Reframing: Reframing: Choice-Collaboration-ChangeChoice-Collaboration-Change

Pamela ZarkowskiADEA Dean’s Conference

The Political Environment for Dental Education November 11, 2012

ReframingReframing• …”help managers and leaders enrich the ideas

and approaches they bring to their work.”

ArtistryArtistryChoiceChoice

LeadershipLeadership

ReframingReframing• Frames: mental models, maps, mind-sets,

schema and cognitive lens… frames are windows, tools, lenses, orientations, and perspectives.

ReframingReframing…uses knowledge and intuition to find sensible and effective

ways to channel organizations in productive directions

Bolman, LG & Deal T. E. Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice and Leadership. 2004

Four Frames Four Frames

• Structural• Human Resource• Political • Symbolic

Four FramesFour FramesPolitical: coping with conflict, competition for scarce resources, struggles for power and advantage, values realism andpragmatism. Symbolic: meaning and faith, how to shape culture and provide purpose and meaning to work, shared mission and identity.

• Structural: architecture of organization, differentiation and integration, design of units/subunits, goals, policies & efficiency, chain of command.

• Human resource: understanding of people, strengths & foibles, reasons, emotions, desires & human needs, values relationships and feelings.

Reframing—Reframing—An Application of An Application of

ParadigmsParadigms

• The same situation can be viewed in at least four different ways.

• Reframing is an art—neither exact or precise, but creative, flexible, and subject to interpretation.

Structural HumanResource

Political Symbolic

Metaphor for organization

Factory or machine

Family Jungle Carnival, temple, theater

Central concepts

Rules, roles, goals, policies,

technology, environment

Needs, skills, relationships

Power, conflict,

competition, organizational

politics

Culture, meaning, metaphor,

ritual, ceremony,

stories, heroes

Image of Leadership

Social architecture

Empowerment Advocacy Inspiration

Leader is Analyst, Architect

Catalyst, Servant

Advocate, Negotiator

Prophet, Poet

Basic Leadership challenge

Attune structure to

task, technology, environment

Align organization & human needs

Develop agenda and power base

Create faith, beauty & meaning

Process Structural HumanResource

Political Symbolic

Strategic planning

Creating strategies to set

objectives & coordinate resources

Gatherings to promote

participation

Arena to air conflict and

realign power

Ritual to signal responsibility

Decision making

Rational sequence to produce right

decision

Open process to produce

commitment

Opportunity to gain and exercise

power

Ritual to confirm values & create opportunities for

bonding

Reorganizing Realign roles & responsibilities to

fit tasks and environments

Maintain balance between human needs & formal

roles

Redistribute power and form new coalitions

Maintain an image of

accountability and

responsiveness; negotiate new

social order

Evaluating Way to distribute rewards or

penalties and control

performance

Process for helping

individuals grow and improve

Opportunity to exercise power

Occasion to play roles in shared

drama

Process Structural HumanResource

Political Symbolic

Approaching conflict

Maintain organizational

goals by having authorities

resolve conflict

Develop relationships by

having individuals

resolve conflict

Develop power by bargaining, forcing or

manipulating others to win

Develop shared values and use

conflict to negotiate meaning

Goal setting Keep organization

headed in the right direction

Keep people involved and

communication open

Provide opportunity for individuals &

groups to make interests known

Develop symbols and shared

values

Communication

Transmit facts and information

Exchange information, needs, and

feelings

Influence or manipulate

others

Tell stories

Meetings Formal occasions to

make decisions

Informal occasions for involvements,

sharing, feelings

Competitive occasions to win

points

Sacred occasions to

celebrate and transform

culture

Motivation Economic incentives

Growth and self actualization

Coercions, manipulation, and

seduction

Symbols and celebrations

FRAME

STRATEGIES

REACTIONS TO CHANGE ESSENTIAL

Structural Loss of direction, clarity and stability, confusion, chaos

Communicating, realigning and renegotiating formal patterns and policies

Human Resource Anxiety, uncertainty, feelings of incompetence, neediness

Training to develop new skills, participation and involvement, psychological support

Political Disempowerment, conflict between winners and losers

Creating arenas where issues can be renegotiated and new coalitions formed

Symbolic Loss of meaning and purpose, clinging to the past

Creating transition rituals: mourning the past, celebrating the future

ReflectionsReflections• Change agents fail when they rely mostly on

reason and structure while neglecting human, political and symbolic elements.

Successful Change Successful Change InitiativesInitiatives

• Creating a sense of urgency.• Pulling together a guiding team with the

needed skills, credibility, connections and authority to move things along.

• Creating an uplifting vision and strategy.• Communicating the vision and strategy

through a combination of words, deeds and symbols.

Successful Change Successful Change InitiativesInitiatives

• Removing obstacles, or empowering people to move forward.

• Producing visible symbols of progress through short term victories.

• Sticking with the process and refusing to quit when things get tough.

• Nurturing and shaping a new culture to support the emerging innovative ways.

• Kotter, John, Leading Change: why Transformation Efforts Fail. Harvard Business Review, March April 1995

Kotter’s Stage of Change

Structural Human Resource

Political Symbolic

Sense of urgency

Involve people throughout the organization, seek input

Network with key players, use power base

Tell a compelling story

Guiding a team

Develop a coordination strategy

Run team building exercises for guiding team

Stack team with credible, influential members

Put commanding officer on team

Uplifting vision & strategy

Build implementation plan

Map political terrain

Craft a hopeful vision of future rooted in organization history

Reframing Kotter’s Change StagesReframing Kotter’s Change StagesKotter’s Stage of

ChangeStructural Human

ResourcePolitical Symbolic

Communicate vision & strategy through words, deeds and symbols

Create structures to support change process

Hold meetings to communicate direction, get feedback

Create arenas; build alliances, defuse opposition

Visible leadership involvement, kickoff ceremonies

Remove obstacles & empower people to move forward

Remove or alter structures & procedures that support the old ways

Providing training, resources and support

Stage public exposure of counter-revolutionaries

Early wins Plan for short term victories

Invest resources & power to ensure early wins

Celebrate & communicate early signs of progress

Kotter’s Stage of Change

Structural Human Resource

Political Symbolic

Keep going when the going gets tough

Keep people on plan

Hold revival meetings

New culture to support new ways

Align structure to new culture

Create a culture team; broad involvement in developing culture

Mourn the past; celebrate the heroes of the revolution; share stories of the journey

Small Work GroupSmall Work Group•Collaborative Plan Worksheet•Frames Analysis

o Address Priorities in each Frame

FRAMES ANALYSIS

GOAL: _________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

Structural Human Resource Political Symbolic

Priorities to address in each frame:

COLLABORATION PLAN

GOAL: ______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

OUTCOME MEASURES: ______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

RESOURCES NEEDED: ______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

Action Steps Person Responsible Target Date

pamela.zarkowski@udmercy.edu