Novotel is one of the world’s major hotel chains, occupying a leading place in Europe and with locations globally. We interpret Novotel’s change management programme in the 1990s in three parts. First, we summarise the actions that managers took in terms of strategy and organisation. Second, we consider the sequence and timing of events, and how this resulted in rapid transformation in an organisation employing more than 30,000 people.
Third, we emphasise the dialectical nature of the change processes: an element often ignored in the literature that likes to see things as an either–or rather than a both. We observed both deliberation and experimentation; both integration and differentiation. We also observed both preservation and transformation, as noted in our sub-title ‘Back to the Future’. Finally, we wrap up with a discussion explaining how our story can add to better thinking about change. We suggest that we can shed new light on some old debates and provide tangible guides for action. 2001 Elsevier Science c Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction The study of organisational dynamics has produced innumerable accounts and theoretical frameworks, and yet neither practitioners nor scholars seem to be satis? ed with the stock of existing knowledge. This is probably because organisational changes are complex phenomena that can be viewed from different and complementary perspectives. 1 Each perspective reveals different angles. Here we focus on the insights from a longitudinal process perspective. 2 In this paper we re? ct on the particular scenario of strategic change which took place at Novotel, the international three-star hotel chain which is part of the Accor Group of France, between 1992 and 1995. Accor has been established for more than 20 years and has been evolving continuously to ? t with the changing environment by launching new concepts such as the Formula One hotel chain (written up elsewhere3 and by rejuvenating its existing businesses 0024-6301/01/$ – see front matter k 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. c PII: S 0 0 2 4 – 6 3 0 1 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 9 0 – X
The Essay on Hotel Chains and Marriott International
In the following paper, I would like to focus on Ritz Carlton, Inc. , a leading lodging company with over 3,100 lodging properties in the United States and 66 other countries and territories (Marriott International, Inc. Corporate Headquarters, 2008). My key task is to discuss market segmentation, targeting and positioning strategies of the company with the following brands: Marriott Hotels & ...
Roland Calori is Professor of Business Policy, Lyon Management School, 23 Avenue Guy de Collongue, BP 174, 69132 Ecully Cedex, France. Tel. : +33 4 78 33 7929; fax: +33 4 78 33 7927; Email: com Charles Baden-Fuller is the editor-in-chief of this journal since 1999. He is also Professor of Strategy at City University Business School, and part-time Professor at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam. He has recently bene? ted from visiting positions at the Haas School, University of California at Berkeley and the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
He has served on commissions that looked to evaluate research programmes of business schools in several European countries, and this has stimulated this project. Brian Hunt is Director of Research at Mahidol College of Management, Bangkok, Thailand. In the UK he has held posts at Reading University, Bath University, City University Business School and Imperial College. Brian is co-editor (with Stuart Barnes) of the book, ECommerce and V-Business published by ButterworthHeinemann. including the Novotel chain.
Here, we emphasise the rejuvenation side of Accor’s renewal strategy, and the Novotel story. This shows how an old business can be turned around, and that this process need not be slow, and moreover how it can bene? t from a dialectical approach. This rejuvenation was radical, and at the same time distinctly European in a global business. Our study has some valuable lessons. By taking a longitudinal perspective spanning many levels inside the ? rm, and by making connections to the competitive environment, we isolate the value of seeing change as a holistic phenomenon. Real stories of change, like this one, exhibit many interconnected facets of activities that theorists often see as distinct. 5 Rich descriptions also add value to theories in use. Most managers are guided by experience, and ours stresses the value of dialectical thinking. In studying Novotel, our ? rst stage was inductive. We collected data without any particular theory of change in mind by listening to stories told by Novotel staff of their experiences and by reading the documents of the company.
The Essay on Changing a Five Day School Week to a Four Day School Week
Changing a five day week to a five day week to a four day week (For schools) Why is our traditional five day week changing to a four day week? Any reason? A four day week would result in extra hours of work, interference with family schedules and much more. In any case what’s the problem with the five day school week? The customary five day school week should stay without any alterations. There ...
The results of this exercise have been published elsewhere as a case study that stressed the chronological aspect of events. 6 In this article we report on the second stage of the study, where we interpret the story in the light of three theoretical frameworks that appear appropriate a posteriori to explain Novotel’s success. We begin by a short description of the context of Novotel and the way we collected our material before moving to interpreting the story of the change we observed.
We interpret the story by identifying eight factors that summarise the strategic and organisation dimensions of what we saw. We suggest that for Novotel our eight factors are inclusive, and in some ways complete. We also discuss the timing and sequence of the change path, a matter we suggest is critically important. In this case good timing coupled with fortuitous circumstances resulted in a speedy transformation. We end the article by showing how for Novotel the change processes were both ambivalent and dialectical.
The sub-title of this article— Back to the Future—was the name of the change project that Novotel adopted, and it re? ected their dialectical approach looking both forwards and backwards. It was also a name that emerged from within the change process, not being imposed from the top at the start, but adopted by common consent during the change period. This and many other observations we make below suggests how the Novotel story can inspire the development of better conceptual frameworks taking a more integrated view and improve managerial practice. The background ? ?
Two entrepreneurs, Paul Dubrule and Gerard Pelisson, neither of whom came from a hotel background, founded Novotel in 1967. During the 1970s Novotel expanded at an average rate of one new hotel every month; and by the 1990s it had become the market leader in Europe. (In 1991 it had 191 hotels in 18 European countries. ) It was also a global ? rm with 50 more hotels 780 Managing Change at Novotel outside Europe. In all Novotel controlled more than 36,000 rooms and had more than 30,000 employees. 7 The Novotel strategic positioning was pioneering in Europe during the 1970s and 1980s.
The Essay on Changing lifestyles in Europe: The Coal and Steel Industry
IntroductionIf you look on a map of global population density, you can see four or five major concentrations of people: East Asia, South Asia, North America and Europe. Many of the cities that developed in Europe grew on coalfields as a result of the industrial revolution. But today the factor coal become more and more unimportant and the people in the coal industry are facing huge problems. The ...
It mixed facets from four-star and three-star hotels and emphasised standardisation. For example, standardised guestrooms at 24 square metres were larger than average for the price. The standardised buffet breakfast was typically better than average for three-star (or even some four-star) hotels. Yet service was in? exible and typically at a level of three-star hotels. Guests were expected to carry their own bags from reception. Business travellers, tourists, young and old were treated alike, and there was little attempt to create differentiation even in notable locations.
