AGSM9274 Systems for Change - 2023

Guiding statement and linkages

This course covers a diverse range of topics related to change. So we thought it would be useful to provide a guiding statement to capture the main elements of the course and highlight the linkages between topics and concepts:

exploring systems to sustain change in complex and paradoxical environments

Each Unit should be read for the components of this guiding statement: 'systems', 'sustaining change', 'complexity' and 'paradox'.

• Unit 2 explores systems and sustaining change.
• Unit 3 explores complexity and paradox in the change process.
• Unit 4 considers organisational capabilities as systems that both generate and support change.
• Units 5 through 9 provide specific examples of organisational systems that produce and sustain change. Some systems are typically part of the formal structure within organisations (e.g. the employment relations sub-system) and others (e.g. innovation) can be used as systems for change.
• Unit 10 turns to corporate social responsibility and stakeholder responsibility, highlighting the elements of systems, complexity, and sustainability.

When working through Units, keep our guiding statement in mind, and constantly seek to identify the threads that weave the units together.

Key features of Systems for Change

As well as the core materials, the course provides the opportunity to engage in two processes critical to effective change management practice: reflection and integration. In course assessments, you are expected to reflect on and integrate course concepts from Approaches to Change with the materials from this course. This is your opportunity to integrate and synthesise these learnings. Assessments test your knowledge of course concepts from Approaches to Change and Systems for Change. You should choose and use relevant concepts in all the assessments.

Three videoconferences.

• first, in Week 2, is an introduction to the course requirements and it also provides an opportunity to talk about your plans for the change project.
• second, in Week 5, provides an opportunity to discuss your project and materials from Unit 4 and 5.
• third, in Week 9, considers the diversity material from Unit 7 and other topics as advised, and provide another opportunity to discuss the progress of your project.

Four weeks of assessed online dialogue (after an unassessed Opening Dialogue in Week 1). In each online dialogue, you will have a few questions to discuss. You will receive some general, informal feedback on your contributions to the first online dialogue and then more detailed feedback with marks for all online dialogues after all are completed. Students find the dialogues help apply concepts to their organisations.

Time-Intensive. Please note this course includes quite a lot of material (Unit content and readings) to digest. In addition, the online dialogues and the project are time-intensive. Overall, the workload is demanding, and we urge you to review carefully and keep up to date with the weekly requirements. It could be quite challenging to 'play catch-up'.

There is no final exam for this course.

Change project

The change project assessment requires submitting two assignments: a project proposal and a final report. Specific requirements for these are detailed below. The aims of the project are:

1. to develop an organisational change proposal
2. to develop a strategy and a full implementation plan for an organisational change based on a sound diagnosis
3. to integrate course concepts from Systems for Change and Approaches to Change in articulating and justifying your strategy and implementation plan. In particular, integrating the materials on systems, sustaining change and complexity
4. to apply systems thinking to address the challenges and complexities of managing change.

The project provides the opportunity to use your diagnostic skills to develop an intervention plan. It also serves as a vehicle to develop your ability to reflect on relevant course materials and apply them to this project. You will reflect on the course materials from Approaches to Change, combine them with the materials from Systems for Change, and apply them to this project. To assist in this process, Unit 1 guides using a structured process to review relevant concepts and also introduces additional materials that may help with the requirements of this project.

To complete this piece of assessment, you will write two papers:

• First, Assessment 2: a proposal explaining why you want to undertake this intervention and what you intend/expect to do.
• Second, Assessment 3: a report of your organisational analysis and your plan for an organisational change. We are looking for evidence of your ability to gather and analyse data and apply course concepts to your analysis of the situation and to develop recommendations for improvement. In this plan, you are required to specifically use materials from both  Approaches to Change and Systems For Change.

We do not ask that you complete implementing a project or solution: only that you recommend a solution and construct a plan for how to implement your solution.

You will need to actively engage in the diagnosis stage, i.e. gather information and data that can help you understand the current state of the organisation. This diagnosis of the current state of the organisation will help you understand why the problem/issue is occurring. This will most likely involve scoping and diagnosis, which is interactive; You will need to talk to people in the organisation and gather relevant data. At this point, you will be analysing the organisation's present and past. You are identifying what is currently an issue and what events, practices, processes, and decisions in the past have led to the current organisational state.

