TOPIC 6.3: How do we manage change through uncertainty?

Change processes

This topic has merely touched upon the positioning of the public sector within the community but it has alerted you to a range of particular challenges to the public sector, which will demand that it further evolve. This will require you to be an effective change agent and as you learnt in module 5 on systems thinking, there may be no prescriptive approach available to assist you. Topic 3 below, will introduce you to a change model, which should support you in this environment.

One way to look at change is to examine successful change projects and develop a taxonomy of the type of change processes adopted.

Andrews (2015)^[1] hypothesised success of reform-based change upon two approaches:

Examining a large number of case studies, counter-intuitively, suggests the adaptive approach (PDIA) is better but, marginally. As a public servant, you might like to put your mind to what contexts encourage which approach.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development identified five generic lessons to emerge from a study of global public-sector reform initiatives:

1. The importance of raising citizen awareness of, and support for, reform through public debates and consultation strategies
2. The need to consult extensively with public servants affected by reform
3. The requirement to reduce uncertainty, and therefore opposition to reform, by allowing it to proceed in stages—that is, ‘incrementally’
4. The need for permanent, independent organisations for steering reform, especially after the initial stages in order to prevent incrementalism giving way to inertia and reform stalling
5. The importance of individual national jurisdictions supporting and collaborating with international public-sector research organisations in information sharing and evaluating reform approaches and progress. (Sedgwick,2011)^[3]

Those charged with the task of managing change could do well to take notice of such advice if they wish to ensure successful outcomes.

Various change models become popular over time and they all have currency in the public sector depending upon their advocates.

The theoretical model encouraged for this module is the Boyatzis’s (2006)^[4] Intentional Change Theory (ICT), because it is consistent with the systems thinking, complexity approach and with neuroscience, a value proposition QUT Graduate School of Business has adopted. It can operate at the level of individual, group, organisational and/or societal, thereby being a very good tool by which public servants can be guided. In this case, it backs up the emergent model discussed above.