3 The process of Planned Change/ Development

Dr. Shikha Kapur

epgp books

 

Course Outline

 

  1. Introduction
  2. Objectives:
  3. Planned Change vs. Unplanned Change
  4. The Process of Planned Change
    1. Rapport establishment, building relationships and determining the need for change
    2. Envisioning change, working towards change and setting the overall direction- Moving
    3. Assessment and Identification of capacities, needs, and barriers
    4. Prioritizing needs
    5. Setting goals and objectives
    6. Developing immediate activities and recommendations
    7. Implementing or transforming intentions into actual change efforts
    8. The generalization and Stabilization of Change- Freezing
    9.  Achieving a terminal relationship
  5. Summary

Introduction

 

Change is the Law of nature. In every system change is inevitable. The dynamic systems of the society viz. the Individual, Group, Organization and Community are continually changing. Change is in fact a survival tactic for the dynamic systems of the society. They have to keep pace with the changing times be it material and material aspects of culture, technology or scientific innovations. Richard Swenson, physician and futurist explains in his 2004 bestseller Margin, that change picked up momentum in the early part of the 20th century and has been rapidly accelerating ever since. Alvin Toffler (1970), an eminent futurist described the effects of “too much change in too short a period of time” in his classic Future Shock. He predicted that people exposed to rapid changes of modern life would suffer from “shattering stress and disorientation.” In his words, they would be “future-shocked.” He maintained that there was hence a need to constantly adapt and change to situations otherwise feelings of helplessness, despair, depression, uncertainty, insecurity, anxiety and burnout would set in.

 

When change occurs the dynamic systems of the society have to cope with changes and professional intervention maybe required if these systems are not able to cope with changes. The requirement of professional help to cope with changes is called Planned Change. Planned change is carried out in a systematic, well thought out and researched manner. It is to be distinguished from change that occurs due to sudden insights or the ‘ah-ha experiences’ or even emotional experiences like the ‘religious conversions’. Planned change is also to be distinguished from change as change agents precede using best thought-out methodologies. Planned Change is for development. The use of well construed planned interventions increases and improves the effectiveness and health of the dynamic systems of the society. Hereinafter we will use only the term Planned Change in the entire module. Robert Oppenheimer (1955) remarks that “world alters as we walk in it”. Or simply said as time progresses the world is changing at an exponentially increasing rate. Richard M. Weaver (1948, 2013) sees this altering as “progress” or “change”.

 

Objectives:

  1. The students will be acquainted with the concepts and definitions of change and planned change.
  2. The students will be able to distinguish between Planned and Unplanned Change
  3. The students will understand the process of Planned Change

Planned Change vs. Unplanned 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- for instance there will be a chaos in a family due to death of the head of the family and disruption, loss of clients and even poor product performance in an organization due to the resignation of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

 

Planned Change on the other hand involves recognition of need for change hence requiring strategic, systematic planning, reorganization and implementation of change. Inspite of all planning and systematic implementation of plan, planned change tends to occur in a disruptive, chaotic manner. While the external competitive, regulatory environment will continue to put pressure to perform and deliver goods and services on time, the internal forces will inhibit this quick 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; reorienting its process or implement process-oriented changes; or simply how the Company assembles goods and delivers services; and also 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’. Planned change within the organization is closely interrelated and entails changes in the technology, task, structure and people. The Process of planned change is a complex process. When a major organizational change is required, considerable planning goes in effecting this 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.

 

The Process of Planned Change

 

Planned Change is a systematic and strategic planning and implementation of change. It requires a specialist to successfully carry out the process of change. Change Agent is a person within or outside the community or organization who is the catalyst for change. Change Agent is the person who carries out the process of change. They focus their efforts and energies facilitating and executing the process of change. If the Change Agent is from outside of community or organization then prior to the commencement of change relationship it is essential that the problem is communicated in a manner that the potential Change Agent understands the problem and accepts the challenge to provide help. In another situation, the potential Change Agent may himself be initiating/stimulating a process of change then the client system must evaluate the validity and relevance of Change Agent’s diagnosis.

