Initial Publication Date: October 11, 2019
Types of Change Strategies
| Diffusion (Prescribed-Individual) |
Innovations created in one location are then adopted or adapted by others in a multi-stage adoption process. Change agent role: Develop a quality innovation and spread the word. |
| Implementation (Prescribed-Individual) |
A set of purposeful activities are designed to put proven innovations into practice in a new setting. Change agent role: Develop a training program that involves performance evaluation and feedback. |
| Scholarly teaching (Emergent-Individual) |
Individual faculty reflect critically on their teaching in an effort to improve. Change agent role: Encourage faculty to reflect on and collect data related to their teaching. |
| Faculty learning communities (Emergent-Individual) |
A group of faculty supports each other to improving teaching. Change agent role: Bring faculty together and scaffold community development. |
| Organizational development (Prescribed-Environmental) |
Measurable target outcomes are identified and progress towards them is assessed and tracked. Change agent role: Develop new vision. Analyze alignment of parts of the organization with the new vision and identify strategy for creating alignment. |
| Quality assurance (Prescribed-Environmental) |
Leader develops new vision and plans a strategy for aligning employee attitudes and behaviors with this vision. Change agent role: Develop measurable outcomes, define success, collect evidence. |
| Kotter's 8-Stage Model (Prescribed-Environmental) |
Leadership team develops vision and plan for building buy-in and implementing vision. Change agent role: 1. Establish a sense of urgency, 2. Create the guiding coalition, 3. Develop a vision and strategy, 4. Communicate the change vision, 5. Empower broad-based action, 6. Generate short-term wins, 7. Consolidate gains and produce still more change, 8. Anchor new approaches in the culture. |
| Learning organizations (Emergent-Environmental) |
Leader works to develop an organizational culture that supports knowledge creation. Change agent role: Move decision-making further from the top. Invest in developing employees personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning. |
| Complexity leadership (Emergent-Environmental) |
In a complex system, results are not easily predicted. Change agents can create conditions that increase the likelihood of productive change. Change agent role: Disrupt existing patterns, encourage novelty, and act as sensemakers. |
Adapted from Borrego and Henderson (2014)