Week 8: Class Reading Blog - Tayo

Chapter 9: Building Support for the Proposed Change

This chapter outlines the necessary steps in building support for proposed change.  The tables in this chapter are very helpful in providing succinct examples of the terminology.  

STEP 1: DEVELOP A WORKING HYPOTHESIS.  Develop a working hypothesis that is agreed upon by the stakeholders, is research-based, and is not merely based on your own intuition or biases.  The working hypothesis should be succinct, determining the most significant factors leading to the need for change in causal (if-then) statements.    

STEP 2: SEEK OUT STAKEHOLDERS.  Seek out stakeholders with diverse perspectives to implement change.  These include the initiators, change agents, clients, support system, controlling system, host and implementing system, target system, and action system.  

·         The persons who first recognized the problem are called the initiators.

·         The persons that will lead/coordinate activities are the change agents.  They tend to be the same people as the initiators.  Utilizing change agents may require formal or informal approval from higher authority for them to dedicate time to the activity.  

·         Clients, which can be the primary or secondary beneficiaries of the change, may or may not be different from the target population. 

·         Support systems are individuals, groups and other entities within the community that support change efforts.  

·         Controlling systems are persons that formally have the authority to approve change efforts.  They may or may not be persons at the highest level of authority.  

·         Host and implementing systems is the designated unit responsible for carrying out change efforts.  They are usually located below the controlling system within an organizational chart.  

The book emphasizes that each of these stakeholders’ position and perspective about change efforts may differ from each other.  

·         The target system is the entit(ies) that need to be changed to achieve the desired benefits.  You also need to determine where it is located and if there are multiple targets.  

·         Lastly, the action system consists of persons who have an active role in planning and implementing change.  Ideally they should include as many individuals from the other systems as possible.  

THE IMPORTANCE OF DEFINING ROLES IN THIS MANNER IS TO UNDERSTAND THE POWER DYNAMICS OF EACH ROLE AND THAT EACH ROLE, RESPONSIBILITES AND EXPECTATIONS ARE CLEAR AND DISTINCT. 

 Are you able to identify any stakeholders within your community?

STEP 3:  EXAMINE THE COMMUNITY’S WILLINGNESS FOR CHANGE.  This can be determined in at least three ways.  Firstly, investigating its previous commitments to other initiatives can predict how the community may react to the proposed change.  Also, if the community initially shows enthusiasm, commitment, and cohesiveness in the early stages of the proposed change, more likely will the change be implemented. Secondly, the availability of resources is instrumental in determining how change occurs.  Therefore, it’s important to conduct an inventory of resources available and compare this to what resources are needed.  Thirdly, the researcher and stakeholders need to identify how to deal with opposition, conflict, and weaknesses in their overall strategies.

STEP 4: SELECT A CHANGE APPROACH.  Approaches can be a policy, a program, a project, personnel, or practice.  Table 9.5 on page 327 provides a brief definition of these change approaches.  These approaches are not mutually exclusive; you may find that incorporating multiple approaches may be more valuable.