1 Program Planning and Implementation

Dr. Shikha Kapur

Content Outline

1. Introduction
2. Objectives
3. Planning Programs for Development /Change: its concept and importance
4. The Typology of Change Processes
5. Types of Change and their implications in the Planning Programs for Development/Change
   • Indoctrination
   • Coercive change
   • Technocratic change
   • Interactional change
   • Socialisation change
   • Emulative change
   • Natural change
   • Planned change
6. Conclusion

Introduction

The modern world today is in the throes of rapid change. This leads to changes in all aspects of human society and relationships; environment- physical, biological and social; cultural, ecological and even technological. To live harmoniously man has to actively engage in the process of change. The dynamic systems of the society viz. Individual, Group, Organization and Community continually keep on changing. Whenever there is an innovation, these dynamic systems of the human society have to change in order to adapt and adopt the innovation. Changes in these systems are a must. Change is in fact a survival tactic for the dynamic systems of the society. ‘Change or perish’ is the rationale for unrelenting change. Alvin Toffler (1970), an eminent futurist maintains that there is a need to constantly adapt and change to situations otherwise feelings of helplessness, despair, depression, uncertainty, insecurity, anxiety and burnout sets in. When we talk of change, Planning becomes very vital and important. It helps in designing change process. Planning is in fact the key to any process of change. Planning for development/change is a systematic, well construed, progressive and a step-by-step process. Efficient planning is that which under given conditions leads to maximisation of the attainment of relevant ends. Myerson and Banfield (1935) define planning as ‘designing a course of action to achieve ends’. In this context it is important to know about Planning Programs for Development/Change: its concept, why is change important, its various types & implications.

Objectives:

1. The students will be acquainted with the concepts and importance of Planning Programs for Development / Change.
2. The students will understand various types of Programs for Development / Planned Change and their implications
3. The students will be enabled to select the most appropriate change process while Planning Programs for Development / Change.

Planning Programs for Development /Change: its concept and importance

Planning goes in every aspect of life. Planning is essential for any systematic attempt to achieve desired goals. Planning must, therefore, result in programmes that help people to find more satisfactory modes of living and of making a living. Planning is well accepted in our culture and is regarded as an integral and important dimension of our culture’s rational value orientation. Almost everyone accepts the premise that planning is important and necessary for individuals, for families and for business organisations.

As teachers we plan our lectures, as home makers we plan how to keep the house in order and running. Planning may be a simple process i.e., planning a holiday, or rather complex i.e., planning a long range comprehensive plan for social and economic development of a community. According to Myerson and Banfield (1935), ‘planning is designing a course of action to achieve ends’. Efficient planning is that which under given condition leads to maximization of the attainment of relevant ends.

Planning for development/change is a progressive step-by-step process. Defining of goals is a basic part of planning. Without some express purpose, there can be no planning. Planning entails a series of quick decisions about the nature, scope and objective of change. It is akin to developing the blueprint for action.

In democratic societies, planners do not just set goals alone. Rather they aid the people in defining them. A basic premise underlying this concept is that ‘people, when provided with real facts of the situation and with good leadership, will identify the more critical problems with which they are faced’ (Peason, 1966). Therefore, it might be said that one of the prerequisites to democratic planning is awakening of the people.

Planning for development/change is a social process as it affects others. Further, planning is a social process as it involves some kind of interaction among the various dynamic systems of society viz. Individual, Group, Organization and Community. Infact Planned change is an aspect of social change (Bennis, 1961).

Social planning is conscious, collaborative, interactional process combining investigation, discussion, agreement and action which leads to social change using appropriate methods to be used to reach these goals and keeping individual and societal values intact.

It is important to Plan Programs for Development / Change for the following reasons:

1. To minimize wastage of resources i.e. both time and money.
2. Provide guidance as to what is to be done, why, with objectives giving direction for execution of work and for evaluation the results.
3. Planning gives continuity to the program as the plan is available in black and white, and if for some reasons there is change of personnel will not affect the tempo or direction of change process.
4. A thorough Program Plan gives reliable information about its progress, situation and resources, etc. available from the records.
5. Institutional support from public bodies, civic authorities and key personnel is a must for proper implementation and success of the plan.
6. Planning is one of the best methods of developing leadership which is one of the keys to success.
7. Many conflicts like conflict of resources, conflict of personalities, etc. may arise while executing a programme. These can all be envisaged and anticipated and easily removed at the planning stage. A good programme planning process will avoid unnecessary conflicts.
8. For any Programme of Development or Change to achieve its goals should be based on needs of the local people and then only their cooperation and support can be elicited.
9. A good planning always identifies and monitors future problems and developments that will have a major impact on performance of results.