When it comes to implementation planning, in which you generate a plan for how to improve the situation, you may involve others to help you develop your implementation plan. However, the final plan, and in particular, applying the course concepts in the plan, must be your own work. This phase is future-oriented; you are developing a plan for a new and different way of doing things.

Getting started

Here's how to make a strong start to our Course.

1. Read both the Course Outline and the Assessment Details closely. Update your diary with the key events and requirements.
2. As early as possible, log into our Moodle class, look around, and then, in the Opening dialogue space:

• check out facilitator postings
• post a personal introduction
• post your photo
• check some key Moodle settings
• say hello to your colleagues and find a learning partner.

3. Read all announcements carefully.

4. Make an early start on the course materials. Why not get ahead and look at Unit 2 (and even 3)?

Facilitator in Charge

Each course has a Facilitator in Charge who is responsible for the academic leadership and overall academic integrity of the course. The Facilitator in Charge selects content and designs assessment tasks, and takes responsibility for specific academic and administrative issues related to the course. Facilitators in Charge oversee Facilitators and ensure that the ongoing standard of facilitation in the course is consistent with the quality requirements of the program.

Facilitator

The role of your Facilitator is to support and enhance the learning process by encouraging interaction among participants, providing direction in understanding the course content, assessing participant progress through the course and providing feedback on work submitted. Facilitators comprise academics and industry practitioners with relevant backgrounds.

In this course, you will gain benefit from a number of learning partnerships.

1. Your co-participants. Your colleagues are an invaluable potential source of learning for you. Their work and life, and their willingness to question and engage with the course materials, the Facilitator and your views, represent a great learning opportunity. They bring much valuable insight to the learning experience.

2. In-course learning partner or learning group. During this course, you will be asked to form a learning partnership with another participant in this course. You may wish to select someone you already know, or you may prefer to use a different person at different times during the course.

It is up to you to make the necessary arrangements and contact them. You might also consider having more than one learning partner. Some previous course participants have found it valuable to work in a learning group.

You will need to make initial contact with your learning partner in Week 1 and establish when it is a good time to contact them in future weeks. Perhaps you could organise a time each week to phone, video-chat via MS Teams or similar, or to talk face to face. But do set aside some uninterrupted time, about 30 minutes, for your dialogue. Your learning partner is doing the course with you, and together you can explore some of the issues that will be raised.

All participants will post a personal introduction in the Moodle class in the Participant Profiles forum, which might be helpful when considering who you might like to engage as a learning partner. Details on accessing this forum are part of our introductory activities for the course.

You may be asked to discuss your reactions to an article or reading, you may need to do some collaborative work together, or you may need to exchange information with each other. The tasks will vary from Unit to Unit. Your learning partner will also be an invaluable source of support for your project.

3. The online dialogues. Systems for Change has an opening dialogue (not assessed) and four assessed online dialogues throughout the course.

• Opening dialogue: Week 1
• Online dialogue 1: Week 3
• Online dialogue 2: Week 6
• Online dialogue 3: Week 8
• Online dialogue 4: Week 10

You will engage in dialogue to explore and apply course concepts, and share personal reflections about your role as a change agent. You will be required to consider several questions during each dialogue. Your facilitator will post these questions in Moodle before the start of the online-dialogue period. You will be assigned to an online-dialogue syndicate and details will be posted online in the News space. You will also have access to, and are free to participate in, other syndicate dialogues.

However, only your contribution to your assigned dialogue syndicate will be graded. Collectively, these dialogues account for 20% of the marks for the course.

4. Your Facilitator, who will:

• facilitate the five designated online dialogues
• conduct three videoconferences
• grade and provide feedback on your assessments
• respond to your academic enquiries and offer assistance where appropriate.

In Unit 1, The change project, we provide in-depth guidance on the requirements of the change project. This assessment requires both reflecting on and applying materials from Approaches to Change, as well as the Systems for Change materials. This is a challenging task. So we devote Unit 1 to helping you make an early and informed start on your project and provide suggestions for reflecting on and integrating course materials. We offer the Change Process Framework as an appropriate process and provide fresh perspectives on aspects of the framework.

In Unit 2, Systems for sustaining change,  we turn to the first of two topics at the heart of this course: sustaining change. We distinguish between episodic and continuous change and identify the factors that affect the sustainability of change. Our second topic is the nature of systems thinking, which is central to this course. We stress how important this approach is for change agents, particularly in complex environments.

