Organizational Pollitics

The impact of organisational politics on the change management process is overstated and/or an unnecessary distraction for change practitioners": Explore arguments and counter-arguments associated with this position with reference to theory and research.

In the classic organisational change management, the rational approach of strategic/scientific change still holds the dominant position, especially between change practitioners and organisation leaders. Change practitioners are believed to have a ‘tool box’ that they can use for developing their change strategies, new organisational structures tailored to the needs of management, and measures to assess the progress at every stage. This unitarist approach has intentionally ignored the impact of the politics, as it is perceived as “ostensibly parochial, typically divisive and above all illegitimate” (Mintzberg, 1983). However, the organisation theories have progressively evolved from mechanistic to human focused. While the earlier decades of the 20th century observed the prevalence of rational approaches , since the 1970's and particularly in the last decade of the 20th century, there has been a trend towards perceiving organisations as interdependent, complex and uncertain entities, hence the surface of power and politics theory. (Shafriz, et al., 2011) Although the organisational politics has been habitually a taboo arena in practice and most mainstream management literatures and its impact on change management process has been considered ‘overstated and/or an unnecessary distraction for change practitioners’. This essay will explore the argument and counter argument of this stance to propose that the organisational politics plays a significant role in the change management, which needs to be addressed by change practitioners who should effectively employ contextual tactics to support change and overcome any resistance to change.  

Whilst the definitions of politics and power are still controversial between academics and practitioners, this essay has adopted Buchanan and Badham’s (2008, p11) working definitions of power being ‘the ability to get other people to do what you want them to do’ and politics being ‘power in action, using a range of techniques and tactics’.

Change is rational  - From Rational and Strategic Perspective

The traditional strategic approach perceive organisations as ‘machines’ which follows a linear ‘top down' model with its distinctive character of controllable, predictable (Carnall, 1995; Carr et al., 1996; Morgan, 2006). No one is indispensable in this model.

The change proceeds in a 'planned and sequential fashion with leaders as the pivotal instigators and arbiters’ (Smith & Graetz, 2011). It is a one way system that staff receive orders from managers. Neither challenges nor resistance are expected from any ‘part’, otherwise they would be seem as ‘dysfunctional part’ and facing the possibility possibilities of being replaced. It would also be the case when the ‘part’ could not cope with the progressing requirements from the ‘machine’, they would be made redundant. Carnall(1995) has conceptualised six ‘model' structures that allow practitioners to identify responsibilities, accountabilities and activities in order to organise and allocate resources in supportive of change. Then the practitioners apply 'tools' such  as PESTEL , SWOT or Ansoff matrix etc to analyse and plan. One of the main school for this approach is Project management. Its comfort factor and the nature of lacking of complexity and ambiguity is attractive to managers and leaders. Project management claims to be ‘a universal and politically-neutral toolkit of techniques’ which are employed by practitioners (Hodgson, 2002).  The existence of politics is, however, acknowledged in this systematic approach and managers are advised to be aware of the political process. The existing politics are often being treated as a ‘cancer' in the ‘body' that needs treatment to either stop it spreading out or dysfunction it. Practitioners study the nature of each politics in order to diagnose them and prescribe ‘correct medicine' to treat them.  Its clear goal-oriented plan, step by step direction, precisely timescale prediction and visible measurement have over shined its fatal shortcoming – human being is not emotionless ‘parts’ and they reacted to the actions they have been  applied for.  The process of interaction is intrinsically politics which has been ‘treated’ accordingly in this approach.

Change is consensual – From OD perspective

Drawing from the perspective of the Organizational Development, the 'machine' like theory has evolved to the 'organism' perspective which takes humanistic factor into account. Although this approach still adopts the unitarist perspective and believe that individual perspectives can be marginalised and the beliefs, attitudes, values can be rehabilitated by the implementation a complex educational strategy intended. (Van Nistelrooij & Sminia, 2010; Flood & Jackson, 1991)  This approach has considered the human influence but optimistically believed that individual can work towards to a common goal without consideration of their personal circumstances. The concern of interdependent action is barely taken. Politics plays a minimal role in this perspective.

Political model of change, drawn upon the pluralistic perspective, recognises the existence of conflict and opposing views. Although organisations intend to portray changes as rational, methodical and collaborative processes, political drives always surreptitiously guide decisions and actions during the change. In another word, those seemly managerial rational decisions are often based on political assumptions, in the purpose of serving individual or group interests (Lewis, 2002, Kubo&Saka, 2002).

As previously mentioned, since 1970, organisational politics has progressively being recognised as an important dimension of organisational operation. Pfeffer compares organisations to governments and positions its fundamental nature to be ‘political entities’ （Pfeffer, 1992）.  However,  the most prevalent view of politics on the change management has a negative association with organisational and individual outcomes. Politics are understood as tactics for groups or individuals who deploy them to promote their self-interests. The recent meta-analytic studies of the relationship between conscientiousness and job performance have evident that the perceptions of organisational politics were negatively related to job performance only among workers of average to low levels of conscientiousness (Hochwarter, et al.,2000). With its negative impact, it should not be cultivated or rewarded by organisations (Kacmar & Ferris, 1993; Dörrenbächer & Geppert, 2011). Although it could be detrimental to the change management if the impact on politics are ignored which could lead to major problems such as: personnel loss – managers may get rid of the personnel who fail to comply; profit loss – leaders fail to ‘touch the ground’ and listen to suggestion from frontline workers who generally have more expertise in that context; opportunity hammering – the opportunity is about ‘who you know not what you know’ ,the social realities doesn’t work on the basis of individual in isolation; change resistance – the set agenda and goal do not align with either groups or individual interest. Ultimately the potential of change failure. (Pfeffer, 1992; Auster & Ruebottom, 2013).