Resolving Wicked Problems In Organizational Change

Defining Wicked Problems

Discuss about the Organizational change environmentally sustainable.

In order to realize how and why the wicked problems occur during the implementation of structural change, a clear definition of the wicked problem should be mentioned and the causes of occurrence of the wicked problems have to be addressed. Also, it is important to discuss the reasons and benefits of structural changes. Then the tools to be used to resolve the wicked problems are to be discussed.

The original idea of the wicked problem stems from urban planning rather than public policy. This term was created to provide a particular definition of the difficult to deal with. The term does not mean ‘evilness’, but it addresses a problem with a solution that is not readily available. It includes problematic elements, uncertainty and complexity (Janeczko, 2011).

The wicked problems at workplace reflect peoples’ resistance to resolution. This kind of problems cannot be treated successfully with the traditional analytical approaches. The literature concerned with wicked problems focuses on systems design at the micro level, but the concept has been applied to macro social and economic policy conflicts. There is a difficulty in defining the nature of the wicked problems, as its nature is a function of different aspects. They are multi-causal and have many interdependencies. For example, dealing with illicit drugs reveals the tension between the aim of minimizing the harm to the drug user and the drug use as an illegal activity.

Organizational structure is the official system of authority relations and duty that takes place in an organization. Structural change is the transformation in the organization’s vertical or horizontal structures and power relocation at the formalization level. Wicked problems have many examples as, the climate change, cybercrime, hidden and the real cost of waste management , moral hazards and the organizational ecosystems (McMillan & Overall, 2016). Change is likely to affect the employees’ daily routine and results in resistance to change (Chen, et al., 2011). 

Kotter (1996) as cited in Appelbaum et al., (2012), defines the eight steps for organizational transformation, they are described as follows:

• The establishment of the need for change to show the necessity of change to people. This step is likely to inform people about the change and its aims. This action might creat problems with the employees who are afraid to get out of their comfort zone and the other stakeholders who might have different views and values.
• Creation of a guiding coalition with powerful influence to lead the change process. In order to avoid uncertainty, the leader needs to make a decision based on the collaborative As the level of uncertainty increases, the involvement in the decision-making process increases. As a result, leaders might desire to construct a political scenario that increases or decreases the level of uncertainty to maintain a sufficient level of political support (Grint, 2005).
• Development of a vision and strategy to define the change and its reasons. It is important to the leaders to create vision and mission statement of the change results. Wicked problems are likely to increase without a unified vision that allows the employees to perform to achieve the goals (Ajmal, et al., 2012).
• Establishment of communication channels to deliver the change vision. Internal communication could be useful in allowing information about the change, it enables in lowering the impact of the wicked problems (Welch 2011).
• Peoples’ involvement in the change process and efforts to enhance people to think of how to achieve change rather than stop it. There is a high degree of uncertainty in wicked problems related to leadership, as the leader has to ask the right question instead of answering questions to ensure the existence of collaborative efforts that provide an evidence of the problem. For example, the development of an energy strategy, or a transport strategy or creating a national health system. Not all of the wicked problems arise because of complex issues, for example, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy used to ask questions to the civilians that needed time to be answered. If Kennedy had responded to the immediate answers, more problems were likely to take place beyond the dichotomy of his leadership management. By taking this action, Kennedy could achieve a collaborative progress (Grint, 2005).
• Creating short-term objectives to monitor the impact of change and peoples’ attitude towards it. The success in addressing the wicked problems requires trade-offs between alternatives and coordination among the interrelated In addition, the wicked problems are not stable in the most of time, as they evolve while the decision maker tries to solve the problem (Australian Public Service Commission, 2007).
• Gaining consolidation and production of more changes and people development as change agents. Implementation of structural change gains the acceptance of some employees and is rejected by others. It results in two parties the opponents of change are likely to create the wicked problems. Leaders can act as change agents with the assistance of the employees who accept change (Buk?aha 2012).
• Creating new approaches to corporate culture to sustain the long-term success and institutionalize the changes. Building an organizational culture allows the alignment of goals and values among the organizational departments and lowers the manipulation of the wicked problems (Markos 2010).

Dealing with obstacles that occur during the change process is essential to overcome resistance to change. The conflict situations created due to change are likely to result in covert and calculations of forms of engagement in order to delay change and gain time to resolve problems, challenge pressures and understand the new situations. It takes time to develop a constructive dialogue with local stakeholders to understand the change required to overcome a wicked problem (McGivern, et al., 2017).

Wicked Problems at the Workplace

In order to resolve complex wicked problems, the organization of some working groups as a management committee is considered as the initial step to address organizational problems. The board of directors and executives may be confused about what should be done in cases of social messes and uncertainty. The Endstate systems are considered as useful tools for the recognition of how a given wicked problem can be resolved.

