Managing Organizational Change

A Multiple Perspective Approach

Third Edition

Chapter 2
Images of
Change
Management

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 Learning Objectives

• Images of Managing Change

• Images of Change Outcomes
• Images of Change Managers:
- Director
- Coach
- Navigator
- Interpreter
- Caretaker
- Nurturer
• Three Core Uses of the Images

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 Images of Managing Change

• Controlling…
– Top-down view of management
– Fayol’s theory of management: planning,
organizing, commanding, coordinating and
controlling.
• Shaping…
– Participative style of management
– Improving the capabilities of people within the
organization

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 Images of Change Outcomes

• Intended Change:
– Change is a result of planned action
• Partially Intended Change:
– Change may need to be re-modified after it is
initially implemented
• Unintended Change:
– Forces beyond the control of the change
manager

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Images of Change Managers (1 of 6)

Images of Images of
Managing Managing
Controlling . . . Shaping . . .
(activities) (capabilities)
Images of
Change Intended DIRECTOR COACH
Outcomes
Images of
Change Partially
NAVIGATOR INTERPRETER
Outcomes Intended

Images of
Change Unintended CARETAKER NURTURER
Outcomes

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Images of Change Managers (2 of 6)

• Director
– Based on an image of management as control
and of change outcomes as being achievable.
– Supported by the n-step models and
contingency theory.
• Coach
– Relies upon building in the right set of values,
skills and “drills” that are deemed to be the
best ones to be drawn upon in order to achieve
desired organizational outcomes.
– Related to OD approaches.

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Images of Change Managers (3 of 6)

• Navigator
– Control is the heart of management action,
although a variety of external factors mean
that managers may achieve some intended
change outcomes and others will occur over
which they have little control.
– Supported by the contextualist and processual
theories of change.

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Images of Change Managers (4 of 6)

• Interpreter
– The manager creates meaning for other
organizational members, helping them to make
sense of various organizational events and
actions.
– Supported by the sense-making theory of
organizational change

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Images of Change Managers (5 of 6)

• Caretaker
– The manager’s control is severely impeded by a
variety of internal and external forces beyond
their scope. The caretaker shepherds their
organizations along as best they can.
– Supported by life-cycle, population-ecology and
institutional theories.

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Images of Change Managers (6 of 6)

• Nurturer
– Even small changes may have a large impact
on organizations and managers are not able to
control the outcome of these changes but may
nurture their organizations. This facilitates
organizational qualities that enable positive
self-organizing to occur.
– Related to chaos and Confucian/ Taoist
theories.

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 Three Core Uses of the Images

• These six images of change managers have

three core uses:
– They highlight a variety of assumptions that
change managers make about change and
increase the awareness of different
interpretations of change.
– They draw attention to the dominant images
of change within an organization.
– They highlight a range of perspectives
available to change managers.

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