Rewriting Organisational Change

Abstract

In the last 30 years, many of us in the West have experienced globalisation in terms of sometimes radical changes to the ways we live, travel, interact with and encounter others, and work. As far as the latter is concerned, terms such as restructuring, downsizing, streamlining and reorganising are now well-worn euphemisms used not only to describe but also to rationalise the ways in which organisational environments in many sectors are being adapted to suit the shifting demands of the flows of information, labour and economy on individual workplaces. Consequently, change is frequently introduced to work practices, process and patterns, modes of relating to those we work with — colleagues, employers and clients — and even to organisational aims or focus.¹ With organisational change thus becoming the rule rather than the exception, there has been a not-so-subtle slide into the assumption that change, particularly when seen from corporate, management or managerialist perspectives, is inevitable, necessary and positive — a good thing (Zorn et al. 2000, 517). Similarly, foregrounded in management declarations of the need for change are claims about the increases in efficiency, economy and competitiveness to be gained from the undertaking. In mainstream change management discussions, there is also much ambiguous or abstract language used — the concepts of service, quality and excellence, efficiency and teamwork, for example, are often cited as integral to the successful outcome of change.

’The future is always a wholeness, a sameness. We’re all tall and happy there’, she said. ‘This is why the future fails. It always fails. It can never be the cruel happy place we want to make it’.

(Don DeLillo 2003, Cosmopolis, 91)