This mix of four-star facilities and three-star service at a threestar price was part of a winning formula in the 1970s and 1980s. There were other innovative dimensions, including siting hotels outside city centres near motorways and airports, where land was inexpensive and there were few competitors. Other hotel chains such as Choice International (Comfort, Quality Inn and Sleep Inn brands), Forte (with its Travelodge in the UK and mainland Europe) and Holiday Inn copied it. Novotel’s unique proposition was losing its edge by the early 1990s. These were lean times for hotels in Europe.
An economic recession was beginning to bite. Cash-strapped companies sought to trim travel budgets and fewer business trips were permitted. The Iraqi occupation of Kuwait in late 1990 and the Gulf war in early 1991 together with the threat of terrorist activity in European cities further inhibited international travel and all hotels saw fewer guests. Many hotels responded by cutting room rates and guests could often name their own price. Some hotels offered incentives to existing guests to encourage longer stays or further visits. Other events were shaking up the industry.
Forte, the UK’s largest hotel group, was locked in an aggressive takeover battle with Granada. Bid and counter-bid ensued and events became increasingly bloody and personal as Sir Rocco Forte and Granada’s Gerry Robinson traded high-pro? le insults in the media. Granada (representing the new) eventually won. In France, Novotel’s owner, Accor, was achieving success with a new concept, the Formula One budget hotel. Launched in 1985, Formula One was a less expensive, no-frills yet comfortable concept hotel, occupying a different market segment from Novotel.
The Essay on Change Management in the Hospitality Industry
One way to reach improvement on both levels (attitude and investment), would be to impose changes by legislation. As such change cannot be expected in reality, for the purpose of the study, one can propose a fictitious scenario and study how a typical hotel would implement the required changed in terms of internal policy/strategy/attitude and capital investment, whilst remaining competitive. 2. ...
It was more modern, and by the 1990s it was clearly successful, taking business away from other budget hotels. In retrospect, the success of Formula One, albeit in a different market segment; the changes in demand; and the arrival of new competitors signalled that traditional ? rms such as Novotel could not rest on their laurels, and that they had to recognise the more customised nature of the marketplace. 8 Internally, this sense was picked up. In 1992 the co-presidents of Accor, Novotel’s owners, Dubrule ? and Pelisson realised that action should be taken.
They appointed ? ? Gilles Pelisson (Gerard’s nephew) and Philippe Brizon as the new co-presidents of Novotel. They replaced Claude Moscheni, who had been at the head of Novotel for 10 years, and who moved This mix of four-star facilities and threestar service at a three-star price was part of a winning formula Long Range Planning, vol 33 2000 781 to take charge of Pullman International Hotels, another division of Accor. Table 1 summarises very brie? y the history of Novotel to the end of the major change programme in 1995. Collecting data and interpreting the story
Our principal data collection effort occurred in 1994 while the major changes in Novotel were progressing. We gathered a mass of documents about Novotel and the industry, from inside and outside the ? rm, and conducted more than 60 in-depth interviews. The documents included some internal memoranda written by senior managers, descriptions of quality control systems, a videotape of a major management conference, and other relevant material. Our interview programme was extensive and comprehensive, conducted using traditional research methods. All were tape recorded, and were analysed arefully by two or three researchers. Among those interviewed were one of the hotel’s co-presidents, most of the top management team, many senior managers at Novotel’s head of? ce in Evry, and general managers and their staff in seven different hotels. Three of these hotels were in France, two in Germany and two in the UK. We also watched people at work. The scope of the study was large, for it spanned all the levels of the ? rm, and several countries. It also delved into perceptions as well as details of operations, and allowed some observations of change processes and their outcomes.
The Business plan on Role Of Manager, Management And Organisation
Briefly explain: manager, management and organisation. Discuss why managers are important for the success of an organisation; include examples to demonstrate your understanding.2 Task 2:4 Select one of the following companies or a company you are familiar with and answer the questions: Virgin, BT, any educational institute, or any retail store4 a.Discuss the term organisational structure and its ...
The results were written up chronologically in a factual style that emphasised the actors’ perspectives and minimised interpretation. The whole was checked with the participants to assure accuracy and absence of bias, and subsequently published. 9 Now some years later, the data have been reviewed and some of the more recent progress of Novotel has been included. Here we propose interpretations of the success of this change process at Novotel. The change process we observed was both top-down and bottom-up, it involved the centre of the ? m and the periphery, it involved designing new image, new procedures, new pricing and indeed changes to almost every facet of the business. Most of the changes struck at the heart of the old concept of standardisation, and sought to increase ? exibility while cutting costs and increasing attractiveness. The scale of the changes was dramatic: in the context of the industry, costs fell almost immediately by more than 10 per cent with increased differentiation and ? exibility. Occupancy rates at Novotel, which had hit a low in early 1993 at the start of the change programme, rose thereafter.
Obviously, it would be best to benchmark Novotel’s progress against the competition, but data are not available. However, we can indicate the extent of Novotel’s success by measuring its progress against other parts of the Accor group. 10 Formula One, a well-documented global success story, provides a demanding marker. 11 Novotel did not quite catch up with Formula One (where return on net assets—RON—was between 13 per cent and 14. 3 per cent), but it did post a strong rate of return in 1997, 782 Managing Change at Novotel Table 1. Chronological summary of key events and actions 1967 1967–1983 983–1992 1985 1991 ? Creation of Novotel by Paul Dubrule and Gerard ? Pelisson The entrepreneurial era, Novotel becomes a key player in the hotel industry Development of the Accor Group. Novotel is a key division alongside So? tel, Mercure and Ibis Formula One, a new budget hotel concept, is launched Gulf war, all industry is hit. Novotel posts record pro? ts in December, although occupancy is falling in all hotel groups April ‘Open-space’ meeting of hotel managers in Fontainebleau. Managers say they want freedom to take decisions and try new ideas. Occupancy continues to fall in industry throughout the summer ?
The Research paper on Mcdonalds Case Analysis Top Management
I. ObjectivesMcDonald's mission was to provide customers with quality food at a low price with a focus on the speed, service and cleanliness they received while patron ing one of their restaurants. The case focuses on a specific segment of the McDonalds restaurant chain that was opened in 1996, McDonald's India. This segment of the restaurant giant had a more specific mission / philosophy to ...
December Philippe Brizon and Gilles Pelisson propose a viable project outline for Novotel and are appointed copresidents. Claude Moscheni who had been president of Novotel for 10 years is appointed president of Pullman International within the Accor group January The co-presidents choose the 18 members of the new top management team and reduce the superstructure by two layers February The new top management team starts working together, with two anthropologists (consultants).