 

At this stage, the way the client system begins to think about Change Agent is an important factor in the subsequent relationship. First impression can do a good deal in establishing the course of future relationships.

 

The client system wants this assurance that the potential Change Agent is easily accessible, understanding and approachable. They actually want a Change Agent who will sympathize with them and yet is objective enough to view the system’s problems & predicament. Often the Change Agent and client system ask for a trial period where they arrive at a decision to work together. The success or failure of almost any change project depends heavily upon the workability of the helping relationship between Change Agent and client system.

 

Different authors have given different number of stages of Planned Change. Some have given three while some have given seven stages of planned change. After a thorough perusal of all these stages one can identify that there are nine-stages in the process of planned change. These nine-stages can begin at any stage. Since going through all the stages is both costly and time consuming the change process does not include all the stages. The process of planned change finally depends on the situation, the end results required, the availability of sanctions and funds, the time factor, socio-political realities, availability of experts. Researches on Planned Change clearly indicate that the change process has to follow a logical sequence of steps. More the stages of the process completed effectively, the more the likelihood that change will be successful.

 

X. Rapport establishment, building relationships and determining the need for change

 

At this stage the Change Agent establishes acquaintance with the individual and becomes the part of the organization or community. This stage is one of the more informal stages where rapport is established, mutual trust and respect is built, needs and problems discovered, analysed and brainstormed, leaders identified, the socio-political scenario discovered, past efforts for change understood and overall strategies for changes begin to be actively formulated. This stage is important as it helps in exploring clients, their needs and their capacities. Before any process of change is translated into action it is essential to have “problem awareness” i.e. pin point the problem on hand and be prepared to seek help from outside the system. This stage also identifies those who will play a role in solution finding, i.e., stakeholders, various groups, organizations, and individuals involved in the fund rising/contribution, even determining the political realities and the vested groups, sanctions required and the timeframe of the change process.

 

The mere presence of a problem does not necessarily mean a desire for change. Some systems may suffer from defeatist beliefs of previous failures even though there is a high level of problem awareness. Some systems may be too resistant to outside help and change. Some systems may not be able to get outside help when they actually need it.

 

Technically this is the first or “unfreezing’ phase in the change process. It occurs in 3 different ways.

 

First, a Change Agent discovers or hypothesizes a certain difficulty in a potential client system and offers his help directly or takes steps to stimulate an awareness of the difficulty in the system e.g. the staff of a community mental health clinic invites parents of all children who are experiencing difficulty in school to attend discussion groups sponsored by the staff.

 

Second, a third party that is connected with both the Change Agent and client system becomes aware of system’s difficulty and brings the two together e.g. a philanthropic organization interested in welfare and economic upliftment of the community invites team from the Ministry/university for promoting skill-development programme.

 

Third, potential client system becomes aware of the problem and seeks help from outside source.

 

In fact, during this stage the Change Agent envisions the total process of change. This is the stage when the action framework is developed or also called the “planning to plan” stage.

 

XI. Envisioning change, working towards change and setting the overall direction- Moving

 

This is an important stage as it identifies the conditions around which change is required. From strengths perspective ‘condition’ is the situation or phenomena under study and is not judged as harmful, or in a negative, or pathological manner. A condition may be considered an opportunity to bring change rather than being considered a problem e.g. a study of a slum cluster of Delhi reveals that x% of the families are below poverty line.

 

Hence a process of change has to be construed and implemented to alleviate the economic condition of the slum cluster.

 

This stage also specifies the intentions, the overall framework and guiding principles for the change process. The guiding principles are statements of philosophy, values, beliefs, and assumptions of the practitioner or change sponsor. They can neither be proven nor disproven. It is also a significant stage for motivating clients and stakeholders & uniting individuals around a common future when working with conflicting groups. The environment, parameters, purpose, values, conditions of concern and vision statements are also clearly defined at this stage. For example, a community suffering from recession may become motivated to improve its quality of life to attract needed business. A vision gives the “big picture” of the changes you desire. The vision statement is not a professional jargon but designed for the public incorporating.

