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Cawsey, Deszca, and Ingols: Organizational Change, 3e
END-OF-CHAPTER EXERCISES
TOOLKIT EXERCISE 7.1
Critical Thinking Questions
Consider the following:
Travelink Solutions describes an organization that is experiencing change initiatives that
are producing negative outcomes for both the organization and the recipients of change.
William, a young staff member, sees multiple problems within this 24/7 travel business. As
a low level, sixteen month employee, William has documented and discussed the situation
with his friend, Robert, a marketing manager who has been with the organization for three
years. William and Robert both must decide if they will shift from being recipients of
change to becoming change agents. They must decide if and how they might bring the
organizational problems and possible solutions, to the attention of management.
• If you found yourself in William or Robert’s situation, what would you do?
• Have you ever been in a situation where you were a recipient of change and
things were going poorly? How did it affect you and others in the organization?
• What is you assessment of the situation at Travelink and the underlying causes?
• If you found yourself in William or Robert’s situation, what would you do?
View Pray the Devil Back to Hell (documentary available on Netflix).
This is the story of how Liberian women who were recipients of a harsh political regime
Cawsey, Deszca, and Ingols: Organizational Change, 3e
and leader became leaders of change within their country.
• Why did the women dress in white and sit in the marketplace for days on end?
What did they hope to accomplish? Why were they successful in reaching their
goal of petitioning the dictator, Charles Taylor?
• How did the Liberian women, who were not a formal part of the negotiating
teams in Ghana, impact the negotiation processes? Who were the important
allies of the Liberian women during the negotiations?
• Would you agree that the Liberian women went from being recipients of change
to being leaders of change? Which of their strategies and tactics do you think
other powerless groups can use to become powerful and lead change?
• How can you engage employees in each area to increase their engagement to the
organization and an organizational change effort?
• Which group are your greatest allies within the change and how can you use
them?
• Think about jobs in the past describe your engagement using this model.
Cawsey, Deszca, and Ingols: Organizational Change, 3e
TOOLKIT EXERCISE 7.2
Working Through the Phases of Change
1. Consider a significant and disruptive change situation that you know about (or talk to a friend or
relative about such a change situation). Identify the different phases of change.
2. Can you identify strategies that people used or could have used to help them work their way
through the different phases?
3. Can you identify strategies that change leaders used or could have used to help people work their
way through the different phases?
Awareness Yes/No
recipients
Strategies people can use
to help them work
through stage
Strategies change leaders can
use to help recipients work
through stage
Prechange anxiety
Shock
Defensive retreat
Bargaining
Depression, guilt, and alienation
Acknowledgment
Adaptation and change
Does the model hold? Why or why not?
What other consequences of change can you identify?
Cawsey, Deszca, and Ingols: Organizational Change, 3e
TOOLKIT EXERCISE 7.3
Personal Reactions to Change
1. Think through your organizational experiences at school and at work when you have been a
recipient of change. How have you typically responded to these changes? What were the factors
that led to those responses?
To help you think about these questions, ask yourself the following concerning three to four such
changes:
a. What was the change and how was it introduced?
b. What was the impact on you?
c. What was your initial reaction? Enthusiasm? “Wait and see” attitude? Ambivalence, due to
conflicting reactions? Cynicism?
d. Did your attitudes change over time? Why or why not?
Cawsey, Deszca, and Ingols: Organizational Change, 3e
2. Was there a pattern to your response?
a. Under what circumstances did you support the change? When did you resist? What can you
generalize from these experiences?
b. If you experienced ambivalence, how did you resolve it and what happened to your attitudes
toward the change once the ambivalent feelings were resolved?
3. Overall, have your earlier experiences with change been largely positive, largely negative, or
mixed?
Have these experiences colored your expectations and feelings toward change in the future?
Cawsey, Deszca, and Ingols: Organizational Change, 3e
TOOLKIT EXERCISE 7.4
Your Normal Reaction to Innovation and Change
When you find yourself dealing with matters of innovation and change, how do you typically react?
1. Do you find that you fall into the category of innovator or early adopter, readily considering and
often adopting new approaches, well in advance of most people?
2. Or do you generally fall into the category of the early majority? If the initial responses and
experiences of the early adopters are generally positive, you are willing to take the risk and adopt
the new approach.
3. Or are you generally in the category of the late majority? You wait until the innovation or new
approach has been tried and tested by many people before you commit to adopt.
4. Or are you a person who typically does not adopt the innovation or new approach until the vast
majority of people have done so? In other words, are you a late adopter or even a nonadopter
until forced to do so?