They de? ne three work systems: communication, management and commercial. The quality control system is abolished. A new pro? e of hotel general managers is outlined and new performance measures are de? ned. The new management system is established in the war room at the headquarters in Evry March–April Each director of operations organises three-day meetings with their hotel managers and the two co-presidents, to re? ne the project May–June Selection of hotel managers, and reduction of the management structure in hotels by one layer Summer Hotel general managers go through the new assessment centre and personal development plans are designed. New marketing initiatives are taken Autumn The three-day convention is held (with more than 300 participants).
Personal development plans start. The restoring of hotels starts. The ‘progress groups’ and ‘clubs’ are launched ` First quarter ‘Progres Novotel’ is launched, the competencies of all employees are assessed. New marketing initiatives are taken. Propositions made by progress groups and clubs are implemented ` ‘Progres Novotel’, developing competencies, further implementation 1992 1992 1993 1994 1994–1995 Long Range Planning, vol 33 2000 783 1998 and 1999 at more than 11. 4 per cent. 12 RONA, according to the group, is a key management tool and is computed in the usual way of earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) divided by ? ed assets plus working capital. A systemic understanding and set of actions There have been many studies of ? rms in transition, and most point to a common set of factors involved in the change process. 13 Here we re? ect on eight key factors that deal with the strategic and organisation dimensions that in? uenced change in the Novotel case and are summarised in Table 2. Some of these eight may seem like common sense, such as the importance of maintaining links with key outside stakeholders, others are more complex and less obvious, such as form change as a project.
The point we like to make is that all the steps were necessary. For Novotel not to have done something listed here would almost certainly have resulted in failure. Other organisations in different circumstances may need different steps, but ours are commonly found in many cases of renewal. Novotel recognised customer needs Many successful ? rms fall into trouble because they fail to perceive and act on environmental changes. At Novotel, the two copresidents identi? ed the need for a change in the organisation because customers were not being satis? ed. Such identi? ation was not easy, for three traditional top management indicators impeded understanding. First, pro? ts were rising, not falling, and at the time of the identi? cation stood at their highest level ever. Top management recognised that the peak in pro? ts represented the result of price increases above the level charged by the competition, rather than improved product performance. A second indicator, that of quality control, was also showing good results. The hotel had instituted a programme of checking 95 factors (‘les 95 boulons’) to assess quality. These showed high levels of performance.
Rather than believe the good signs that things were going well, the top management saw and ampli? ed the danger signals that they thought really mattered. One of these was falling occupancy that was moving opposite to data on pro? ts and quality control. Occupancy had been falling on a moving average basis from a high of 68 per cent in December 1990 to 62 per cent by June 1992. 14 This fall of 6 points in occupancy was not very different from that experienced by other parts of the group (and others in the industry).
Mercure had also experienced a decline from 64 per cent to 58 per cent over the same period. The star of the group, So? el, performed no better: it experienced a decline from 67 per cent to 60 per cent in the year from December 1990 to December 1991. The falling occupancy during this period was attributed to a mini-recession in Europe and the Gulf war. The fact that pro? ts rose even though occupancy fell was attributed to a changing mix of customers who now paid on average higher prices. 784 Managing Change at Novotel Table 2. Actions and processes in the Novotel change programme Novotel’s Actions Content of Novotel’s Change Programme Recognise ? Recognised that falling occupancy was more customers needs important than rising pro? s ? Recognised that ? rst-hand customer data was important Form and ? Appointed two co-presidents with different skills motivate new top and styles team ? Formed a team strongly operations oriented, with commitment to change Change as a ? Process of change led by two co-presidents, with project top management team as the key work group ? All other important change projects co-ordinated in single room at HQ (the ‘war room’) Develop new ? De? ned new competencies primarily in terms of competencies and people, for instance front-line workers have to be capabilities multi-skilled and ? xible, and managers have to be leaders ? Made incentives geared to competence building ? Invested in building new routines such as room cleaning Obtain external ? Obtained prior commitment from main board to stakeholder large-scale change and to its ? nancial costs support Redistribute ? Increase the span of control and remove layers of power and management to give more power to the front line change the structures ? Involved middle and front line in the change process, giving them power to shape the outcomes ? Accepted from a front-line manager the name ‘Back to the Future’ as the title for the overall change programme ?
Abolished the formal TQM system, allowing frontline workers to be empowered to make decisions Design the ? Removed many layers of hierarchy so that each communication hotel reports directly into the TMT. This gives voice strategy to the front line and making it easier for the messages from the top to reach them ? Organised 12 three-day meetings with hotel managers, set up progress groups, and re? ective clubs and many other such meetings Shape new ? Recruit new people and eliminate top managers behaviours not committed to change ? Get all middle managers to participate in collective symbolic actions (e. . paint a common picture) ? Publicise key individual actions at local level that symbolise new ways of working ? Hold distinctly local activities in hotels to reinforce the balance between standardisation and individuality Long Range Planning, vol 33 2000 785 Even more important to top management than occupancy data were the views of lower level managers that customers were not being properly served, and the view of those on the front line that many were getting poor value for money. One front desk employee explained vividly the general lack of ? xibility and lack of customer orientation caused by overly rigid enforcement of procedures: When a client comes in at ten o’clock in the evening and asks for the room rate, what do you do when you tell him the rack rate (full price) and he says ‘That is too expensive for me, could you not do it for a lower price? ’ I had to say ‘No, I am sorry sir, I am not allowed to deal with prices. ’ While many organisations reduce the size of their teams when in a crisis, Novotel went in the opposite direction. Novotel formed a new top-team that took action Individuals can do little in an organisation, collectively they can move the world.
