Managers' conceptions of time in organizational change

On a flight from Amsterdam to London last Saturday, I read an interesting paper by Elden Wiebe, which is published in Process, Sensemaking and Organizing, edited by Tor Hernes and Sally Maitlis (OUP 2010).

In the paper, Wiebe reports on his exploration of the relationship between time and organizational change. His insights are based on narrative analysis of the stories of a number of managers who were ostensibly involved in the 'same', formally imposed organizational change. He found that their conception of time and the change process differed in a number of important ways and also departed significantly from the notion of time as objective, linear (past-present-future), and a-contextual.

Conventionally, time tends to be spoken about in matter-of-fact terms (what Wiebe calls "clock time"). As such, it is thought to provide a seemingly objective measure of progress against a defined programme of work. The latter is typically presented as the means of 'closing the gap' between what's seen as today's "as is" reality and tomorrow's "to be" intentions - both as formally defined.

However, Wiebe's basic proposition is that, "... managers temporally make sense of their experiences of change, actively configuring the relationship between the past, present and future in different ways." As a result of this, he further suggests that managers also construct the change and their enactment of it in different ways. And, to illustrate this, he identifies five distinct 'worlds' of organizational change in managers' narratives that reflect these differences.

In brief, these are:

1. "Now = Then", in which managers felt "shut down and shut out" from shaping the way forward and, despite much rhetoric to the contrary, saw no significant shift from their past construction of reality. Cynicism, anger and despair were evident in these managers' responses. To Wiebe, there appeared to be little prospect of meaningful change emanating from this stance.
2.  "We'll see", in which managers sought to involve front-line staff in making progress slowly and incrementally towards a different future. Change from this perspective was seen as a realistic prospect but was thought likely to take a long time and needed to focus on those aspects that were practical at a local level.
3. "Hitting a wall", reflects an orientation towards change in which managers' sense that real changes had been made was later supplanted with a feeling of helplessness in the face of "insurmountable barriers". Unlike Worlds (1) and (2), managers here had what Wiebe characterizes as a "future perfect" view of the world. That is, an image of current reality which signalled a clear discontinuity from the past, and behind which people's actions had been mobilized. But it had now stalled due to circumstances that they saw as being beyond their control. Managers here felt frustrated that the new orientation could make a real difference - if only they could bring it to fruition.
4. "A rocky road", in which managers continued to make progress despite the many ups and downs. According to Wiebe, "In this world, managers use a very pragmatic approach to change, paying careful attention to the context within which change must take place." Managers here are proactive and work in the moment in an effort to bring about specific shifts in practice within a context of continuous change. As Wiebe goes on, "The convoluted nature of the progress in this world seems to be the result of consciously engaging the past and the future in the midst of attempting planned implementation in the present... In this way, the past and the future are engaged within a continuously changing present."
5. "It never stops", in which change is perceived to be "massive and unrelenting". Instability here is seen as the "unhappy norm", which is contrasted with a time in which there was felt to be a greater sense of stability and freedom to operate."Helping staff to move into this new world demands deliberate reinforcement of new policy and procedure which carries the strong implication of severing and discarding links to old behaviour." Burnout and an inability to handle more changes were seen as likely outcomes of this orientation.

Amongst other things, Wiebe concludes that,

"... those managers who temporally construct their world as continuity with a focus on the present (Worlds 2 and 4) appear to be more in control of implementing change even if they face setbacks, delays, disappointments, and surprises."

World 2 has the hallmarks of what, in Informal Coalitions, I called  a "joint problem-solving" approach to change. There, the emphasis is on involving staff to make incremental progress towards the different goals that are set out in the formally defined change.

Wiebe's World 4, on the other hand, seems to me to recognize and directly engage with the complex social reality of organization. Managers here, as Wiebe says,

"experience ... the vagaries of the flux and flow of a world in continuous change while attempting to continuously move forward toward the final goal. [This saw them] directing attention to the day-to-day exigencies and contingencies of carrying out one's normal work responsibilities while also anticipating changes that may come and shaping those that do."

This perspective is also firmly rooted in the notion of a "living present" (if "firmly rooted" and "living present" are not a contradiction!), as introduced by Ralph Stacey, Doug Griffin and Patricia Shaw in their conception of organizations as complex responsive processes of human interaction. I outlined this view of time in an earlier post, The time machine of organizational decision making. Wiebe says that, in relation to his World 4 narrative,

"... the past and the future are engaged within a continuously changing present."

Here, contextual factors and external demands are seen as "part of the evolving situation, rather than dictating the situation." So, whilst managers are not in control of overall outcomes, Wiebe argues that  in World 4 (and World 2), there is "also an obvious sense of control over the change implementation".

Drawing on Mustafa Emirbayer and Ann Mische's What is Agency?, he also suggests that this calls on people's capacity to make practical, normative judgements in the midst of the "emerging demands, dilemmas and ambiguities of presently evolving situations." Or, in the language of informal coalitions, actively engaging with the ongoing, conversational interactions that comprise the organization.