The next part will now examine the various types of Change processes.

The Typology of Change Processes

All change is not “planned change”. How then one should distinguish between and interrelate “planned change” from other forms of human change? The contemporary debate today is focused on whether the change is planned change or unplanned change and the methods employed in directing and controlling forces in change.

Unplanned change is an unanticipated, ‘sudden surprise’, within the system- a family or an organization due to death of the head of the family or the resignation of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a company leading to chaos, disruption, loss of clients and even poor product performance.

Planned Change on the other hand involves recognition of need for change hence requiring strategic, systematic planning, reorganization and implementation of change. Planned change is a deliberate, intentional goal-oriented activity. Inspite of all planning and systematic implementation of plan, planned change tends to occur in a disruptive, chaotic manner. While the external environment- competitive, regulatory and so on will continue to put pressure to perform and deliver goods and services on time, the internal forces will inhibit this delivery, unless the system adapts quickly. This adaptation in the internal environment include strategic change including changes in the mission statement of the organization; redesigning of the structure of the Company so it meets the clients’ needs; reorient process or process- oriented changes or simply how the Company assembles goods and delivers services and the people centred changes – altering their attitude, behaviours and skills (Nandeshwar and Jayasimha, 2010).

Planned Change is a ‘deliberate design and implementation of a structural innovation, which may be a new policy or a goal, or a change in the work ethics and philosophy, even work climate and style’. The Process of planned change is a complex process. Planned change within the organization is closely interrelated and entails changes in the technology, task, structure and people. A major organizational change is required, considerable planning goes in effecting change. The change is successful if it proceeds in a sequential manner right from identifying need for change, identifying elements to be changed, planning for change, assessing change forces and the action for change

Bennis (1961) provides a paradigm where he identifies eight types of change to distinguish “planned change” from other forms of human change (Fig 1).

Along the vertical axis of the paradigm we have shown two variables, dichotomized for convenience: mutual goal setting and deliberateness of change. Along the horizontal axis, power distribution among the parties to the change is shown; •5/•5 indicating a fairly equal distribution of power, 1/0 indicating a one- sided power situation. The element of “valid knowledge” has been omitted from the paradigm, since we are assuming that “valid knowledge” with respect to change is not possible where mutual goal setting is not undertaken.

Types of Change and their implications in the Planning Programs for Development/Change

a) Indoctrination: Indoctrinate simply means to “brainwash” people. Indoctrination is implicit in the parent–child relationship, and has an essential function in forming stable communities of shared values. Humans are social animals and are shaped by the culture and traditions of societies of which they are a part. Indoctrination involves mutual goal setting and is deliberate, but involves an imbalanced power ratio. Many schools, prisons, and mental hospitals or other

“total institutions” would fall into this category. These Institutions wield all power and shape changes while the students, prisoners, patients have no power.

b) Coercive change: Coercive means using force or threats. Coercive change is characterised by non-mutual goal setting. Here the goals are set only by one side that results in an imbalanced power- ratio, and one-sided deliberateness. Coercive change, as we are using the term, may be exemplified by thought-control and brainwashing practices of the Fascists. In this type of change there is little or no opportunity to engage in any kind of mutual goal setting. The deliberateness originates from one party, the change-agent and the client system is coerced into change.

The distinctions between “Indoctrination” and “Coercive change” are elusive and complex. Compare a patient in a “progressive” mental hospital (with an emphasis on psychoanalytic therapy as opposed to a custodial orientation) with a Prisoner of War (POW) captured during war between two nations and is placed in a prison camp. A patient is legally committed in the mental hospital and the administrator of the hospital wields as much power as a POW commandant. The patient is forced to undergo some form of treatment- there is little choice for him. On the face of it, the similarities seem more important than the differences, at least from this example.

However, there are two differences which may possibly distinguish “Coercive change” from “Indoctrination”. In the mental hospital example, the patient is allowed and even encouraged to express any form of antisocial feelings- up to the point of acting them. Indeed, psychotherapeutic procedures encourage thoughts in exchange for action. It is doubtful that the POW commandant would encourage-even on verbal level-statements not in conformance with the accepted ideology, except where the prisoner was presumably “confessing”.

Another difference is that the psychotherapists over time would attempt to develop a collaborative and interactional relationship; in fact, the early stages of psychotherapy, wherever possible, devotes towards developing this type of relationship.