Central to managing strategic change in many organisations is the formation of a motivated team, galvanised by mutual trust, empowered, and composed of individuals who complement each other in terms of cognitive styles and styles of authority. 15 In the case of Novotel the appointment of two new co-presidents was a major step. Having two at the head of an ambitious project helps a lot: it provides mutual encouragement, reduces the risks of individual biases, and increases the capacity of interactions with the other members of the organisation. Most ? mportantly, Philippe Brizon and Gilles Pelisson had different and complementary skills and styles. Some senior managers described Brizon as ‘an intellectual with an artistic mind ’, ‘excellent with ? gures’, ‘marketing-oriented ’, and ‘visionary’. According to Jung’s typology of cognitive styles he was viewed as an ? ‘intuitive’ and a ‘thinker’. Pelisson was regarded as very ‘operations-minded’, ‘close to the terrain and the people’, and ‘an effective implementer of strategies’. According to Jung’s typology of cognitive styles he was viewed as a ‘feeler’ and a ‘sensor’. 6
Together, in tandem, they combined the necessary qualities to stimulate and conduct innovation: imagination, motivation, planning and experience. The next major step was the transformation of the top management team. While many organisations reduce the size of their teams when in a crisis, Novotel went in the opposite direction. The previous team of eight members was changed to a team of 18, of whom 12 were directors of operations. This was a very operationminded top management team. To counter the danger that ? reater size would undermine effectiveness Brizon and Pelisson assembled their core management team very quickly and took in people whom they could trust and who had previously demonstrated their desire to innovate. The team at the top usually has the formal authority to make decisions concerning the four dimensions of change: strategymaking, developing resources, reorganising and promulgating new norms of behaviour. If they are smart, they recognise that 786 Managing Change at Novotel they can be the co-authors of the new strategy and they personify the new norms of behaviour.
Clearly the members of the management team convey symbols of innovation, deliberately or not. In the case of Novotel, the tandem of two young new co-presidents recalled the glorious entrepreneurial innovative epoch of the co-founders of the company 25 years before. The duo did not subscribe to the myth of the powerful charismatic visionary leader who saves the ? rm and its people from danger. They believed in a skilful, motivated top team with complementary styles and exemplary behaviour. In Novotel change was conceived as a project Change can be formulated as a strategic project that can be initiated by the top team and re? ed and updated by the operational units. In such a mode of operation, the change process takes a hybrid form between two extreme modes of strategymaking: vision-mission on the one hand against long-range revolving plans on the other. The ‘strategic project’ is composed of three parts. A largely qualitative long-term scenario at the corporate level and at the level of each business; a bunch of focused projects concerning a few major strategic moves, very concrete short-term (one year) action plans; and a decentralised scanning system for real-time updating of strategic options. 17 Such a system was set up at Novotel in 1993.
The project was composed of a few pages that explained the new identity of the company, in terms of competitive advantage, key resources, organisational formula and norms of behaviour. Then a simple framework was adopted that was composed of the three items: clients, administration (costs) and people (the ‘tripod’) to guide the formulation of strategies from the corporate level to the level of each hotel. These items re? ected the business necessities of restoring pro? ts and growth. Novotel went further, and established simple measures to identify progress, release energy and goad employees to deliver.
The walls of the ‘war room’ in Evry were lined with charts, each representing one Novotel, and grouped by regions. Each chart contained a few simple performance measures (under the headings: clients, costs and people).
Adhesive stars indicated improvement programmes and degrees of progress in the implementation of action plans. Meetings at the regional level, and ‘open space’ meetings between hotel managers and the top management ful? lled the tasks of environmental scanning. The success of the business project approach was not related to the use of external consultants.
Novotel did not use any major consulting ? rm, and the consultants were anthropologists (not from a business school! ).
This choice had logic, management was concerned to preserve the best from the past that would build a platform for the future. Novotel developed new competencies and capabilities The resource-based view of the ? rm emphasises that ? rms cannot change their orientation without developing new com787 Long Range Planning, vol 33 2000 All front-line staff became multi-skilled, multi-task workers petencies and capabilities. 18 This takes time.
Hiring and grafting may accelerate the process, but in a large organisation generally the mass of individuals has to go through a gradual learning experience (both training and on the job).
Organisations need to be focused on the population of critical persons, those involved in the most critical tasks and interfaces. Most strategic changes require very signi? cant intangible investments of this sort. 19 At Novotel in 1993 the top management focused on the personal development of the 280 hotel general managers, clearly the critical persons in the rejuvenation of Novotel. After carefully de? ing the new pro? le and role of hotel managers, and after selecting the individuals that had the potential to become ? ‘Ma? tres de Maison’, an assessment centre was set up. All hotel managers went through assessment to facilitate the design of personal development plans and start tailor-made training programmes. This was the ? rst step of the ambitious programme ` for developing human resources: ‘Progres Novotel’. In this programme the competence of all employees was assessed, and starting from 1994 monitored large-scale training programmes were implemented by the ‘Accor Academy’.
By taking these steps, the task of change was delegated from the large organisation of more than 33,000 people to 280 units, each of which typically had 120 people. This delegation also allowed the units to act more quickly than the organisation as a whole. Moreover, each unit could tailor its responses to ? t the unique reservoirs of skills and local environment. The structure also allowed the units to reinforce the new message that standardisation was no longer the watchword and stress the need for greater ? exibility and customer orientation.
As a result, all frontline staff became multi-skilled, multi-task workers who had an improved capacity to please and satisfy the customer. Novotel obtained external stakeholder support The success of ambitious projects often relies on the use of external resources, and at least the support or the neutrality of powerful external stakeholders. Negotiating and leveraging resources and support from stakeholders (clients, suppliers, investors, etc) can be crucial in new business ventures; it may also crucial to foster radical change in mature organisations. 0 Ideas such as the balanced score card are predicated on these principles. 21 At Novotel in 1993 the negotiation took place within the Accor group with the co-presidents of Accor. On the basis of their pro? ject outline and early results, Brizon and Pelisson, negotiated and obtained the support of the corporate level, and the ? nancial resources to restore the hotels and achieve intangible investments. In this case, these were substantial resources exceeding one billion FFrs. 22 Most of this was needed to pay for the redeployment of excess workers, the brand relaunch, and the upgrading of the physical capital.
Other expenses included retraining the existing workforce and paying for specialist projects to deal with speci? c issues. 788 Managing Change at Novotel Novotel redistributed power and changed structures The politics of radical change involve external stakeholders as well as coalitions, groups, and individuals within the organisation. Radical change generally questions the existing, formal and informal power structure and requires a new distribution of power. 23 By de? nition the top management team has the authority and the responsibility of distributing power.
For change to be effective, there are two main rules for this redistribution: a) give more power to the middle managers and lower echelons; and b) empower the individuals and the organisational units who are in charge of critical activities and demonstrate a positive attitude toward the project. These two rules may sound simplistic to those who have experienced the complexities of restructuring or re-engineering, however in Novotel’s case they led to a number of precise applications. 24 ? For instance, Brizon and Pelisson decided to empower the 280 hotel general managers (at least those who were willing and cap? ble to ful? l the new role of ‘Ma? tre de Maison’).