These tools do not provide a forecast of the best desirable outcomes. Decision makers usually say that the combination of two or more elements of Endstates is most desirable. It is important to know how Endstates are linked to each other in order to create an Endstate system. It is also important to consider that the relationships that exist among Endstates could change over time, some of them may change in the short term, while others may change in the long term.

The Endstate systems are usually created in a workshop, where the participants are allowed to map the alternative resolutions in a holistic way to consider their beliefs, information and the shared analyses during the workshop. The analysis of one workshop could be used as an input in other workshops (Horn & Weber, 2007).

Change is an ongoing process, organizational change is implemented in three stages, individual, group and organization. Leadership plays different roles at every level of the change process. The survival of the organization requires change management. Change management mainly focuses on people and the pattern of human interaction and it requires managerial effort to succeed. Although, people’s attitude towards the change efforts may result in its failure (Ajmal, et al., 2012).

Organisational change has many types, including minor, major, and transformative change processes. The minor change is about changing people’s attitudes and behaviors. This category of change addresses surface-level issues and do not represent any threat to deep beliefs. Major change involves changes in the individual’s perspective, which involves ambiguity and chaos. Newly developed systems start to take place and the old ways are discarded. The reorganization of the new systems requires the knowledge of the causes of change. Transformative change involves fundamental variations in consciousness, perceptions and values. It takes place when new meanings are established in relation to the environment. Resistance to change may occur due to mistrust in the change managers, which could be resolved by open communication. According to Visagie (2010), there are five dimensions that should be considered during the communication process, as follows:

• The change message
• The way the change message is delivered
• The change leaders’ main characteristics
• The way change leaders interact with employees
• The context in which the interaction takes place

Structural Change and Wicked Problems

Employees react in different ways to change, as some of them might resist change for months and even years after implementing the organizational change. Three stages of change could be addressed according to Lewin’s change management model (Mourfield, 2014), as follows:

• Unfreeze: Change managers should find ways to protect peoples’ identity to reduce the level of resistance to change they feel, this is likely to lessen the negative reaction. Issues related to peoples’ identity should be done to find ways of protecting these identities. For example, it is important to make the employees feel that they are part of the change management process that protects their self-esteem (Visagie 2010). The individual attitude towards organizational change is considered as a hypothetical construct that reflects the individual degree of like or dislike something. This attitude to change involves the cognitive, emotional and intentional. According to Schwalbe et al. (2016), employees’ response to identity threats might range from cognitive to disruptive or from strong positive attitudes to strong negative attitude. This means that employees may perceive the change with happiness and support or with fear and resistance. The perception of some employees may be translated into an opportunity for development and growth, while others may perceive its threat and risk. The problem occurs when a change implemented for good and positive reasons is faced with negative attitudes from the side of employees that resist the change orientation. The communication of a new role may negatively affect the employees’ response to change and leads them to uncertainty skepticism and stress. Resistance might occur in the form of disengagement, reduction of output, low performance, absenteeism and
• Move: According to Tilcsik (2010), as cited in Malmstrom (2016), cognition is considered as part of the resistance that is employed when people develop counter-arguments through creating relations with the old work practices to protect themselves against change. He also argues that negotiations should take place to overcome the obstacles that occur due to change process. Different reasons may interpret the reason for employee resistance to change. In most of the cases, the individual works in a status quo, lack innovation and his personal interests contradict with the organizational interests. According to Bommer, Rich, & Rubin (2005), as cited in Zin & Vrontis (2010), leaders who are less involved in the decision making process of change management take a high resistance attitude towards change and do not involve in the transformational leader behaviors. Transformational leadership might result in a negative effect on the employees’ attitude towards the organizational change. In the case of multi-authored change, resistance is integral to the success of the change management instead of being hindering to change. Also, changes in senior management and change agents are expected and encouraged. Studies provide empirical evidence of resistance-compliance blends of the formal and ordinary weapons of the powerless group’s resistance to change, for example, feigned problems, dissimilation and the subtle forms of resistance is described as threat that hurts nobody, but it represents the real resistance. There are two forms that could be distinguished representing the front stage and backstage

The front stage employees act according to the change management requirements. It is not a risk-free stage, as employees act according to the workload, but their resistant voice keeps silent which signals unrest and discontent to change agents. That is why it is considered a risky behavior. The backstage represents the change opponents and tends to criticize the situation. They criticize the print principles, make excuses for their absenteeism and do not deliver work according to the promises they make (Ybema, 2017).

It is important to notice that the organizational resistance to change may happen due to the poorly planned implementation of the organizational change initiatives, lack of corporate culture, time and technology and funding barriers (Durmaz, 2011).

• Refreeze: Some employees might find change as an opportunity to make more efforts to achieve the organizational change required objectives and they might promote the value added of change inside and outside the organization. There is an assumption that argues that an individual have to work through the negative stages featured by feeling angry, lost and ignored and resists to change, then he goes through the positive stages characterized by exploration, recovery and acceptance (Zin & Vrontis 2010). On the other hand, the change implementers’ leaders engage in the transformational leader behaviors and influence the subordinates’ attitude to be positive towards the organizational change.