Still, when all is said and done, “Coercive change” is practiced by the extreme fundamental ideological groups like the Fascists and “Indoctrination” is practiced by mental hospitals, may in actually share similar processes, and employ identical techniques. But one has to keep in mind that this paradigm, like all paradigms, creates an “ideal” and abstract model to which actual empirical occurrences do not neatly conform.

c) Technocratic change– Technocratic means “relating to or characterized by the government or control of society or industry by an elite of technical experts”.

Technocratic change is change ushered by governance where change agents or decision-makers are selected on the basis of technological knowledge. It may be distinguished from planned change by the nature of the goal setting. The use of technocratic means to bring about change relies solely on collecting interpreting data. Technocratic change follows primarily an “engineering model”: the client defines his difficulties as deriving from inadequate knowledge, and assumes that his lack of knowledge is accidental or a matter of neglect- not something that is functionally a part of him. The technocrat colludes in this assumption and merely makes and reports his ‘findings’. An equal power-ratio exists between the change agents or decision-makers and the client system.

d) Interactional change– is characterized by mutual goal setting, and there is fairly equal power distribution between the change agents and the client system, but no deliberateness on either side of the relationship. Although “Unconsciously” either may be committed to changing the other in some direction. Such changes can be observed among good friends “who help each other”, married couples, and in various other non-deliberate transactions among people. Change occurs in such transactions, possibly with beneficial effects and outcomes, but there is a lack of self- consciousness about it, thus a lack of any definite change agent-client relationship.

e) Socialisation change: Socialization is the process by which man becomes a human being by internalizing norms, values, traditions, customs of the social group of which an individual is a part (Clausen, 1968). Socialisation change has a direct kinship with the interactional hierarchical control. Parent-child relationships would be the most obvious example, although counsellor-camper, teacher-pupil relationships would also be applicable here. Greater deliberateness on the “adult” side of the relationship brings specific cases of socialisation into the “Indoctrination” or “Planned change” categories.

f) Emulative change: Emulate means imitate with effort to equal or surpass, or to try to equal or excel. This change process is associated with formal organisations, where there is a clear-cut superior-subordinate relationship. To this extent it closely resembles Kelman’s concept of influence through “identification”. Change is brought about, possibly unconsciously, through a form of identification with the imitation or emulation of the “power figures” by the subordinates.

g) Natural change refers to changes brought about with no apparent deliberateness and no goal setting on the part of those involved in it. Primarily, it is the residual category encompassing all “accidents”, “quirks of fate”, “natural disasters”, “death” resulting unanticipated consequences, and changes wrought in connection with cataclysms such as earthquakes, floods, etc. it may be that this category includes the operation of all those factors and causes which our limited knowledge cannot properly decipher

h) Planned change entails mutual goal setting by one or both parties, an equal power-ratio, and deliberateness, eventually at least, on the part of both sides the Change Agents and the Client System. Planned change is well construed, well thought of ‘deliberate design and implementation of a structural innovation, which may be a new policy or a goal, or a change in the work ethics and philosophy, even changes in work climate and style’ it is a planned change. Planned change has a definite direction. This kind of change occurs as a result of strategic, systematic planning, reorganization and implementation of change. The change agents in the process of planned change steer the client system towards adapting and adopting changes ushered in by innovation.

• The typology by Bennis is both too “crude” and too “pure” and may have difficulty to provide ready linkages to empirical reality.
• The distinctions made in it are somewhat arbitrary and certainly not all-inclusive.
• However, Bennis’s typology definitely provides suggestions as to how “planned change” can be distinguished from other change processes.

It is important to know various types of change so that a suitable change process may be selected and an appropriate program may be planned for inducing development/change in the dynamic system.

Conclusions

The modern world today is in the throes of rapid change. This leads to changes in all aspects of human society: relationships; environment be it physical, biological and social; cultural, ecological and even technological. The pace of change is phenomenal and it occurs continuously and ceaselessly. Change may usher in chaos, a disarray, disorganization, pain and even confusion but it is necessary for evolution. Changing old habits is a difficult and process of behaviour change is also very slow and very laborious. In this context it is important to know about concept, importance, various types of change & their implications while Planning Programs for Development /Change. Planning is important in every aspect of life. It is essential for any systematic attempt to achieve desired goals. Planning for development/change is a social process as it affects others. It is also a conscious, collaborative, interactional process. The Process of planned change is a complex process there are eight types of change that distinguish “planned change” from other forms of human change viz. Planned change, Indoctrinational change, Socialization change, Interactional change, Coercive change, Emulative change, Technocratic change and “Natural” change. It is important to know various types of change, the power distribution implicit in that change between the Change Agents and the Client System so that a suitable change process may be selected and an appropriate program may be planned for inducing development/change in the dynamic system.