# Presentation: 892333

## Assessing Organizational Readiness to Change: A Review of Research to Date and Development of a Cross-QUERI Agenda 

**Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI) **

***Connecting Research and Patient Care***

**Assessing Organizational Readiness to Change: A Review of Research to Date and Development of a Cross-QUERI Agenda **

**Christian D. Helfrich**
*Ischemic Heart Disease-QUERI*
**Carmen Hall**
*Polytrauma and Blast-Related Injuries-QUERI*
**Bryan J. Weiner**
*University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill*
**Daniel T. Holt**
- Air Force Institute of Technology

## Guiding Questions

**Guiding Questions**

**Where are you**
**today?**

**Where do you want**
**to go?**

**What do you**
**need to do to get**
**there?**

**Prioritized**
** ****efforts**

**Direction**

**Coordination & control**

**Accounta-**
**bility**

**Leadership**

**External **
**orientation**

**Innovation**

**Capability**

**Motivation**

**Environment **
**& values**

## Change

- Represents a shift from the present state of “*being*” to a new state of “*being*”

## Challenges of Change

**Challenges of Change**

- 	Source:	Kotter (2008); Beer & Nohria (2000); Cameron & Quinn (1997); Caldewell (1994); Gross et al. (1993); Kotter & Heskett (1992); Hickings (1998); Press clippings

**70% of planned transformation efforts fail**

- Succeed

- Fail

**70**

**30**

**What leads to such a dramatic failure rate within our organizations?**

## Challenges of Change

**Challenges of Change**

- 	*	Success defined through holistic assessment of company performance (non-public companies) or market out-performance (public companies) 1.5 years after performance transformation initiative
- 	Source:	Kotter (2008); Beer & Nohria (2000); Cameron & Quinn (1997); Caldewell (1994); Gross et al. (1993); Kotter & Heskett (1992); Hickings (1998); Press clippings

**70% of planned transformation efforts fail**

- Succeed*

- Fail*

**Contributing factor examples**

**Culture  & climate**

- Misalignment with culture
- History of change programs depletes energy for transformation

**Change content **

- Initiative not tied to enterprise needs resulting in lack of direction, energy, and focus

**Execution & process**

- No single point of accountability
- Insufficient & inconsistent engagement
- No integration of hard & soft levers

**Individual attributes**

- Capability deficits are not or insufficiently addressed
- No institutionalizing of capabilities

**70**

**30**

## Outcomes

***Outcomes***

***Internal Context****** ***
**Ask, “Where is the change occurring?”**

***Individual Attributes***** **
**Ask, “Who has to implement the change?”**

***Change-specific Content***
**Ask, “What is being changed?”**

***Process***
**Ask, “How is change being implemented?”**

***Readiness***
***for ***
***Change***

***Time***

***Intentions***
***&***
***Reactions***

## Process

***Readiness***

***Adoption***

***Institutionalization***

***Prescribed Change Message Delivery Methods***

***Prescribed Change ***
***Message***

| Appropriate use of the prescriptions can ease the transitions between descriptive stages. |
| --- |

***Descriptive Model Components***

***Prescriptive Model Components***

## Readiness for Change Questionnaire

***Connecting Research and Patient Care***

**Readiness for Change Questionnaire**

**Daniel T. Holt**
- Air Force Institute of Technology

## Readiness Instruments

**Readiness Instruments**

** ****Process perspective**
** ****Culture & climate perspective**
** ****Change-specific perspective**
** ****Individual perspective**

## Readiness Perspectives

- Change process perspective
- Readiness is reflected in the stage of change (e.g., denial, resistance, exploration, implementation)
- Culture and climate perspective
- Readiness is reflected in the organization’s culture & climate (i.e., these characteristics dictate how individuals react to particular situations)
- Change-specific perspective
- Readiness is reflected in the characteristics of the proposed change (e.g.,  superficial changes are preferred over significant changes)
- Individual perspective
- Personality
- Knowledge, skills & abilities
- Critical attitudes

## Available Measures

**Change process **
**perspective**
**Culture & climate**
**perspective**
**Change-specific**
**perspective**
- I**ndividual**
**perspective**

- Readiness is reflected in the stage of change (e.g., denial, resistance, exploration, implementation)
- 2 instruments are available

**Of 32 instruments reviewed, only 2 presented evidence of content, construct, and predictive validity.**
**12 did not even present evidence of reliability a necessary precondition for validity.  **

- Readiness is reflected in the organization’s culture & climate (i.e., these characteristics dictate how individuals react to particular situations)
- 13 instruments are available

- Readiness is reflected in the characteristics of the proposed change (e.g.,  superficial changes are preferred over significant changes)
- 5 instruments are available

- Readiness is reflected in the characteristics of the employees (e.g., personality, skills)
- 7 instruments are available

- Based on Holt et al. (2007).  Toward a comprehensive definition of readiness for change: A  review of research an instrumentation. (5 measures of  reactions were also included in this review that are captured here).

