cameron and green making-sense-of-change-management

This metaphor is the only one thatbegins to shed some light on howchange happens in a turbulent world.This view implies that managers cannudge and shape progress, but cannotever be in control of change. GarethMorgan says, ‘In complex systems noone is ever in a position to control ordesign system operations in a comprehensive way. Form emerges. Itcannot be imposed.’The key beliefs are:• Order naturally emerges out of chaos.• Organizations have a natural capacity to self-renew.Organizational change• Organizational life is not governed by the rules of cause and effect.• Key tensions are important in the emergence of new ways of doingthings.• The formal organizational structure (teams, hierarchies) only representsone of many dimensions of organizational life.This leads to the following assumptions about organizational change:• Change cannot be managed. It emerges.• Managers are not outside the systems they manage. They are part ofthe whole environment.• Tensions and conflicts are an important feature of emerging change.• Managers act as enablers. They enable people to exchange views andfocus on significant differences.What are the limitations of this metaphor? This metaphor is disturbing forboth managers and consultants. It does not lead to an action plan, or aprocess flow diagram or an agenda to follow. Other metaphors of changeallow you to predict the process of change before it happens. With theflux and transformation metaphor, order emerges as you go along, and105