Report - Government Executive

compelling case. That message must include a vision of success, the benefits that the change
offers, and even the risks of failure.
Leaders also must play a critical role in driving the change and maintaining its momentum, while
simultaneously understanding the organizational climate in which it is taking place, including
readiness or barriers to implementing the change within target organizations. 144 For many
employees, DCIPS represents losing something they value: pay security and predictability.
Leadership must recognize the loss and clearly explain how the gains are worth the effort.
Readiness assessments of the target organizations help identify aspects of culture that must be
considered and provide critical input to change efforts. Understanding organizational readiness
can help leaders craft implementation strategy and communications, which in turn can help
mitigate challenges and resistance. In DCIPS’ case, DoD intelligence components performed
some readiness assessments and updates, but OUSD(I) did not provide centralized oversight. 145
Transactional Change
Transactional change encompasses the various activities carried out by the implementers—in this
case, HR staff and line managers throughout the components. These aspects of change are more
tangible and operational in nature than the transformational aspects, which focus on leadership.
They include specific guidance, processes, procedures, tools, operationally-focused
communications (e.g., status of specific activities, refinements to guidance, schedules), and
incentives or accountability measures intended to reinforce adoption of the changes.
With DCIPS, supervisors must learn and demonstrate new behaviors to support a performance
orientation, such as effectively communicating with employees about their performance,
conducting periodic reviews, developing measureable objectives, and employing new automated
tools. OUSD(I) acknowledges that it rushed to implement DCIPS, and did so without key
structural components in place. The Implementation Plan mentions development of a change
management plan as a Phase 2 task, but none was developed, notwithstanding the importance of
change management as emphasized in the Communications and Learning Plan.
Overall DCIPS implementation largely ignored the transformational aspects of change. Building
on the defects in Engagement and Outreach, the lack of a change management plan highlights a
missed opportunity to develop the clear, compelling case for change and emphasize its urgency.
It also resulted in ad hoc implementation activities that focused on tactical or transactional issues
and lacked an overall approach.
DoD intelligence components conducted their own readiness assessments, but it appears the
results were not considered in overall implementation. Feedback for this study suggests that
OUSD(I) largely ignored the uniqueness of the components’ cultures. It is not surprising that the
144 Siegal, W., Church, A.H., Javitch, M., Waclawski, J., Burd, S., Bazigos, M., Yang, T.F., Anderson-Rudolph, K.,
and Burke, W.W. Understanding the Management of Change: An Overview of Manager Perspectives and
Assumptions in the 1990s. Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol 9(6), 54-80. (1996).
145 Examples of these component readiness assessments are included in the DCIPS Readiness Tool under Program
Management.
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