Practically, they reduced the management superstructure (head of? ce) by two layers, so that every hotel general manager reported directly to a member of the top management team (one of the 12 directors of operations) and were only one step away from the copresidents. This structure gave more power to operations. The 12 directors of operations were selected from former regional directors. Hotel managers and the rest of the staff were also empowered by the suppression of other systems that impeded ? xibility and responsiveness. The most notable of all these systems was the quality control system (‘les 95 boulons’) that had been giving false signals about the organisation’s health and that was inhibiting local and individual initiatives. By abolishing this system quickly, top management released energy and gave power to the front-line workers. In addition, all hotels were required to reduce their internal structures by at least one layer, and most removed even more layers, which further reinforced the importance of the front line.
Novotel designed the communication Not only is information power, but its effective deployment can shape perceptions and help change behaviour. In times of radical changes communication of strategic priorities and debates on strategic issues may have several functions: they may concentrate efforts, reduce perceived uncertainties, progressively convince the mass, contribute to personal development, stimulate creativity, and translate general ideas into concrete projects. However communication ? ows have to be selective and carefully managed in order to avoid dilution and waste of time.
Two main principles should guide the design of the communication network: ? rst, the upper echelons should be easily accessible for discussion (not just ‘one-minute management’) and members of the top management teams should go out and meet staff where the action takes place, in other words face-to-face communication is 789 Long Range Planning, vol 33 2000 needed. Second, the set of meetings (committees, project groups, task forces, etc. ) should have balance: some projects should originate at the top (top-down) and some should originate at the bottom (bottom-up), some should be speci? to a unit and some should be across units (functional or regional), most of them are temporary (until the goal has been reached) and some will be maintained when they usefully complement the hierarchical structure. Novotel adopted these principles from the start. The strategic project ‘Back to the Future’ was re? ned and multiplied in 12 three-day meetings in spring 1993. The meetings were organised by each director of operations with his or her 25 hotel general managers and were attended by the co-presidents. A second category of top-down workshops were organised—the ‘progress groups’.
These groups operated across geographical areas and sometimes across functions with the aim to improve service, and/or reduce costs, and/or improve management. Bottom-up ‘re? ective clubs’ were set up for improvement inside a given hotel, and bottom-up ‘clubs’ were organised across hotels by managers who shared problems and could share solutions. At a more general level, Novotel continued with yearly open-space meetings. The general meeting of October 1993 was an opportunity of face-to-face large-scale communication. Novotel shaped new behaviours The above actions combined to shape new norms of behaviour at Novotel.
Particularly, the members of the top management team can become role models for the staff, and some of their acts can take a symbolic meaning. 25 Any discordance in this domain may nullify the effects of other actions. When consistency is achieved, the question becomes: ‘How should top management affect the development of new behaviour norms? ’ If top management is to formalise the new norms, write them down and communicate them, they need to make it clear how these new norms are translated into very concrete normal practices (that illustrate and prove the respect of the norm).
Without this, confusion is likely.
The second step is to recruit new members according to their personal behaviour, and to help individuals change their behaviour through personal development programmes. The third step is to reinforce behaviour in the appraisal and reward systems, alongside performance and/or competence. The co-presidents of Novotel and the new directors of operations took care to personify the desired behaviour in the eyes of the staff. They sometimes used symbolic effects to reinforce their message. For example, during the October convention the participants painted together a huge picture representing ‘Back to the Future’.
This picture allowed individual expression, but emphasised the unity of the whole. The picture was cut in 280 pieces and every manager at that meeting took his/her piece back home. Other messages were more formal. Some new norms of behaviour were articulated in a widespread document, and communicated repeatedly at events such as the October convention, 790 Managing Change at Novotel when new recruits were brought in and when personal development plans were discussed. In Novotel, managing radical change required efforts in all the eight above domains, overlooking any would have probably compromised or delayed the process.
When combined, they produced a systemic effect necessary to overcome inertia or blockages. As emphasised, some actions ful? lled the political requirements of change; some actions ful? lled the cognitive requirements of change; and some ful? lled normative-symbolic requirements. Indeed the political, the cognitive, and the symbolic facets are inseparable. Appropriate timing It is commonly believed that speedy change requires doing things differently from that of more evolutionary change. 26 In the case of Novotel, we found this was not so.
Far from trying to take short cuts, the management just appeared to do the basic things more quickly than usual. It seems that time and rhythm are important in managing change, things have to be done in a certain order even if one leaves room for some disorder. In the case of mature companies undertaking a change process, Baden-Fuller and Stopford proposed that rejuvenation should go through four successive stages: galvanise, simplify, build, and leverage. 27 Before that, someone (in the top management team, or in a local unit, or among shareholders) has to make sense of signals that trigger change.
In Table 3 we list these four key stages and note alongside the details of the timing of the moves of Novotel’s management. It can be seen that there is a correspondence, which we amplify below. Regarding the ? rst category, ‘galvanise’, usually it is top management that has to make sense of signals for change. Some (external and/or internal) pressure is necessary to stimulate the desire to change, but the pressure must not be too high, otherwise it may reduce the capacity to react (insuf? cient resources and/or low degrees of freedom).
Put differently there is a window of opportunity for action, before it may be too early, and after it may be too late. Some signals may not be evident and/or may not be consonant with the cognitive schemas of decision-makers. 28 Hence freedom of speech and listening to expressions of dissatisfaction or doubt within the organisation is a prerequisite of re? exivity and reactivity. At Novotel the use of large-scale ‘open-space’ meetings showed early signals of a need for change: hotel managers felt that things were going wrong and said they wanted more autonomy as early as April 1992.
As noted earlier, it seems that the top management of the Accor group was able to recognise these signals, despite the good news of record pro? ts in December 1991. The Accor top management also had other news from rival divisions. Unlike past years, it seems that few people wanted to be transferred into Novotel from other divisions. This further supported the notion that all was not well. Rather than take short cuts, the management appeared to do the basic things more quickly than usual Long Range Planning, vol 33 2000 791 Table 3.
