Sustained organisational change : a hearts and minds approach

This thesis explores the 'Hearts & Minds' approach to managing organisational change. It is based on the author's extensive experience as a management consultant over a period of approximately ten years working with companies that range from small to medium size enterprises to large multi-national organisations. The thesis presents a coherent discourse on some of the problems associated with organisations undergoing significant changes due to a range of factors including, downsizing, restructuring, take-overs, and so on. Within the context of a rapidly changing business environment driven by a global economy, the thesis provides a number of case studies, focusing on the Hearts & Minds approach to developing an appropriate management infrastructure that is best suited to a given organisation. The thesis reports on a number of field studies that provide evidence of the Hearts & Minds approach to change management in terms of introducing an open and transparent approach to personal motivation and team building. This includes the development of a quantitative model for understanding the underlying structures which define organisations of all types irrespective of their size. The model helps to quantify the principles that are inherent in the 'dynamics' of an organisation to which change management is applied and is based on understanding an organisation in terms of a non-stationary self-affine system .for which a computational measure (the Hurst dimension) can be used to measure the coherence of information flow through an organisation. The applications of the model, results and conclusions of the thesis are wide ranging and in principle, should be applicable to a number of organisations and businesses; for industry, commerce and the financial sector. Above all, the thesis attempts to provide a unified account of the issues associated with change management that are becoming vital in industry and commerce and are of international significance as we are required increasingly to function with increased efficiency in an international arena that is undergoing continuous and rapid change.