LingHe Simulation - INSEAD CALT

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minimizing the negative effect on others. The LingHe Simulation provides immediate (positive, neutral or negative) feedback following each decision taken, visually keeping track of how each individual in the simulated environment moves forward or backward in the process towards adoption. The objective of the simulation is to support learning about organizational change. The “game” dimension actually helps in providing participants an environment where making mistakes is permissible and even intended. Evidence from running the simulation among groups of managers and management students invariably demonstrates the highest levels of participation and enjoyment. But learning also comes from confronting the participants with their own unconscious behaviors and team dynamics during decision making about which tactic to use next, which brings home perhaps even more the limitations of coercive, top-down management styles in gaining broad support for one’s decisions. Developing a representative Scale of Change Tactics In order to collect change tactics, 59 top and middle level managers were randomly selected from companies in Shanghai and Nanjing and interviewed. Based on open-ended interviews with 25 managers and completing an open questionnaire with 34 managers, authors drafted a shortlist of 30 influence tactics that Chinese business managers may typically use in organizational change projects, as well as their likely effect on others. By further comparative assessment, authors eliminated the 11 least popular tactics and remained 19 tactics as follows (for their full description, see Appendix A) 1 : a) Tactics that “Gather Information regarding individual or organizational dynamics” include Short Breaks (T2), Social Network (T17), Gather Information (T18), and Process Mapping (T20); they are essentially diagnostic in nature and do not impact people’s attitudes per se; they are aimed at understanding how the organization works and identifying benefits or fears that people may potentially have in respect of the proposed changes. b) Tactics that “Provide Information” include Email (T4), Bulletin Board (T12), Internal Magazine (T13), and Memorandum (T26); they aim to inform groups of people, without however allowing for feedback, discussion, explanation or negotiation. c) In contrast, “Communication tactics” do invite two-way discussion between either individuals (Face to Face Meeting – T11) or groups of people (External Speaker – T9; Top Management Meeting – T23, Staff Meeting Discussion – T25). 1 A 20 th tactic “Invitation to Dinner” (or “Dinner Event”) was subsequently added to the list of tactics available in the LingHe Simulation, but not included in the above factor analysis. 10
d) “Compulsion/Enforcement tactics” in one way or another impose the changes upon groups or individuals through the use of one’s (formal) authority; they include Directive (T3), The “Sandwich” (T27), and Neutralize Resisters (T6). e) Finally, tactics that are about “Implementing Changes” include Task Force (T7), Workshop (T14), Management Training (T15) and Pilot Test (T19), where especially the latter three specifically focus on demonstrating the changes and getting people to implement these. In summary, some tactics are aimed at gaining information about individuals and the organization; some aim to influence one individual, others aim to influence groups of individuals; some apply emotional intelligence to influence, while others are more direct or even coercive in nature. Participants in the simulation are given a choice of tactics (or decisions) to select in order to influence one or more individuals. Although clearly managers may want to use other influence tactics in the course of real life projects, those eventually available in the simulation were to provide a sufficient range to influence any type of individual in any phase of change. To further assess the effectiveness of change tactics that were collected, 400 managers at different management levels in companies in Shanghai, Nanjing and Beijing were randomly selected as subjects, who were active in field’s management including human resources, marketing, production, finance, research and technology, and strategic management. The subjects were asked to rank the proposed influence tactics according to likelihood of usage by questionnaire. Out of the 400 subjects, 253 valid questionnaires were returned. Authors adopted factor analysis to examine the validity of the change tactic scale by using methods of Principal Component Analysis, and Varimax with Kaiser Normalization Rotation. It showed that the data were suitable for factor analysis (KMO=0.873; Bartlett’s test of sphericity: χ2 =1264.711, p
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