from hardening; second, that by changing activities and tools we can change habits of thinking and learning.

In this article, we will review and discuss literature relevant to the EVO. Various systemic initiatives will be described which will enable managers to avoid running their corporate Titanic on to a competitive iceberg. We will also explain how these initiatives can be designed to renew mindsets and confer high potential for company competitiveness and longevity. The initiatives discussed are capable of incremental implementation and are founded on familiar practical behavioural enablers. Other organizational development methods [7,11-13] can be introduced and will take hold when this supportive environment has matured.

As we will illustrate, the EVO (evolutionary organization)  flourishes in the region of disequilibrium between an organization’s formative and normative operating stages. EVOs bring the formative-normative exploration-exploitation tension into a special kind of balance, so that new ideas and innovative genotypes are forever nibbling away at the status quo, and minds have no opportunity to become set. If the EVO slips too far into the high-risk formative mode or the diehard normative mode it loses these desirable properties.

The key to maintaining this balance is the judicious exercise of leadership and strategy. Disequilibrium is fostered by deliberately structuring the EVO to promote creativity, learning and responsiveness to its environment. Since control and co-ordination are exercised through designed connectednes, organizational size is not a critical factor.

We believe that the work described here confirms that EVOs exemplify a promising new way for managers to deal successfully with change, and for organizations to "steam" safely through dangerous business waters

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