A Playbook for Positive Organizational Change: Energize, Redesign, and Gel

• Published date: 01 November 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/jsc.2041
• Date: 01 November 2015

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Strat. Change 24: 527–540 (2015)

Published online in Wiley Online Library

(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2041

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Strategic Change: Briengs in Entrepreneurial Finance

Strategic Change

DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2041

A Playbook for Positive Organizational Change:

Energize, Redesign, and Gel1

Bart Tkaczyk

University of California, Berkeley, USA

To lead positive organizational change, be catalysts for adaptability, and be

continuously change-ready, change management practitioners today need new

dynamic capabilities and skills that go beyond managing: namely, they should be

‘change energizers’ and ‘change designers.’

Everything gives way and nothing stays xed

Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 535–475 BC)

ere is nothing permanent except change. Andy Grove (1999), the former Presi-

dent and CEO of Intel, states that change is ceaseless, as well as persistent in its

acceleration, and is hitting the corporate world at a furious and escalating pace.

He should know well what is going on. Yet, the changes that confront today’s

organizations will dier in terms of type and scale. Indeed, some could be large-

scale and radical, fundamentally transforming the core or the way business oper-

ates. Examples of these include merger and acquisition transactions, technological

change, or downsizing as a kind of organizational restructuring. Others, however,

could be smaller-scale and incremental. Such changes include exibility eorts,

continuous process improvement, or other ne-tuning initiatives. ese are often

designed to support organizational continuity. Still, by all accounts, like leading

the Golden Horde, leading the changes that are taking place is not eortless, no

matter whether these changes are episodic or continuous, planned or emergent,

small or radical, incremental or discontinuous, anticipatory or reactive, adaptive

or revolutionary, tectonic or cataclysmic, as illustrated below.

Cases of change and change forces

Most enterprises more than ten years old are not as they were, say, ve years ago.

It is possible that, even in the next year or so, they will not look as they do now.

ere are numerous reasons why organizations have to change. erefore, today,

1 JEL classication codes: D21, D23, L20, L21, L22, L25, L29, M10, M19, O30,

O31, O33, O39.

Two classic three-step change

management models are critically

reviewed; bugs in both designs

are detailed.

A new model of positive

organizational change is

advanced. The new playbook for

change is composed of three

‘positive strategic change phases’

(energize, redesign, and gel) and

fteen associated ‘dynamic

actions’ that change leaders

should continuously cycle

through,when executing

organizational change.

The focus herein is on the

‘positive’ (for example, energizing

the workplace, organizational

health, and renewal) and ‘design’

(for instance, employing collective

design thinking and appreciative

future search), so as to deliver the

desired future and results for the

enterprise.