In most organizations, change proposals can take the short route if the demander is a president or CEO who goes ahead and exercises formal authority to set policy or it may take the long route by moving up the hierarchy or through layer upon layer of committees. In either case, the outcome is not yet change. It is an authoritative decision to change. Now emerges the problem of making it stick. Usually, an executive instructs organizational units and individuals to carry out the new idea or behavior. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the Political model breaks down in implementation unless that executive can force units and individuals to comply, identify whether or not they are complying, and get rid of non-compliants. The formal authorities turn out not to be the real authorities. Departments and employees (accountants, engineers, information technologists, etc.) in many contemporary organizations have considerable autonomy—illustrated brilliantly in the “Dilbert” cartoons of Scott Adams. If these autonomous “experts” do not like a new policy or program, they often can avoid serious implementation and, meanwhile, build a new coalition to get the policy rescinded or program dropped. The process is not one of open collaboration seeking consensus. It is instead a constant struggle for control. Losers of today’s battles do not give up. They mount a new demand.
If vested interests and power were everything involved in planned change, an effective political strategy would be all one would need. But reason and evidence are sometimes heeded even by those whose vested interests are somewhat challenged and who have the power to ignore rational persuasion. Social dynamics are at work, and the more the change agent knows about how to make them work, the better. Often, it is more effective to seek to reduce resistance to change by human relations strategies than to try to overwhelm that resistance by force. If motivation researchers are correct that we all have the need for achievement and affiliation, as well as for power, then we need a change strategy which speaks to all three motivations, not just to power.
THE SOCIAL INTERACTION APPROACH
We live in social networks. One network may connect us to professional colleagues; another unites us with family and friends. Through these connections we get news and views about what’s happening in the world around us. We can gain security, status and esteem from these informal systems, just as we can from formal organizations. Some researchers maintain that these contacts are essential to change, for new ideas get communicated and validated through social networks; Everett Rogers is most frequently identified with this school of thought. Agricultural Extension agencies are the change agent units which best represent this approach in contrast with research and development centers. We also find this approach being used by many wise and experienced communication consultants. It should be in the tool kit used by anyone seeking to change an organization—or install an evidence-based coaching program.
Everett Rogers (along with his Diffusion of Innovation colleagues) find that most empirical studies of innovation identify a few consistent types of “potential adopters” and a few specific stages in the adoption of new ideas, practices or objects. In every organization or community, there will be a few Innovators, eager to try new things and usually uncomfortable with the status quo (which in turn is uncomfortable with them). These have also been called by Sally Kuhlenschmidt (2010), the “explorers” who boldly go where no one else has gone before (to borrow from the intro to “Star Trek”) and map out the newly discovered territory. They are the innovative thought-leaders and daring practice-leaders in organizations.
A second group, somewhat larger than the first but still rarely more than twelve to fifteen percent of the outfit, is labeled the Early Adopters. They usually are quite cosmopolitan in contacts and open to new ideas, though not as eager as the Innovators. Keeping with Kuhlenschmidt’s metaphor, these are the pioneers who “venture West” after the explorers map out the territory. These men and women are willing to try out any new idea—at least as a pilot test—often because in other areas they are themselves the innovators.