  1. What the client or targets will be like after the intervention for change is implemented.
  2. What the service delivery system will be like and how it must perform to produce the vision.

XII.   Assessment and Identification of capacities, needs, and barriers

 

The process of assessment in planned change requires a thorough examination of the vision statement and guiding principles laid earlier. When working with community/organization, assessment entails gathering data pertaining to

  • Demographic information that describes the community in terms of populations, e.g., age, gender, educational level, occupation, income levels, marital level, ethnicity, race, socio-economic status etc.
  • Needs- Identifying needs for change is the 1st basic step in planned change. Needs help focus the thrust areas of the intervention program. Needs identification requires identifying the ‘at risk’, vulnerable population and the problems or challenges they experience.

The Needs can be felt, expressed, perceived, relative, normative, or documented. Felt need might be obtained through a citizen answers to a household survey. Expressed need might be obtained from those attending a public forum. Relative need might be obtained from comparative data from similar communities. Normative need can be obtained by comparing local need to regional or national norms or established standards, e.g., poverty rates. Needs may also be unfelt, unrecognised and the change agents have to dig deep to have significant educational and intervention programs of change (Leagans, 1964). At times Social indicators are often used to document need, for example, school dropout rates.

  • Capacities- Capacities are the strengths and assets that provide opportunities for change. While needs influence priorities, or what you do, capacities in turn influence programs or how you do it. Capacities include people, institutions, accomplishments, resources, values and/or even events. and capacities are different terms for the same phenomena. Capacities help focus solution and ensure that they have the highest chance for success.
  • Barriers are blocks in the use of existing resources and even finding future solutions in the process of change. Language, transportation, culture, political climate, can all be barriers in change process. Sometimes a perceived absence of felt need may be due to a barrier. For example, we may perceive a “tight knit” community does not have a need for a service, when in reality the current services provided are not culturally relevant.

When needs and barriers are compared to the overall vision they reveal gaps. Gaps are the same as problems. It is these gaps that help Change Agent focus where to target the intervention. Similarly, comparing capacities with the vision statement helps Change Agent identify building blocks on which solutions can be based. Capacity assessment helps identify the individual, organizational, and associations on which solutions are built.

  • Existing services available in the community to address the needs of the people. Developing comprehensive list of services helps know which Services are available in the community, how many clients have accessed these services insofar and where do the gaps exist in service.

XIII.   Prioritizing needs

 

Since there is a paucity of resources available to address all the identified needs, hence prioritizing is often used to determine which need or combination of needs should be addressed and in what order. It is hence important that Change Agents

  • Prepare a comprehensive list of needs first. This may not be in a particular order initially.
  • Identify urgent needs vs. important needs. Which are the needs that require immediate attention and disposal? The identified high priority needs then require immediate attention and disposal and if not met will have a negative consequence.
  • Assess their relative value: This can be done by focussing on how a particular need impacts the clients. The more the people involved or impacted, the higher the stakes e.g. in case of a disease outbreak in a community one prioritizes and first attends to the cases affected by the disease to save the precious lives. Sensitizing people about that disease and its consequences is also important but it takes a secondary position.
  • Order needs by estimated tasks: When two needs are tied in the priority list, it is best to address the need that will take most effort to complete. Some change agents find it motivating to tick off needs requiring lesser time and smaller task from their list before moving on to the need requiring more effort.
  • Best to be flexible and adaptable. Uncertainty and change is a law of nature. Inspite of prioritizing, needs change suddenly and dramatically often when least expected. The best is to stay focussed and committed, be flexible and adaptable meeting changed needs and addressing them with a stride. 
  • Know when to cut. In a maze of list of needs after prioritizing its best to cut the remaining least important from your list. Stay put, and focus on the priorities.

Once needs are prioritized, Capacities can also be prioritized. Stakeholders often disagree over whose problems get the most resources and will be the focus of change. Hence this is an important stage with respect to prioritizing of needs and capacity.

