The 5 P’s of Change:

The 5 P’s of Change:
Leading Change by Effectively Utilizing Leverage Points within an Organization
RAIG M. MCALLASTER
Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 318–328, 2004 ISSN 0090-2616/$ – see frontmatter
_ 2004 Published by Elsevier Inc. doi:10.1016/j.orgdyn.2004.06.008
www.organizational-dynamics.com
In this article author looks at some ways to lead change. Successfully executing change initiatives, influencing others and moving the organization towards your point of view are clearly dependent on your ability to lead and manage. One of the keys to successful change is recognizing the different approaches that people and organizations go through when dealing with the reality that things will be different. He developed an integrated approach to handling change. The focus of that approach is the Five P’s of Change. The Five P’s focus on different leverage points that, when used as an integrated approach, can help organizations and their members accept and cope with change. The Five P’s can work independently, but change is most effective when they are leveraged together. While utilizing these leverage points can make a significant difference in the successful execution of a change effort, many times they are overlooked and the opportunity to move an organization to a new sustainable competitive advantage is lost.
The Five P’s are as follows:
• Pain
• Process
• Politics
• Payoff
• Persistence
Pain:
Pain is a fundamental driver of change. Many people and organizations change only when faced with a level of pain that leaves them without options. Basically, there are three types of pain—bad, good, and imposed.
By bad pain means organizations going down day by day and they didn’t think about change. After some time when they reached to end point at which it is difficult for them to survive then they make some change for getting in the market otherwise they didn’t think about any change.
For organizations, bad pain comes with red ink, and when the future is cast with almost certain doom and extinction.
The second type of pain found in organizations is ‘‘good’’ pain. Good pain can occur when an organization experiences phenomenal growth, when opportunities are breaking, and business is booming. In good times people work overtime and are tapped out trying to meet demand. Resources aren’t the issue. The issue is time and energy.
A third type of pain is imposed pain. This type of pain can be the most effective type when it is used in a proactive manner. When using imposed pain, the manager makes the decision that he will not wait for other factors, good or bad, to be the catalyst for change. Imposed pain is an example of leadership providing a stimulus for motivation and requires a firm determination and focus by the person leading the change. This is very difficult to handle employees in case of imposed change. Managers have to face a lot resistance against change. Large amount of risk is involved in this change process because employees are not ready for change and its very difficult for them to adjust themselves according to the situation.
Process:
Process is the essence of how one goes about changing the environment. The process used by many companies today to fix their organizational problems and drive change is referred to as ‘‘management by best seller (MBBS).’’
The process that should be used to determine and implement change varies by organization and by the problems and opportunities they face. In their article on the psychology of change, Lawson and Price (2003) state that four conditions are required to impact change:
• employees must see the reason for change and concur with those reasons;
• organization structures must support the change;
• employees must have the skill sets needed to implement the change;
• they must see those around them in positions they respect actually supporting and modeling the change.
Author suggests a process which is much effective for change in the organization. These include:
o Research problems and identify the causal problems or fundamental opportunities.
o Identify possible solutions.
o Communicate, communicate, and communicate.
o Select and announce the chosen course of action as soon as possible.
o Execute, execute, execute.
People in organizations are continuously bombarded with new flavor of- the-month programs. Successful execution of change initiatives requires the full attention of management and a dedication to doing it right.
Politics
Politics are ever present in society and in organizations of all types. Politics is, indeed, an important element of culture. Politics can and does make a major impact on influencing change. The effective agent of change will factor politics into the equation and effectively leverage it into any change activity. A successful leader must understand the politics of the organization; for example, who are their supporters and antagonists, and who are the undecided. This knowledge allows a leader to position the proposal to take advantage of its strengths, adapt it to address the perceived weaknesses of antagonists, and motivate the undecided. Building coalitions going into a change initiative helps to prevent the dreaded defeat or deadlock, or need to go back for further refinement or study.
Payoff
Payoff addresses the age-old question: ‘‘what’s in it for me?’’ Too often managers and executives implement sweeping changes in organizations, and never think about the payoff for people affected by the change. Sure, senior management receives bonuses, promotions, new opportunities, and the satisfaction of doing a challenging and exciting job.
There are following rewards which play an important roll in payoff:
• Money
• Relationship
 To use relationships as a payoff, management could talk in terms of:
1. What the new relationships could mean to the person,
2. How relationships with management would be strengthened and what that might mean,
3. How the process of meeting new people helps a person grow emotionally, psychologically, socially, and
4. How the new relationships would be just as good as the old or maybe even better because of the change.
• Opportunity and development
• Pride
Persistence
In this point author said that the managers must be in touch with the employees continuously and providing in time information to the employee for making the change successful. It is same like marketing process that tells the employees what you want to do. What are your ideas about the change? What you want to do in the future?
Success is built upon creating momentum through persistent efforts to overcome resistance. Organizations are constantly formulating new ideas and initiatives for change, and this constant bombardment is often met with skepticism and a desire on the part of people for stability and sanity in their lives. Part of persistence relates to the fact that the first time a manager or leader of an organization does something that is different or in conflict with the new initiative, it provides the rationale and excuse for others not do it.
Conclusion& Findings:
Change is constant. Change is a normal part of evolution. It is essential to survival. Yet many organizations take change lightly and don’t think about how to aggressively and strategically make change happen. The assumption the change is good, and therefore irresistible, is common in our society. The 5 P’s are integrated leverage points that can provide key insights into the way an organization can affect change to improve its success. Can change happen without the 5 P’s, or with just a few of them? Yes, but the odds are stacked against a successful change initiative.
Without 5 P’s changes can be happen in the organizations but it provide us guide line for change so that we have to face less resistance against change. These are the leverages for change which have high success ratio for change. The organizations using these leverages for change have greatly probability for success..