Timing of steps for rejuvenation The Conceptual Step: and Novotel’s Timing Making sense of the signals: April 1992 to December 1992 Novotel’s Actions During This Period Galvanising the top team: January 1993 to March 1993 Simplifying the agenda: January 1993 to June 1993 Ignore signals of record pro? ts and positive results of TQM Focus on customer dissatisfaction and junior employee dissatisfaction Appoint new people committed to change De? ne their role as change leaders Reduce number of reporting levels Abandon costly in? exible control systems Simplify reports to ? e items Building new capabilities: May New Spirit 1993 to December 1993 New role de? nitions for managers as leaders Make junior staff ? exible and multiskilled Build new image Establish new purchasing system Establish new operating systems Leveraging the advantages: End Require all achievements to be 1993 onwards communicated Form cross-functional, crossgeographical and cross-hierarchical teams to communicate dif? culties and common successes Keep pressure to change high even after good results appear An important early stage in the crescendo model is to simplify the organisation.
Simplifying the business reduces costs, concentrates scarce resources on a smaller agenda and so increases the chances of effective results. Simpli? cation also signals that something positive is happening. As Table 3 shows, like many others Novotel reduced the number of levels in the hierarchy. This led to reduced costs. In Novotel’s case, no hotels were closed, but special attention was given to the 10 worst performing hotels (about 5 per cent of the total).
Many ? rms do not understand the importance of cutting out costly systems when there is a crisis.
They tend to think that more information is required. In fact, the problem is often that the systems give wrong signals and the people will do closer to the right thing if they are given the freedom. This was certainly the case in Novotel, where the total quality management (TQM) systems re? ected old organisational imperatives rather than the changing customer needs. Novotel abolished the bureaucratic 792 Managing Change at Novotel quality control systems that gave false messages and set up the simple operational planning system in the ‘war room’. All reports were simpli? d to speed up communication and to increase effectiveness. All these actions, and many more, were taken during the ? rst six months of 1993. They allowed the organisation to shed people and costly procedures that were not adding value. 29 ‘Building’ comes after cutting, it is the third stage in the crescendo model. In comparison with sensing, galvanising and cutting, building is far more dif? cult. It is here that the actions of Novotel really stand out: New Spirit for the group; New de? nition of the role of general managers (maitres de maison); New assessment and reward system; Make staff ? xible with respect to tasks (‘polyvalence’); Build a new image; Create new simpli? ed internal communications system; Establish new purchasing systems; Establish new systems for operations in areas such as room cleaning. At Novotel the ? rst steps in building the new organisation were taken by the top management team at the beginning of 1993 during the simpli? cation stage. Progressively, in spring, building was extended to include actions led by hotel general managers. The building phase bloomed in summer 1993 and went on for about a year. Learning started slowly.
Over time the organisation invested in deepening existing skills, acquiring new ones and developing new systems. Teamwork was developed ? rst on a small scale to deal with essential tasks but then growing across the whole organisation. The last stage in the crescendo model is about leveraging advantages and maintaining the momentum. Leveraging capabilities means two things: the development of competences and capabilities is extended to the whole organisation including the lower levels in the hierarchy, and the local experiments that pay off are transferred to the rest of the ? rm.
Maintaining the momentum is another challenge. After a year or more, the change agents may feel the need to relax and exploit the changes that have already been made, to some extent this is a normal attitude and some opportunities to relax should be given to the ones who have been in the front. However too much relaxation may end in heavy sleep, during which competitors imitate the best strategies and reduce the gap, a phenomenon that Miller called the ‘Icarus paradox’. 30 Then the challenge is to stimulate a continuous ? ow of innovations, and consider change (and not equilibrium) as the principle of life.
At Novotel the development of competencies was extended to the whole population of employees starting from 1994 with the ` ‘Progres Novotel’ programme. The experimentation taken up by the clubs and the progress groups was extended to other hotels. 793 Long Range Planning, vol 33 2000 Highly-skilled competent members of staff were asked to act as consultants and advisors to their counterparts in the other units. Essentially momentum was maintained by the creation of many teams that crossed functional, regional and hierarchical boundaries.
The Novotels in other continents became more active in the leverage stage. The ? ow of innovations continued for some time but slowed down in 1995, precisely when the ? rst signs of success (internal job rotation, sales turnover, and pro? ts) became evident. Ambivalences and dialectics; process and content Describing the processes for change is easy, achieving them is another matter, especially for executives in large complex organisations. One key success factor for Novotel was the loose-tight combination often mentioned by other management writers studying successful process.
The processes and content of Novotel’s changes were characterised by this loose-tight ambivalence and hyper-dialectics in three domains. These were deliberation and experimentation, integration and differentiation, and preservation and transformation. Deliberation and experimentation In successful cases of business rejuvenation, Baden-Fuller and Stopford noted that: ‘The common purpose expressed in terms of visions and a direction for progress is typically phrased in simple terms that all can understand. Making progress along the chosen path requires managers to experiment and to discover what can work and what fails. 31 This ambivalence of the strategy process has been an important theme in organisation studies, different authors taking different perspectives in relation to this theme. 32 Strategic ‘deliberation’ is a dominantly ‘top-down’ approach. Information and in? uences may originate from all parts of the organisation (and beyond) but the upper echelons are responsible for the corporate (global) and business (local) strategy design, and the strategy, once formulated, is communicated to the lower echelons for local adaptations and implementation.
Experimentation requires actions, and action is taken at the middle and lower echelons and at the local level in the organisation. Thus strategic ideas based on experimentation follow a ‘bottom-up’ process. Bower analysed the two processes, top-down from global to local and bottom-up from local to global, and concluded that they should be combined for effective strategy-making. 33 Mintzberg and Waters revealed another facet of the deliberation-experimentation ambivalence, the ‘realised’ strategy ‘walks on two feet’: ‘deliberate’ plans—voluntaristic normative anticipations, and ‘emergent’ patterns—learned in action. 4 The deliberative approach also corresponds to what Burgelman described as a process of ‘retention-selection-variation’. In the retention phase the strategy designed by managers (a set of choices under 794 Managing Change at Novotel constraints) is prescribed to the whole organisation. 35 Through selection managers retain and stimulate the emerging initiatives that are consistent with their general orientations. Hence the organisation progresses towards a state of equilibrium.
Then variation, individual and local autonomy and creativity is necessary to stimulate new dynamics of change. On the other hand the experimentation approach corresponds to Burgelman’s description of creative evolution as a process of ‘variation-selection-retention’. In the variation phase individual local initiatives are stimulated and emerge. Then selection retains some of these initiatives and retention consolidates them and gives them the status and the scope of organisational strategies.
Burgelman concluded that the two processes often coexist in effective organisations. Vandangeon-Derumez opposed the concepts of ‘prescribed change’ vs ‘constructed change’ and showed that ? rms that adopt the ? rst approach focus on de? ning the content of strategy, whereas ? rms that adopt the second approach de? ne the organisational processes that will give birth to strategies. 36 Again the two approaches are viewed as complementary. Novotel is a case of ambivalent change process in which deliberation and experimentation were intertwined.