 

XIV.   Setting goals and objectives

 

This is the stage goals and objectives are developed and set. They specify the solution, the implementation process and the expected consequences.

 

Goals are the statements of expected future outcomes. They are not measurable but provide programmatic direction, e.g. lowering the child abuse rates in Taimoor Nagar slum cluster of New Delhi. They focus on ends – lower the child abuse rate and not means- build shelter homes for children.

 

Objectives on the other hand are clear, measurable, time limited and realistic statements of actions which when completed move towards goal achievement. Objectives state how to reduce the need and build upon the capacities. Objective can be as simple as ‘implementing dental health program in Senior Secondary Schools of Delhi’ or ‘to study the health needs of students of Jamia Millia Islamia’. Objectives help in prioritizing process and to limit future workload.

 

There are two types of Objectives, outcome and process.

 

Outcome objectives address the ends to be attained. They usually present measures about what will be different in the ‘client’ once objectives are met. They focus on need reduction so that conditions of well-being can be increased in the target population. They present measures of what is different in the “client” after the objective is met. They usually begin with words like to reduce, to lower, or to improve. For example: Increase the pre-school enrolment rates by 10 per cent.

 

Process objectives specify the means to achieve the ends. Process objectives specify what will be done to achieve the outcome objectives. Words used to frame Process objectives include to assess, to provide, to train, to enhance or to serve. For example: To provide mid-day meals to Pre-schoolers between 3-5 year in the slum clusters of Chennai.

 

The goals and objectives set at this stage basically enumerate the elements and factors to be changed. In this stage diagnosis and in-depth analysis provides clues as to why change is necessary.

 

VI. Developing immediate activities and recommendations

 

Once goals are set it is important to chalk out several alternate strategies to achieve the goals and objectives. This is done by keeping available resources, capacities, time constraints, feasibility, political realities, cost-benefit and several other considerations in mind. Of the several strategies, a recommended action strategy may then be selected. Often at the end of this stage, a Work plan is prepared that details and lists out all activities to be done, by what date they have to be done, parties responsible, and includes other such important indicators for the successful completion.

 

VII.     Implementing or transforming intentions into actual change efforts

 

This stage when the goals and objectives are carried out using recommended action strategies. Implementation may be done by the Change Agent or may even be contracted out to others.

 

VIII.    The generalization and Stabilization of Change- Freezing

 

This is the stage of Freezing of change. It is important that the process of change becomes stable & permanent. Many times, once the change process ceases the system reverts back to old ways of working. What is hence important is the stabilization of change and that it spreads to the neighbouring systems of the client system e.g. if a teacher adopts new ways of teaching, and others on the staff copy her, hence the teacher would be encouraged to continue with her new practice as she would probably feel that the wisdom of her new practice is confirmed by others too.

 

Feedback, monitoring and evaluation are required to insure implementation progresses in the intended manner and give the anticipated results.

 

IX. Achieving a terminal relationship

 

Terminal relationship does not connote “termination of relationship”. In this step, Change Agent determines if the goals are met, if the client is stable enough and has the support systems to continue without intervention, or referral to another service is needed. At some point in time, you re-contact the client to see if the results achieved were lasting or if the intervention cycle needs to be repeated.

 

Summary

 

The world is changing at an exponentially rate. The dynamic systems of the society have to continually change and adapt. Planned change is a deliberate, strategic, systematic planning, reorganization and implementation of change. Change Agent is a person within or outside the community/organization who is the catalyst for change. He/she carries out the process of change. The success or failure of almost any change project depends heavily on the workability of helping relationship between change agent and client system. There are nine-stages in the process of planned change starting with rapport establishment and determining the need for change; envisioning change; followed by identification of capacities, needs, and barriers; and then prioritizing needs; setting goals and developing activity plan; implementing the plan or effecting change effort; stabilizing change and lastly achieving a terminal relationship where the change effected is stable and lasting.

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