5. What is your tolerance for change? What level of turbulence and ambiguity in a work situation
Cawsey, Deszca, and Ingols: Organizational Change, 3e
do you find most stimulating and satisfying?
6. How do you react when the rate of change is quite low and is likely to remain there?
7. How do you react when the rate of change is at a moderate level? What constitutes a moderate
level for you? Are your tolerance levels lower or higher than those of others you know?
8. What price do you find you pay personally when the rate of turbulence and ambiguity exceeds
what you are comfortable with? When it is either too low or too high?
9. Have you had to cope with prolonged periods of serious upheaval or periods of extreme
turbulence? Have these experiences affected your acceptance of change?
Cawsey, Deszca, and Ingols: Organizational Change, 3e
TOOLKIT EXERCISE 7.5
Disruption of the Psychological Contract
Think about a change initiative that you are aware of. What happened or will likely happen to the
psychological contracts of recipients?
1. What is the existing psychological contract? (If in the past, what was the contract?)
What were the explicit and implicit pieces?
2. In what ways did the change disrupt the existing psychological contract? To what extent was
this perception real? (If in the past, in what ways did the change actually disrupt the
psychological contract?)
3. Given the individuals and the context, what reactions to these disruptions to the psychological
contract do you anticipate? (If in the past, what were the reactions?)
4. Are there steps that could be taken to reduce the negative effects stemming from the disruption?
(If in the past, could anything have been done?)
5. How should a new psychological contract be developed with affected individuals? (If this is in
the past, how could this have been done?)
Cawsey, Deszca, and Ingols: Organizational Change, 3e
6. If you are the recipient of change, what steps could you take to better manage your way through
the development of a new contract? (If this is in the past, what could you have done?)
Cawsey, Deszca, and Ingols: Organizational Change, 3e
TOOLKIT EXERCISE 7.6
Leadership and Change Recipients
Think more specifically about an example of change leadership that you know.
1. What was the nature of that leadership?
2. Was the leader trusted?
3. Did he/she deserve the trust given?
4. What kind of power did the leader use?
5. How were the messages about the change conveyed? Were they believable messages?
6. Did organizational systems and processes support, or at minimum, not impair the change leader’s
messages?
7. Was there a sense of continuity between the past and the anticipated future? How was that sense of
continuity developed and communicated? What was the impact?
8. What can you learn about the impact of the leader on people and stakeholders as a result of your
responses to the above questions?
9. What can you learn about the impact of organizational systems and processes on the people and
stakeholders?
Cawsey, Deszca, and Ingols: Organizational Change, 3e
10. Talk to others about their experiences. Can you generalize? In what way? What cannot be
generalized?
Cawsey, Deszca, and Ingols: Organizational Change, 3e
TOOLKIT EXERCISE 7.7
Assessing Recipient Openness to Change
This exercise will provide you with a general sense of the openness of a person to a specific
undertaking.
1
Please use it to evaluate your own openness to the change.
1
This index is not the product of empirical testing. It was created to provide you with food for
thought concerning openness to change and what may be facilitating and impairing the
receptiveness that you are experiencing.
Cawsey, Deszca, and Ingols: Organizational Change, 3e
Think about a change situation you know of or are
involved with. Please rate the following factors.
Score
1. Past experience with change, particularly
changes similar to that advocated
Very –10 –5 0 +5 +10 Very ___
Negative Positive
2. Normal rate of change that has been experienced
by the organization
Very –10 –5 0 +5 +10 Moderate ___
Low to High
3. Recipients’ general predisposition to change as
reflected in their personalities
Late –10 –5 0 +5 +10 Early ___
Adopter Adopter
4. People believe they understand the nature of the
proposed change and the reasons for it (i.e., the need
for change)
Low –10 –5 0 +5 +10 High ___
5. Recipients’ personal beliefs about the need for
this particular change
Very –10 –5 0 +5 +10 Very ___
Negative Positive
6a. Reactions of coworkers to the change
6b. Strength of coworker relations (norms)
Very –10 –5 0 +5 +10 Very
Negative Positive
Multiply #6a by #6b
Weak 0.1 0.3 0.5 0.7 1.0 Strong ___
7. Leader credibility
Low –10 –5 0 +5 +10 High ___
8. Leader gains compliance through fear versus
gains commitment through understanding and
empathy
Fear –10 –5 0 +5 +10 Support ___
9. Organizational credibility (i.e., will it follow
through on commitments related to change)
Low –10 –5 0 +5 +10 High ___
10. Congruence of systems and processes with the
proposed change (or confidence that they will be
brought into congruence)
Very –10 –5 0 +5 +10 Very___
Incongruent Congruent
Predisposition to Change Index:
Scores can range from –100 to +100
Overall Score ___
