Chapters
• Routines: The Social Aspect of Robustness
• The Learned Organization: The Cognitive Aspect of Robustness
• Power: The Political Aspect of Robustness
• Pathological Forms of Robustness
• Tenacity
Robustness
Robustness emerges because organizations are shaped by people – people who collectively try to understand what they and their organization are within the context in which they find themselves, what this means for the way in which they organize themselves and cooperate and which actions and behavior are appropriate in this light.
Once robustness has emerged, people maintain it, as it provides certainty. Clinging to robustness makes the world familiar and safe, and it is convenient, as knowing how to act requires less energy.
Robustness is so self-evident that it goes unnoticed if you do not look for it consciously. We see it only when we look back and ascertain that things have indeed remained the same. Robustness is expressed in routines, memory and power.
Routines: The Social Aspect of Robustness
One aspect of robustness is that it is constructed and maintained through interaction between people. Through interaction, we build routines and patterns that in turn become so ingrained that they become unchangeable. These routines and patterns provide a comfortable predictability, so that people become attached to them. Routines are like cart tracks; they become more compelling every time they are used.
The Learned Organization: The Cognitive Aspect of Robustness
A second aspect of robustness is ‘memory’. Acting together, we develop knowledge, and we store that knowledge in our own individual and collective memories, as well as in the systems of the organization. This knowledge subsequently guides the ways in which we act. Our knowledge is partly explicit (we can talk about it) and partly implicit (we must sometimes delve deeper in order to find the reasons for our actions). This implicit knowledge is particularly difficult to ‘unlearn’.
The learned aspect of the organization makes it ‘closed’; we view new information in light of what we already know.
Power: The Political Aspect of Robustness
A third aspect of robustness is power. Power is always present in organizations, and patterns of power are more stable than we think. Despite the French Revolution, Sarkozy still has the air of a Louis about him; despite the Russian Revolution and the subsequent collapse of communism, Putin continues to exhibit czar-like traits. The same can be seen in organizations: the basic pattern of power is difficult to change. Although power games obviously exist, they are played within the power pattern. In the power game, the challenge is to change in full swing, but within the limits of the power pattern.
Pathological Forms of Robustness
In this chapter, we describe excessive, unhealthy forms of robustness. We observe two forms: inertia and aimless motion. Inertia describes a situation in which an organization has become so robust that motion is no longer possible. This may be the result of fixations, obsessions, taboos or similar phenomena.
Aimless motion corresponds to a situation in which no robustness is constructed at all, so that everything is constantly up for discussion, moving in all directions.
Tenacity
In addition to robustness, unchangeability consists of tenacity. Tenacity is a response to change. Organizations respond tenaciously to the threat of robustness, slowing down the progress of change.
Tenacity is related to stable patterns that have become so ingrained that they are not easily changed, as well as to people who, as creatures of habit, have difficulty learning and changing. Tenacity is embodied in ‘springing back’, ‘smothering change’ and ‘calculating’.
Springing Back
Springing back is a specific form of tenacity. An organization is changing, and everyone is very willing to change; just when you think that you are getting somewhere, however, things revert to the old situation. The reason is that the aspects that have changed have not yet become a pattern. The change has not yet become ingrained. Once the focus on change weakens, the organization reverts to the old situation.
Smothering Change
Another form of tenacity involves smothering change. Changes are often too complicated or too ambitious compared to what an organization can handle. In such cases, the organization adjusts the change so that it is workable. The employees have a constructive attitude towards the change, as well as to all the other expectations that management has expressed, and are trying to find a way in which they can meet all of these expectations, or at least respond to aspects that they are least able to avoid. They are able to do this, as they are more familiar with the possibilities of the organization than is the ambitious agent of change. Changes that are smothered gradually lose their power as they become mired in the everyday reality.
Calculating
Changes can also become tenacious because people choose not to contribute to the change, instead keeping a sharp eye out for their own interests. The agenda of the change agent is not the only issue; the agendas of individuals and groups (clearly defined or not) play a role as well. People are smart players who know where there is room for maneuver and how they can go along with a change just enough to make going along unnecessary.
The Blind Spot
In this chapter, we explore how we, as agents of change, can have such a blind spot for the unchangeable aspects of organizations. As agents of change, we have little interest in seeing unchangeability, given that change is our stock in trade. Moreover, we are caught in a discourse and positioned within a tradition of change: that is where our attention is drawn. Our fear of chance can lead us to attribute effects to interventions, even though this is not always the case.
Lessons for change
In this final chapter, we derive lessons for change from the knowledge we have gained with regard to unchangeability. We conclude that robustness and tenacity are of considerable value and that it is important to recognize them and take them into account. Without robustness, the organization has no past and no future. Awareness of the unchangeable aspects of organizations demands changes in which aspects of diversity, consistency with the actual situation and a feel for what is actually taking place are important. An intervention framework, in which change strategies should fit the nature of the robustness of the organization, can offer the possibility of realistic change.
