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CHAPTER 2 THE NATURE OF PLANNED CHANGE
PLANNED CHANGE AT THE SAN DIEGO COUNTY
REGIONAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY
T
he San Diego County Regional Airport
Authority (SDCRAA) was created by a
California state law in October 2001; this
gave it the responsibility to establish and
operate airports within San Diego County.
Most importantly, from Thella Bowens’s
perspective, the law required the San Diego Unified Port District (Port of San Diego) to transfer
operation of San Diego’s international airport to
the SDCRAA by January 2003. Bowens was the
current senior director of the Aviation Division
within the Port of San Diego that was responsible for operating the San Diego International Airport. When the law was passed, she was
named Interim Executive Director of the
SDCRAA, and assigned an interim advisory
board to help manage the transition.
Bowens’s tenure with the organization
gave her an important understanding of the
organization’s operations and its history. For
example, the San Diego International Airport
accounted for about $4.3 billion or roughly 4%
of San Diego’s regional economy. Forecasts
called for air travel to more than double to
35 million passengers by 2030, and contribute
up to $8 billion to the regional economy. In addition, Bowens had participated in the Aviation
Division’s strategic planning process in 2001.
She was well positioned to lead this effort.
As she thought about managing the startup of the SDCRAA, two broad but interdependent categories of initial activity emerged:
developing the transition plan and dealing
with the legal and regulatory issues.
DEVELOPING THE TRANSITION PLAN
In April 2002, Bowens took the senior team
from the old Aviation Division to an off-site
workshop to discuss the creation and management of an effective transition process. This
group understood the importance of SDCRAA
quickly becoming a stand-alone agency and the
need to be seen differently in the marketplace.
The group recommended revising the existing
strategic plan, to hire staff to research, discuss,
and create a transition plan, and to conduct
retreats with employees from multiple organizational levels. In response, Bowens chartered
the Airport Transition Team to ensure the
smooth and seamless transfer of operations
and public services provided by the airport
without regard to which agency was responsible for their provision.
In May 2002, seven employees were handpicked from the Aviation Division to become
members of the Airport Transition Team and
relieved of their day-to-day job responsibilities
so they could focus on the transition. The selection criteria included the ability to work within a
process yet think outside of the box, to communicate well with others in a team, and to influence directors and managers without having
formal authority. A one-and-a-half-day kick-off
meeting was held to set expectations, to communicate goals and responsibilities, and to initiate the team. A “war room” was established
for the team to keep records, hold meetings,
and serve as a communication hub. The team
named themselves the “Metamorphs.”
Many Metamorph members came from different parts of the organization and, having never
worked together, needed to rely on each other
to effectively design the transition process.
Senior team member Angela Shafer-Payne,
then director of Airport Business and Administration, worked closely with the Metamorphs and
led formal team-building activities throughout the
year. Through their work together, the Metamorphs discovered how large and daunting the
organizational change was and yet appreciated
the unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to
make an impact. As one member put it, “How
many times in your life can you say that you
helped put together a brand-new organization?”
The Metamorphs decided that to meet their
charter, any transition plan had to be designed
specifically to minimize disruption to customers
and service, minimize airport and nonairport
financial impacts, and properly address and
resolve all legal and regulatory matters. These
31
32
PART 1 OVERVIEW OF ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT
criteria guided the creation of 12 functional teams
(which expanded later to 19). Responsibility for the
teams was divided among the transition team members, and each team was composed of employees
from the old Aviation Division and other Port of San
Diego departments. Their mission was to collect
data, establish new or parallel functions for the
SDCRAA, and highlight any issues related to the
start-up of that particular function. Once the teams
were in place, they were given tools to use and
questions that needed to be addressed. Each team
set aside time to review all of the records in each
functional area. For example, the human resources
functional team consisted of Aviation Division
employees, HR professionals from the Port of
San Diego, and Port attorneys; it was charged with
developing the actual transition mechanism, HR
operations, and HR organizational structure. Another
team focused on the environmental issues involved
in the transition. They examined over 100 different
environmental permits held by the Port of San Diego
to understand if SDCRAA needed a similar permit,
needed to be a copermittee with the Port of
San Diego, or if the SDCRAA could stand alone. If
it were a stand-alone situation, then documentation
would be prepared to transfer the permit.
To ensure that no issues fell through the
cracks, three distinct peer reviews were held in
the summer and fall of 2002. The peer review
panels were staffed by professionals within the
aviation industry, people who had experienced a
transition of some type within an organization, or
those who were integral to the start-up of the organization. The first peer review panel examined the
transition plan and offered advice on whether to
add any other critical and/or missing components.
The second peer review panel, consisting of
mostly human resources professionals, examined
the proposed organizational structure. The final
peer review panel focused on the IT systems portion of the transition plan because of technology’s
critical role in the overall success of many of the
internal processes.
DEALING WITH THE LEGAL
AND REGULATORY ISSUES
By January 2002, the SDCRAA was not yet a full
agency and had only one employee, Thella Bowens.
Despite all the work of the Metamorphs and the
functional teams, and sometimes because of it,
Bowens also had to interface with the California legislature. The original legislation (California Senate Bill
AB93 [2001–2002]) provided a framework for setting
up the new agency but left many questions unanswered, including issues relating to property transfer
(SDCRAA would lease land from the Port on a 66-year
lease) and the transitioning of employees from one
public agency to another. To provide clarity and
another layer of understanding, “clean-up” legislation
(SB 1896) was passed in mid-2002. Together with the
original bill, the legislation protected employees to
ensure no loss of jobs or benefits. This gave the Metamorphs additional information and guidance to deal
with employee contract issues. For example, in the
middle of the transition planning process, the Port District had to renegotiate its union contract. The Metamorphs had to work closely with the airport’s external
counsel, the Port of San Diego counsel, and state
senators to ensure a smooth negotiation.
