About This Book

ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT 17
deal with it. If they cannot, they are not likely to be successful in what they do
in the future—no matter what their specialty areas might be.
WHAT IS CHANGE MANAGEMENT,
AND WHAT IS ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT?
“Defining change management is tough under any circumstances,” write
Holland and Skarke (2003, p. 24), “especially in the context of a new technology
being implemented in an existing organization. Mention the issue of change
management and a typical response is the question ‘Does it really matter in the
real world?’” The answer to that question is “Of course.” After all, definitions
are important because they can provide clarity in discussions about any issue.
Change Management Defined
In the simplest sense, change management means the process of helping a person,
group, or organization change. The word management implies an effort to
plan the change and exert influence over other people in the process. Change
management thus implies a purposeful effort to bring about change. Kudray and
Kleiner (1997, p. 18) define change management as “the continuous process of
aligning an organization with its marketplace—and doing it more responsively
and effectively than competitors.” Anderson and Anderson (2001b, p. xxviii)
define change management as “a set of principles, techniques, and prescriptions
applied to the human aspects of executing major change initiatives in organizational
settings. Its focus is not on ‘what’ is driving change (technology, reorganization
plans, mergers/acquisitions, globalization, etc.), but on ‘how’ to
orchestrate the human infrastructure that surrounds key projects so that people
are better prepared to absorb the implications affecting them.”
Planned change has always been a key ingredient in any definition and application
of OD. Warner Burke made a unique distinction between planned change
and change management in his 2004 Linkage OD Summit keynote address. To
summarize, he said that planned change results from an extensive assessment of
the situation and then plans for customized interventions that are created to
increase organizational excellence. Change management is thus the management
of the planned changes. Organization change planned in today’s environment
is never implemented as planned. For that reason, management of the
change planned is thus required—and essential.
Perhaps, then, a difference just might be that OD works from a base of valid
information coming from assessment, along with making free choices with the
client system regarding what tools or interventions to enact the change might
be best. Additionally, another difference just may be that the OD process seems
to have more of a human values base. We mentioned this to one of our