The Ethics of Organisational Change

Our attitude towards change is less than consistent. When we don’t like the status quo, we demand change. Aspiring politicians leverage that instinct. And yet when a leader tries to change the system our reaction is often to resist, whether out of fear, discomfort, or disagreement. Cynics recite Alphonse Karr’s quip: ‘The more things change, the more they stay the same.’ Or, as the Who put it in their classic song ‘We Won’t Get Fooled Again’: ‘Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.’

Skepticism and mistrust abound, particularly when change concerns an organisation that has breached public trust in the past. Legitimate suspicion and accountability are necessary, but maintaining a rigid, exclusionary stance that deprives an organisation of the opportunity to change can stall progress, with negative outcomes for institutions, their stakeholders, and wider society.

How do we assess if an organisation’s purported commitment to change is real? And how do we assess other stakeholders who have petitioned for change but resist it when confronted with genuine transformation?

Organisational change is complicated. There is hardly an entity that has a clean history or track record. Many organisations, in business and the nonprofit sector alike, have checkered pasts that still haunt them and taint their reputation, even if they are pivoting toward a nobler future. 

Adding to the complexity, cultural sentiments and standards of ethicality or best practice also change with time. What was once acceptable and considered normal is now demonised, if not cancelled. Who knows what tomorrow’s cultural norms and expectations will be?

In our new white paper, ‘The Ethics of Organizational Change’, Professor Michael Thate and I seek to analyse and measure both the organisation seeking to transform itself, as well as external actors and entities who are demanding change. We introduce a novel conceptual framework, the transformation assessment model (TAM), to help do this. TAM is a three-part framework to aid organisations and their leadership, as well as exogenous stakeholders and actors, to assess the viability of transformation plans and progress. TAM uses three interwoven metrics: believability, buy-in, and barometers (for people, process, and scrutiny). By employing these three vectors, an organisation can internally assess divergences or alignment within, as well as assess external entities involved in the social debate.

TAM helps discern whether an organisation is merely making tweaks at the margin or a change at the core. It can help to discover whether the purported change is sustainable and driven by organisations genuinely confronting their past, or a short-term response driven by scandal or crisis. And it holds external entities to the same standards and ethics of change.

While there may be something in cancel culture or exclusionary practices that is worth considering, there is also something inhumane and unnatural about cancel culture: It assumes a purity up to which none of us can measure. It excludes instead of includes, often limiting human progress and well-being. It’s our belief that a nobler way forward is possible with healthy scrutiny spread across all stakeholder segments.

To read the full paper from Professor Miller, visit faithandwork.princeton.edu

^[1] The views expressed within are the author’s own and were not influenced by nor do they necessarily reflect or represent the views of Philip Morris International or Princeton University.