In Unit 3, Complexity and paradox, three topics offer mechanisms for dealing with change in complex settings. First, managing the paradoxical demands often present in complex settings. How can we harness paradox rather than be disabled by it?

Second, we look at a structural response to complexity, and paradox in particular: the ambidextrous organisation.

Third, we consider individual responses to paradox, arguing that both cognitive complexity and behavioural complexity are essential change agent capabilities.

In Unit 4, Building organisational capabilities for change, We identify organisational capabilities that can be leveraged to respond to complexity and to sustain change. Of particular interest are 'dynamic' capabilities, which enhance an organisation's agility.

Unit 5, Managing IT systems for sustained change. We delve into another well-recognised organisational sub-system, information technology (IT). We explore using IT as a vehicle for change. Again, we adopt a systems perspective, emphasising the boundaries between sub-systems and how these need to be negotiated.

In Unit 6, Building intelligent organisations, we use the concept of the intelligent organisation to draw together research and ideas from two streams of thinking: organisational learning and knowledge management. We argue these two processes and attendant systems offer mechanisms that facilitate continuous change through learning and adaptation.

In Unit 7, Using diversity to generate and sustain change, we present a means of stimulating continuous and sustainable change. We take an inclusive and expanded view of diversity and explore the potential for such outcomes as innovation and creativity. We use diversity as an example of the need for systems thinking when generating continuous change.

In Unit 8, Sustaining innovation for change, we assume innovation is a major force for change. Organisations must value innovation and use it as a driver for change. We are particularly interested in organising for sustained innovation and the associated change that implies.

In Unit 9, Employment relations sub-system, we demonstrate the central and pervasive nature of Employment Relations within organisations, and its potential to generate, support and embed change. Further, Employment Relations is an excellent example of the working of complex systems in organisations, and the need for an appropriate systems stance to capitalise on this potential.

Unit 10, Corporate social responsibility and stakeholder management, is structured around the following logic. Organisations are conceived as open systems that influence and are influenced by their environment, notably key stakeholders. Organisational sustainability is determined mainly by engagement with these stakeholders. In turn, sustainability raises issues of an organisation's obligations towards its stakeholders, and its corporate social responsibility (CSR). For organisations and for those responsible for leading change, the dialogue surrounding CSR leads to considering challenging ethical issues.

AGSM courses are reviewed each time they run, with updated course outlines and assessment tasks developed. 

Additionally, the data collected in the myExperience survey provides anonymous feedback from students on the quality of course content and materials, class facilitation, student support services and the program in general. This student feedback is considered during all course revisions.

Facilitator

The facilitator encouraged interaction and provided helpful feedback. Some feedback helped improve students writing skills. The facilitator carefully related theory and practice and provided real-world applications and examples of the concepts.

Course Materials and Delivery

Some students had different preferences for the format of online dialogues. Many big concepts need online discussion and application to ensure deeper understanding of these complex concepts. Some of the readings are challenging to understand.

The facilitator is regularly encouraged by previous students' feedback to AGSM to continue to relate real-world examples to the course concepts.

The feedback to help improve students writing skills is supporting the learning outcome:

• to prepare written documents containing critical argument and perspectives on change management.

In any class, there are diverse preferences for how students learn. To accommodate these preferences, we provide different activities and different forms of these activities. In practice, what this means is students will find many activities that suit their style and perhaps a few that do not suit their style. With online discussions on complex concepts, to ensure deep understanding and good application needs multiple posts in a week.

Some of the readings in Systems For Change are more difficult to understand than readings from Approaches To Change and Change Skills because of differences in the nature of the concepts. In Approaches To Change and Change Skills, concepts are more likely to apply to personal change or group change. Many students will have heard about or experienced many of the concepts in their daily work.

In contrast, in Systems For Change concepts are more likely to apply to organisational change. Since most organisational change concepts are applied by senior managers, fewer students will have heard about or experienced many of the concepts in their daily work. So, the readings are challenging because the concepts are more complex and for many students the concepts are new.

To help students, we regularly review readings to find alternative ways to present the paper's ideas in the ebook or to use videos. For complex concepts, where more user-friendly resources become available, we use them.