Change leadership is this style of leadership that concerns the driving forces, processes and vision that leads to a large-scale transformation, Accordingly, Transformational leadership theory assumes that leadership behavior is meant with communication of goals that exceeds the employees’ perception and stimulates them to perform beyond their interests. The transformational leaders are able to motivate the employees through communication, exploration and experimentation, they are able to build teams, support and provide energy for change, knowledge sharing and organizational learning as they can act as change agents. Effective transformational leadership integrates both of the individual-level and organizational level processes (Feng et al., 2016). The complexity of situations due to ambiguity is sometimes welcomed to learn from it instead of controlling it (Fraher & Grint, 2016).

There are four principles according to Obolensky (2010), as cited in Yergler (2011) that can be used to guide leaders in the cases of organizational complexity. These principles represent a new way towards adaptive leadership that concerns with learning, observation and less action. They are represented in military technology, communication technology, transportation technology, and human awareness. These principles are directed towards the increasing complexity of leadership practice. They provide the leaders with collaborative and enhanced decision-making practices to be able to manage the complexity of the organizational change process. The chaos theory and complexity science reveal the dynamic nature of situations faced by leaders. The chaos theory has been developed through various scientific and mathematical disciplines. Edward Lorenz has discovered that the change in complex situation can lead to further huge change, it is known as the butterfly effect. Accordingly, the smallest effort can lead to big results. This situation also happens with leadership, as hard work leads to great results and big achievements. When the leader faces an organizational radical change within the complex environment, they should consider that these changes are likely to have a major effect on the employees. The attractor theory finds out the dynamic behavior by following and plotting the behavior movement.

Managing Resistance to Change

According to Obolensky (2007), the idea of the attractor theory depends on pointing the attractor of leadership that requires the leader to delegate more to help the employees to overcome their fears and feel respected. Good leadership motivates employees and delegates them when they are capable of this, it is called the point attractor. In addition to the importance of using the catalytic mechanisms to help employees to overcome working too hard, this is called the strange attractor. Finally, to conduct a dynamic question and answer session on a periodical basis, this is called the periodic attractor. Leaders should realize the fact that the world is becoming more complex than before, as peoples’ expectations are increasing, the followers have more professional knowledge than their supervisors and the organizational structure is becoming more dynamic. The implications of these changes are challenging and should be carefully and effectively managed (Obolensky 2007).

Transformational change may take the form of mergers, acquisition, downsizing and restructuring. It causes uncertainty, as the employees find difficulties in determining the real reaction of management in the light of the change that created a new situation. Management reaction may reveal the integrity and competence that create trust in their relationship with the employees. Although, the trust may be undermined by managers and causes employees fear of change as the new situation threaten their jobs and eliminate the existing benefits. The group norms are likely to influence the employees’ attitude to the distrust of their managers and causes behaviors such as opportunistic, or malevolent behavior. In order to solve the problem of distrust, managers can break down the problem to know exactly the reason that caused the employees to lack trust in him. They can also interpret the distrust attitude as resistance to change from the side of the employees. In this case, the trusted repair should take place if it has weakened during the change management process. Change should not be considered as an organizational failure due to problems related to uncertainty. The problems that take place at the organizational level affects the organization at large. As this change is made by management, employees relate the consequences of the change to the managers (Sorensen et al., 2011).

Paradox used to take place in organizations, evidence reveals that complex, uncertain, volatile and ambiguous environment is a main characteristic of the public sector organization. It is essential for leaders in the public sector to face the complex, paradoxical and wicked challenges. Their outcomes vary according to their response to such situations. The paradox is continuous contradictions between elements that act interdependently, these elements seem logical when they act in isolation. Despite the paradox, the leaders do much effort to influence the organizational outcomes (Soon et al., 2016). The examination of leadership in different conditions reveals its paradoxical nature in the modern organizations (Bligh, 2016).

Endstate Systems for Resolving Wicked Problems

Change is considered as a common thread that affects all types of organizations regardless of their size, age or industry.

• Unfreeze: The organization is prepared to be modeled into a new shape that matches the required changes. For example, when the change decision is taken by the top management, flexibility of leadership is required to be able to adapt to the varying situations. Adaptation could be a conceptual, structural, or technical adaptation, all of them are required by most of the leadership positions. Also, innovation and creative spirits are required to cope with the risks and changing environments (Bligh, 2016).
• Move: In this stage, leaders are involved in the change implementation. For example, they have to communicate the employees with the reasons for the change, the stages that should take place and realize that each employee has to take his time to adapt to change (Mourfield, 2014).
• Refreeze: The leadership has to promote stability during this stage. For example, policies, structure supporting mechanisms and structure are necessary to consolidate the change in the new level (Mourfield, 2014).

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