Boundary activities and readiness for ... - Projekti-Instituutti

Results
program. Such legitimating and committing activities were especially
visible in Bureau, where the early advocates of the program tried to actively
convince both the top managers, i.e. the decision makers, and the
employees, i.e. the recipients of change, that a change was necessary and
that a program of this kind was the right way to implement it. The program
manager in Bureau admitted that the current state analysis that was
conducted during the program launch had been very purpose-oriented, as
its main motive had been to provide a wake-up call for the top managers
and to make them acknowledge the need for change. The program manager
in Bureau described his reasoning:
Q54 (Bureau, program manager): “The aim of [the current state analysis] was to
acquire legitimacy for this change … in my opinion, you cannot implement a
radical change without pointing out the defects related to the current situation
and clarifying the reasons why the change is needed, why we cannot proceed
with just some minor improvements.”
The three cases demonstrate how such legitimating and committing
activities were also performed after the initial selling efforts. Since initiation
and planning activities took several years in all three organizations, it was
clearly a challenge to maintain the motivation and commitment, both
regarding the top managers and the employees. The following quote from
case Chain describes this challenge of sustaining momentum:
Q55 (Chain, development area director and steering group member): “From the
leadership perspective, it has been a real challenge to find a way to motivate
people. For the past two years we have elaborated on these themes on paper
and we have not been able to start the implementation. It has been a challenge
to maintain the good spirit, even towards the top management, regarding that
we’ll get this done.”
As a central means to sustain the momentum for change, visible quick wins
from early implementations were purposefully utilized in both Bureau and
Chain to demonstrate the viability of the programs. Communication of
these quick wins represents a form of legitimating and committing activity
that aims at maintaining the pressure for change. The following quotes
illustrate these activities:
Q56 (Bureau, top manager of a unit actively involved in the program): ”It has
been important to [demonstrate quick wins] and also to show those for top
management so that their faith in this change is maintained … There was this
one [outsourcing effort] that was very successful … we have already gained
enormous savings with it.”
Q57 (Chain, program owner): “It has been very important for us to show results,
since 1.5 years ago there were many doubts of what we’ll gain with this. … It
151