ABSTRACT
In a Nutshell: The most popular OCM models have evolved from seven main threads or streams over the past 70 years or so. They are outlined in this chapter to provide a background context for your OCM effort. We show how the seven main threads have found their way into the “Dirty Dozen Models for Change Management,” as we like to call them. Finally, our Model for Sustainable Change is profiled in this book toward the end of the chapter; it is an amalgam of the best and most workable features of these seven historical threads and the emergent 12 “Dirty Dozen” models for effective change management. We call this model SUSTAIN, which is an acronym for the seven-component Harrington-Voehl Lifecycle Model (see Chapter 5 for a full treatment of the Lifecycle Model). The change management models outlined in this chapter present a convincing argument that traditional management structures and practices that emphasize control and uniformity are in many cases antichange. That is, the culture and structure of traditional organizations are such that adapting to rapid change is inherently difficult and slow. If management’s focus is to reduce the variability and instability of human actions to uniform and dependable patterns, the antichange aspects will make creating an organization that adapts quickly to turbulence and complexity a very difficult task indeed.
