EGOS 2011, Tucker, Hendy, Barlow, Penfold, Maben - Social accounts in sensemaking and sensegiving by...

Danielle Tucker

Jane Hendy

James Barlow

Health Management Group

Imperial College Business School

Social accounts in

sensemaking and sensegiving

by managerial change agents

EGOS conference 2011 6-9th July, Gothenburg, Sweden Sub-theme 40: Organizational Transformation: Power, Resistance and Identity

Clarissa Penfold

Jill Maben

National Nursing Research Unit

Kings College, London

Background

• Limited previous research on large scale

transformational change in healthcare – no

guidance

• Both infrastructure change and service delivery

• Each offer different challenges

• Need for stakeholder engagement

• Use of change agents and narratives in promoting

change

• Long term sustainability and embedding of

practices

Imperial College Business School ©

Theoretical Framing (1)

• Sensemaking

Sensemaking is a narrative process through which mental

models of the world are created, shared and maintained.

Clusters of knowledge or experiences which act as reference

frameworks (interpretive schemes), allowing us to make

sense of an event in reference to the knowledge which we

already have (Balogun and Johnson 2004).

• Social accounts

“the explanations one gives another for the decisions and

actions he or she has made” (Cobb and Wooten 1998:p75).




Old

Schema

Individuals are exposed to vast amounts of information about the transition from a variety of individuals and sources.

It is assumed that the development of interpretive schemes is an information gathering process.

However, in reality, individuals must use a selection process to decide which information to incorporate into sensemaking.

Literature about social accounts helps us to understand how this selection process occurs.


Social Accounts provide:

• Context

• Holistic picture/Clusters of sensemaking

• Causal – current situation and background of transition

• Ideological – where the organisation is heading

• Referential – appropriate comparitor, environmental context

• Alignment and legitimacy

• Account givers vision

• Transparency

• Coherence

• Relevant meaning

• Prcedural justice

• Socialisation Imperial College Business School ©

Change Agents

• Different types of change agents exist in organisations

• Often assumed that they are all the same

• Recent research suggests that different roles/identities for a

change agent are needed at different stages of change

• Receive social accounts from senior management

• Select information about the transition to sensegive to other

employees.


This paper asks:

1. What role do communications and explanations (social

accounts) play in the selection of information for

incorporation into new interpretive schemes?

2. When and how are interpretive schema replaced?

Pembury Hospital – Maidstone & Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust

© Imperial College Business School

Drivers for Change and Context:

• Aging facilities at Pembury and Kent

& Sussex

• Reconfiguration of Services within

the Trust

• Infection Scandal, Healthcare

Commission Report – 2007

• Change of Board – 2007/2008

• Political & community opposition to

reconfiguration of maternity services

Project Overview: Rebuild of old Pembury and Kent & Sussex Hospitals and reconfiguration of services within the Trust. All acute services for West Kent to be consolidated at one site.

Managerial Change Agents


Executive Team

New Hospital Development

Team

MCA

Clinical Division

MCA

Clinical Division

MCA

Clinical Division

MCA

Clinical Division

Managerial Change Agents:

•2-year project mgmt role

(18months prior to stage 1 move)

•Seconded from Clinical Divisions

•Link between project team and

clinical divisions

Data Collection

Phase Date Data

Interviews Obs(hrs) Docs

1 January-March 2010 16 - 32

2 October-December 2010 22 5 12

3a March-April 2011 14 2 32

3b November/December

2011 Awaiting data

4 May-September 2012 Awaiting data

Total: (to date...) 52 7 76


Data collection is ongoing but currently includes the analysis of 52 interviews complemented by documentary evidence and observations collected over three of the five phases.

Findings (1)

Role of Change Agent (senior management):

“On my previous scheme at [removed], I had within my team, fairly early on, a very,

very senior nurse, who by her very character was very powerful, very influential;

um, would take no truck from anybody, but she acted as that adhesive between

what we were doing in terms of design… and then the design going out; and we

had clinical champions; and she made sure it happened. And you realise, in

hindsight, you know, if you’ve got just… if you get someone like that in your

team, just how important they are” (Senior Manager - 02-08: 602-611).


Champions

Actively and enthusiastically promotes innovation and change to others;

identify with the idea personally (personal commitment), beyond

normal job requirements (Howell & Shea 2001, Schon 1963).

Findings (2)

Role of Change Agent (change agents):

“Operational issues...Yes, what time’s it going to open, how am I going to get in, you

know, and they know we’re organising all the orientation sessions, making sure

that everybody’s got a date to attend, they know where to turn up, that they

know to wear trousers and socks, you know, that sort of thing, because they’re

going to be wearing hard hats - the nitty-gritty, really. It’s just the nitty-gritty”

(MCA - 02-16: 245-251)


Boundary Spanners

Perform a linking function that bridges and facilitates communication and

coordination between internal members of the group or organisation

across professional boundaries (e.g. Williams 2002)

Findings (3)

“None of us had done it before and

we’ve never had any training in

doing it before so it is a case, to a

certain extent, of making it up as

you go along” (MCA - 01-17: 16-18)


Interpretive scheme

Current schema

Details of transition

Causal attribution for change

Ideology of transition

Contextual reference

Role

• MCAs reported difficulty in

determining their role.

• They were not provided with

an adequate job description

• Collectively they had very

little project or change

management experience.

Findings (4)


Executive Team


Team

MCA

Clinical Division

MCA

Clinical Division

MCA

Clinical Division

MCA

Clinical Division

Senior Mgmt wanted MCA’s to address unique aspects of change

Findings (5)


Executive Team


Team

MCA’s

Clinical Division

Clinical Division

Clinical Division

Clinical Division

MCA sensemaking

created a Shared Mental

Model – focus on task

similarity

Findings (6)


Divisional managers’ existing interpretive schemes

are different to those of senior management.

• MCA - Needs of the organisation focused on what

they saw as the priorities within their division

• Senior management - focused on wider strategic

goals for the organisation as a whole

Recruiting MCAs from within the division means

that their existing sensemaking is focused at this

local level.

Findings (7)


Consequences of Misalignment:

“I'm not quite so clear about is the stresses and strains that that link role would have because a link role could also be interpreted as being bit of a pig in the middle, so being pulled by both hands, as it were” (03-03: 266-268).

“it’s been quite difficult because... whichever way you cut it, the operational side has always overtaken other things,” (02-20:236-239).

Discussion


• Social accounts as a mechanism for selecting new

sensemaking

•Other mechanisms?

•In SA absence, where does sensemaking come from?

•Alternative explanations

•Social comparison

•Existing sensemaking residuals

•New schema are replaced when presented as clusters

•Different types of SA needed to form holistic cluster

•Balance between holistic and information overload

Conclusions

Misalignment in sensemaking can have severe consequences for

organisational transition

Change agents need to understand their role within the transition in

order to be effective

Rather than giving out vast quantities of information about a

transition, managers need to aid employees information selection

choices by providing social accounts that give explanations and

provide reasons for their action, demonstrating how this

information links with existing sensemaking residuals.

NEXT STEPS:

Phase 3b – completed by December 2011 (stage 2 post-transition)

Phase 4 – May-September 2012 (embedding new practices)


Thank You

We welcome your questions or comments.

Some points for discussion:

• Using narratives to understand cognition

• Social accounts

• Shared mental models

• Process of alignment between different organisational layers

• Consequences of misalignment

• Focus on phases 3 & 4 (what should we look for?)


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