## Development Process

**Development Process**

**Concept definition, Item generation, & Adequacy tests**

**Evaluate the questionnaire**

**Administer the questionnaire****	**

- 1

- 2

- 3

- 4

- Identified factors that influenced readiness (documents, interviews, open-ended questionnaires)
- Evaluated the factors (291 practicing managers)
- Focused on most influential factors
- Wrote items & evaluated the items ensuring they represented the factors

**Replicate the findings in an independent sample**

**Valid & reliable  instrument to  assess Change-specific Readiness**

- Administered  the questionnaire in a DoD organization with $300M budget
- Exploratory factor analysis indicated four factors were measured
- Change efficacy
- Management support
- Personal benefits
- Appropriateness

- Identified differences between known groups (participants should be more ready)
- Tested whether readiness is related to personality in meaningful ways (i.e.,  rebelliousness, locus of control)
- Tested whether readiness is related to culture in meaningful ways (i.e.,  communication, trust)
- Tested its ability to predict

- Administered the  questionnaire in a private sector organization
- Test whether readiness is related to personality in meaningful ways (i.e.,  rebelliousness, locus of control)
- Test whether readiness is related to culture in meaningful ways (i.e.,  communication, trust)

## Change-specific Assessment

**Readiness for change assessment**

- Identify appropriate interventions to address gaps:
- Communications messages directed toward appropriateness, efficacy, & valence
- Demonstrate visible management support (i.e., align of HR practices
- Introduce training to include members

- Analyze context
- Develop an action plan to address some performance gap
- Determine competitive risks  (if appropriate)
- Determine performance risks

- Focus attention on issues connected to indicators of  readiness
**Perform focused diagnostic of the internal environment (Readiness for change questionnaire)**

**Identify performance gaps, context, & competitive environment**

## Scores Compared to Successful Organization

**Scores Compared to Successful Organization**

**Readiness characteristics of an**
**enterprise introducing change**

**Appropriateness** (e.g., personnel feel that the change will address the gap and congruent with organizational goals)

**Change efficacy **(e.g., personnel feel that they have the skills to execute the tasks and activities associated with the change)

**Personal valence **(e.g., personnel feel that the change will be beneficial personally)

**Management Support** (e.g., personnel feel that senior leaders support the change initiative and its adoption)

- 12

**Enterprise compared to an organization that successfully introduced a change (Scale ranged from 1 to 5)**

## Summary

- Flexible
- Used in a variety of organizational settings by members at all organizational levels
- Practical
- Consistent with criteria that are identified by practitioners
- Guides those who are trying to facilitate changes
- Gauges the most influential readiness factors
- Theoretical
- Consistent with current theories of organizational change
- Adheres to accepted standards for measurement

## Bryan’s Framework

- Is ORC a psychological or structural concept?
- Conceptualized as a psychological concept
- Is ORC an individual-level or collective construct?
- Measured at the individual-level
- Does ORC refer to a general state of affairs or to a specific change?
- Refers to a specific change
- Does ORC apply to adoption or to implementation?
- Refers to adopition

## Danny Holt

**Danny Holt**

- Education
- B.S., Electrical Engineering
- M.A., Human Resource Development
- M.S., Engineering & Environmental Mgt
- Ph.D., Management
- Human Resource Management
- Organizational Analysis
- Organizational Change
- Air Force Career
- Civil Engineering Officer (Myrtle Beach, SC; Osan AB, ROK; Al Udeid AB, Qatar; Ft Dix, NJ; Ft Bragg, NC)
- Academic (Graduate student; Faculty Air Force Institute of Technology)

## Air Force Institute of Technology

**Air Force Institute of Technology**

- Danny Holt
- AFIT/ENV
- 2950 Hobson Way
- Wright Patterson AFB, OH 45433
- (937) 255-3636 extension 7396 (voice)
- (937) 656-4699 (fax)
- daniel.holt@afit.edu