Open space meetings, such as the one in Fontainebleau (April 1992) where hotel managers expressed their wish to be more autonomous, were important elements of a bottom-up process for the emergence of variations. In December 1992 the two new co-presidents drafted an outline of their strategy to ‘Re-Novotelise Novotel’. This strategy was expressed in a few simple concepts: the tripod for improvements (clients, costs, people), and the new role for hotel general managers. They shared these views and enriched them with the 16 other members of the new top management team and with the consultants (? st quarter 1993).
Then the top management set up the processes by which bottom-up initiatives could emerge: the 12 meetings organised by directors of operations with the co-presidents and the hotel general managers in their business area. These meetings also gave the top management team the opportunity to communicate the new orientations down the management structure. Progress groups, organised by the top management who selected the topics and the participants, also contributed to re? ne the project. On the other hand the ‘clubs’, within hotels and between hotel managers contributed to variations, ? st experimented at the local level, and often transferred to the whole organisation. Indeed most of the innovations developed by Novotel in the project ‘Back to the Future’ were born in the multiple workgroups that had been set up or encouraged by the top management team: the new communication, the Dolphi Club, the new organisation of housekeeping, the bathroom of the year 2000. Integration and differentiation The dialectics of unity and diversity and the movements towards these opposite states—integration and differentiation—is another important theme in organisation studies.
Generally the Most of the innovations developed by Novotel were born in the workgroups Long Range Planning, vol 33 2000 795 Individuals with a high level of competence in their job were asked to communicate their knowledge to others levels or organisational integration and differentiation are considered in relation with environmental characteristics, particularly the international structure and dynamics of industries. 37 Here we take distance with these contingency frameworks and suggest that any organisation should maintain some unity and some diversity so as to stimulate change.
According to Bateson without the tension that exists between simultaneous opposites in organisations, a cycle of ‘schismogenesis’ occurs, a degenerative syndrome where an attribute in the organisation perpetuates itself until it becomes extreme and thereby dysfunctional. 38 Instead of trying to maximise anything an organisation should seek to ensure that it maintains at least a minimal threshold of desirable attributes, for instance a minimal degree of consensus but not so much as to sti? e the dissension that is the life blood of innovation. 39 The one and global identity of the ? rm should leave some room for differentiation (or diversi? ation) processes that lead to multiple local identities. In turn some local identities should be transferred to the rest of the organisation and become part of the one and global identity. 40 The ? rst years of Novotel saw extreme standardisation of some dimensions of the services—rooms, meals, style. However there was also an entrepreneurial spirit with attitudes to customers, expansion, new ideas and in the direct relationships between hotel managers and the presidents. Growth and bureaucratisation in the 1980s reduced entrepreneurship, for instance with the ‘95 boulons’ quality control system. Back to the Future’ maintained the basic principle of standardisation but it also gave room for local initiatives and differentiation. The ‘95 boulons’ were abolished and replaced by general norms of behaviour: trust, common sense, listening to others, rigour, solidarity, courage and humour. Individual initiatives were encouraged in several areas: decoration of hotels, menus, entertainments, etc. Then some successful innovations were transferred across hotels and regions. Some individuals with a high level of competence in their job (for instance managing a bar or direct marketing to corporate clients) were asked o communicate their knowledge to the others, becoming ‘pilots’ in the generalisation of best practice. The (multi-hotel) clubs organised by hotel managers had the same function. In brief, starting from 1993 Novotel reinvented the necessary ambivalence, the creative dialectical tension between unity and diversity. Preservation and transformation Volberda emphasises the paradoxical nature of ? exibility, and the tensions between the control capability of management and the controllability of the organisation. 41 He suggests that the organisation can move back up the natural path from the planned to the ? xible if it adopts a more organic structure, and a more heterogeneous, open and externally orientated culture. However, if it fails to retain some stability, the organisation becomes chaotic. Weick too sees that ? exibility without stability results in 796 Managing Change at Novotel chaos. 42 Stability relies on the preservation of some existing characteristics on top of which new characteristics are developed. This view originates in the concept of ‘creative evolution’ de? ned by the French philosopher Henri Bergson. 3 For him everything which lives (including organisations composed of human beings) endures: the past is prolonged into the present, time is duration, and duration is a source of creation. In other words the past cannot and should not be denied, our identity resulting from our past experience should be preserved, at least part of it. For Bergson creation also springs from a vital impetus that drives us toward the future. Our identity is transformed by the impetus of our desired future that drives our new creative acts. Making sense of and learning from these experiences becomes part of our renewed identity. 4 This is how the opposition between identity and change can be resolved and become a constructive tension. The members of an organisation can withstand the stress and uncertainties of change programmes for sometime but not for too long. On the one hand ‘going for the big hit’ or cutting stages and going directly from galvanising the top team to leveraging generally leads to failure. On the other hand advancing too slowly generally creates feelings of lassitude, frustration, and distrust among the motivated members of the organisation. The conception of time as ‘duration’ is typical of Bergson’s ideas about ‘creative evolution’.
Simply put, the person who conceives time as duration considers that the past, the present and the future are equally important and intertwined. The past and its positive and negative in? uence on the present and the future are not denied, and what we do in the present is seen in a continuous ? ow of actions from the past to the future. Indeed at Novotel the fundamental theme of the project ‘Back to the Future’ expressed this concept of time as duration: in its early years Novotel found the entrepreneurial innovative spirit that was required to face the challenge of 1992 and beyond.
The project communicated a sense of identity that was preserved while at the same time transformed. This was one of the many ambivalences of the innovation process at Novotel. As its differentiation had eroded, confronted with increased competitive pressures at the beginning of the 1990s, Novotel managers were pushed by their vital impetus and driven toward new creative acts. However they did not deny their past. On the contrary they looked in their past to ? nd traces of their identity on which they could rely to innovate in the future. Indeed the spirit of the change process was contained in the title of the project, ‘Back to the Future’.
They abstracted the entrepreneurial and innovative characteristics of the early age, in that sense the transformation preserved the original identity of Novotel by being a pure rejuvenation (recovering the vigour of youth).
