Change may be appropriate when an organization has acquired new financial resources for either a short period of time (less than one year) or long period of time (three year or more). When new financial resources are available for a moderate length of time (two to three years), then it is usually more appropriate for an organization to stabilize — that is, improve, legitimate or link together — its current resources than to engage immediately in a planned change effort. After the new financial resources are gone, the organization must sustain its change momentum. This is only possible if the organization has initially stabilized its internal resources so that they might be used for the sustained change effort.
A mental health clinic, for instance, that has just received a large professional development grant, might be tempted to use it to bring in outside experts to conduct short-term workshops on new modes of patient care. Instead, some of the funds might initially be used to improve, legitimate and link together internal resources. Workshops might be conducted in which members of the clinic staff share their own successful experiences in treating specific patients or help each other identify those areas in which they each have specific expertise. Then an external consultant could be brought in to expand their horizons about alternative treatment strategies.
The external consultant would ensure that clinic staff members do not become too inbred or parochial in acknowledging and making use of internal resources. Frequently, organizations that receive grants for professional development programs rely too heavily on external resources and in this way create new morale problems among the staff. These organizations often become too dependent on outside help. Change, in this instance, often creates more problems than it solves.
Finally, change may be the most appropriate approach when the organization is confronted with a clearly formulated discrepancy between its current state of functioning and its desired state. Change efforts are advised if there is support, both within and outside the organization, for high-risk operations – that is, if there is a greater payoff for success than there is a penalty for failure. In these organizations, which are success-oriented, planned change is accepted as a given. Such an organization must guard against an attitude of change-for-its-own-sake. A success-orientation, however, is usually quite healthy and supportive of both proactive change and proactive stabilization.