The consultant anthropologists helped managers to travel in the history of their organisation and ? nd the necessary con? dence to embark in a transformation. The reconciliation of past and future was symbolised in the tandem of new co-presidents, Philippe 797 Long Range Planning, vol 33 2000 ? ? Brizon and Gilles Pelisson who also re? ected the tandem of Pelisson elder and Dubrule, the founders of Novotel.
Discussion: inspiration for developing theories and improving managerial practice The story of Novotel’s rejuvenation may inspire theorists and practitioners. A single case study cannot test theory, but can (modestly) help develop them. We suggest that Novotel’s story corroborates some existing frameworks about managing radical strategic change; suggests some important parameters that moderate relationships between managerial actions and success; and stimulates the search for an integrative and dialectical theory. Developing theories First, there is a strand of writing that emphasises the multifaceted systemic process of change.
Tichy’s Three Stranded Rope presents the technical, political and cultural dimensions of change processes, and Johnson comes even closer to our three strands of cognitive, political and symbolic. 45 When describing the practice of change, we believe it is important to show our three dimensions. Most managerial actions have a multidimensional character. For example, when an organisation forms a complementary and motivated top team, its actions will have cognitive, political and symbolic implications and effects. Our case shows how the three dimensions appear many times.
Second, the Novotel story shows the importance of timing when theorising about strategic change. We already drew attention to theoretical frameworks that include time as a moderator of effectiveness, and noted that when change is too slow it fails the competitive test, and when it is too fast it often results in instability. We also draw attention to the frameworks that argue for a sequence of actions. For instance that simpli? cation must precede building the new. Such views are exempli? ed in the Baden-Fuller and Stopford crescendo model that has both sequence and rhythm in its outlook. 6 Timing may depend on a combination of internal and external factors that are partially within and partially outside the control of top managers. 47 A careful analysis of the scenario facing Novotel highlights four parameters that de? ne its particular circumstances at the outset of the change process. (1) The internal political forces were favourable to change, and (2) being part of a large group, Accor, gave a high ? exibility in terms of resources. Speci? cally at the end of 1992 the majority of hotels’ general managers asked for more autonomy and freedom to innovate, and ? ancial and human resources (job rotation) could be negotiated with the corporate level. Then (3) the top management built the sense of pressure (declining performance and increased competition) to stimulate the will to change; and ? nally (4) Novotel still had suf? cient resources for top management initiative to be offensive. By offensive we mean the ability to regain the competitive advantage and leadership, as opposed to being 798 Managing Change at Novotel defensive and running after industry leaders. An offensive strategy has different timing from a defensive strategy: one can lead and the other usually follows.
In sum, the circumstances were favourable for the kinds of strategic choice that John Child discusses where organisational agents enjoy a kind of ‘bounded’ autonomy: they can take initiatives without being completely limited by the environment in which they are operating. 48 We suggest that these favourable circumstances may explain the remarkable speed of Novotel’s rejuvenation and radical change processes. The possibility of achieving fast change may be considerably reduced if some or all of the parameters are reversed. For example different outcomes may occur if there was strong internal political resistance; and (or) there was little ? xibility in internal resources; and (or) there was a serious de? ciency of capabilities that made the business lag behind competition. Likewise, not having a strong external crisis gave managers more room for manoeuvre, albeit with less incentive to do something.
Third and most important, we believe that our story sheds insight into a dialectical framework on change. Dialectical processes of organisational change are often described as a con? ict between two (or more) entities who have opposing views that are resolved through a synthesis. 9 At Novotel the tension between many hotel general managers who wanted more autonomy and the top management stimulated the change process. Later on tensions between the past and the future, and between global standardisation and local differentiation stimulated the search of creative solutions. In the case of Novotel the dialectical movement was not destructive (the defeat of one entity by the other), it was characterised by the preservation of original concepts (or forces) in the synthesis within a single complex thought. 50 This process recalls the dynamics of change described by Charles Hampden-Turner as the resolution of dilemma. 1 It is important to note that, in the case of Novotel, the tensions between the opposite forces were maintained after the synthesis. In other words the tensions never stop, and the synthesis does not mean closure. 52 We do not wish to construct here a theory of dialectical movement, but we suggest that Merleau Ponty’s concept of ‘hyperdialectics’ could help clarify the nature of the creative tensions experienced at Novotel. 53 Hyperdialectics stresses creative tensions between opposites (here organisational characteristics), and the coexistence of the opposites.
In this case, it is ambivalence that appeared to characterise Novotel’s rejuvenation. Inspiring practice Practice does not just require good theory, but concrete examples with methods and outcomes. The Novotel story tells us that anyone, or organisation group, interested in questioning its identity could learn something from consulting ethnographers, especially if the challenge of the change is to go back to the future. It tells ? us that managing change in tandem, as Pelisson and Brizon did, may be a very strong concept that can be used elsewhere. Regular An offensive strategy has different timing from a defensive strategy
Long Range Planning, vol 33 2000 799 uses of open-space meetings that help express dissatisfaction from the bottom up, in a constructive manner, may be a very powerful device to stimulate smooth revolutions. These and many other concrete ideas from the Novotel story can be used in other places and circumstances. As far as frameworks are concerned, those who have to orchestrate a change process may be inspired by the following guidelines derived from this case-study. Assess the four parameters that in? uence the speed of change and the politics of the project. Are internal political forces favourable? Is there a ? xibility in resources? Will the environment permit latitude in the chosen courses of action? Can the organisation be offensive or must it be defensive? When they are favourable, fast change may be accomplished more easily. Design a systemic set of actions that matches cognition, politics and symbolism into a single framework. The Novotel actions described in Table 3 are obviously particular, but may be a useful starting point. Design and control the dynamics of the change process over time. The crescendo model proposed by Baden-Fuller and Stopford may well apply: galvanise, simplify, build and leverage.
Whether the project is moving slowly or quickly, we know of several other organisations that failed because the sequence and rhythm of destruction (simpli? cation) and creation (building) were not adequate. In more concrete terms, there were cases where the redundancies and divestments (cutting) were not followed by a suf? cient intensity of grafting and growing. Understand change as a dialectical process, and adopt dialectical instead of binary logic. This is not easy, as it touches the cognitive structures of change masters and relates to their ability to accept dialogue instead of imposing discourse through traditional rhetoric.
It is not easy as it implies that the process will be both deliberate and emergent; orchestrated and improvised. Although we separated the text on theorising and practice, all in all, these practical guidelines are very similar to the theory developments suggested above. The only difference is that they are expressed in different words with a different style. In short, from the Novotel story, academics may see the value of organic theories that are synthetic and integrative rather than mechanistic.