Finally, Bowens and the Metamorphs had to
address changes to federal security regulations outlined in the Aviation and Transportation Security Act
that resulted from the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Those events caused a number of disruptions for
many stakeholders in the air transportation industry.
They required the transition plan to include a component that focused on keeping costs contained to
enable aviation partners, the airlines, the gate gourmets, and tenants, to weather the storm.
IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION
The final transition plan was presented to the
interim board and then to the Board of Port Commissioners for approval in October 2002. The
approved plan was comprised of several components, including an IT conversion plan and the process for formally transferring responsibility to the
SDCRAA, but the key elements were human
resources and communication plans.
The human resources plan specified the transition of 145 budgeted Aviation Division employees to 52 vacancies plus the 90 other positions
identified by the Metamorphs to make the organization whole. The plan called for all of the positions
to be filled by mid-2005. The human resources
plan also provided for the purchase of services,
like the Harbor Police, from the Port of San Diego
until mid-2005.
CHAPTER 2 THE NATURE OF PLANNED CHANGE
The communication plan was critical to the
implementation phase. The Metamorphs regularly
carried information about their progress to coworkers in their respective departments. In addition,
communication meetings with the entire organization, called “all hands meetings,” were held to provide information about the transition. The Airport
Transition Plan contained a special emphasis on
the needs of the employee. Bowens understood
the sociotechnical nature of change and did not
want the human factor to be forgotten in the
midst of all the legal, technical, and other transitions. She included a number of changemanagement education sessions for all employees.
The change-management education sessions were
developed to reassure employees; to encourage
genuine, candid, frequent, high-quality communications; and to neutralize anxiety and fears.
During the sessions, employees were
(1) updated on the progress of the transition;
(2) introduced to change theories, models, and
concepts; and (3) encouraged to share their issues,
fears, anxieties, concerns, and creative ideas.
Employee input was organized into themes, then
documented and communicated to Bowens and
her direct reports. The leadership team was
committed to answering questions and addressing
concerns that emerged from the changemanagement sessions. Airport managers met regularly to select and answer questions for publication
33
in the organization newsletter or live communication
at “all hands meetings.” In addition, the employee
satisfaction survey was updated with questions to
learn about transition concerns.
Thella Bowens was named President and CEO
of the SDCRAA on January 1, 2003. By June 2003,
the SDCRAA had received awards based on superb
customer service and outstanding levels of performance. The SDCRAA, based on all available
metrics, is successfully operating San Diego’s international airport and serving over 15.2 million passengers on 620 daily flights in and out of the airport.
Part of the success is due to the way the transition
plan was developed. Because of the broad participation in its creation, many employees understood the
plan. When issues arose, identifying the personnel
to become part of an ad hoc problem-solving group
already familiar with the topic was easy.
“Ms. Bowens accomplished the extraordinary
job of leading a successful transition of the airport
from the Unified Port of San Diego to the Authority,”
said Joseph W. Craver, Authority (SDCRAA) Chairman. “She is highly regarded and respected for
both her breadth of knowledge of aviation management issues and her visionary leadership.” Thella
Bowens added, “Fortunately, we’ve been supported
by very dedicated professional employees who have
exhibited great resolve and sheer hard work through
the transition process, and continue to do so as we
create a ‘world-class’ organization.”
limited to the defined issues, although additional problems may be uncovered and may
need to be addressed. Similarly, the change process tends to focus on those organizational systems having specific problems, and it generally terminates when the problems
are resolved. Of course, the OD practitioner may contract to help solve additional
problems.
In recent years, OD has been increasingly concerned with fundamental change. As
described in Chapter 1, the greater competitiveness and uncertainty of today’s environment have led a growing number of organizations to alter drastically the way in which
they operate. In such situations, planned change is more complex, extensive, and long
term than when applied to incremental change.30 Because fundamental change involves
most features and levels of the organization, it is typically driven from the top, where
corporate strategy and values are set. OD practitioners help senior executives create a
vision of a desired future organization and energize movement in that direction. They
also help them develop structures for managing the transition from the present to the
Purchase answer to see full
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CHAPTER 2 THE NATURE OF PLANNED CHANGE
PLANNED CHANGE AT THE SAN DIEGO COUNTY
REGIONAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY
T
he San Diego County Regional Airport
Authority (SDCRAA) was created by a
California state law in October 2001; this
gave it the responsibility to establish and
operate airports within San Diego County.
Most importantly, from Thella Bowens’s
perspective, the law required the San Diego Unified Port District (Port of San Diego) to transfer
operation of San Diego’s international airport to
the SDCRAA by January 2003. Bowens was the
current senior director of the Aviation Division
within the Port of San Diego that was responsible for operating the San Diego International Airport. When the law was passed, she was
named Interim Executive Director of the
SDCRAA, and assigned an interim advisory
board to help manage the transition.
Bowens’s tenure with the organization
gave her an important understanding of the
organization’s operations and its history. For
example, the San Diego International Airport
accounted for about $4.3 billion or roughly 4%
of San Diego’s regional economy. Forecasts
called for air travel to more than double to
35 million passengers by 2030, and contribute
up to $8 billion to the regional economy. In addition, Bowens had participated in the Aviation
Division’s strategic planning process in 2001.
She was well positioned to lead this effort.
As she thought about managing the startup of the SDCRAA, two broad but interdependent categories of initial activity emerged:
developing the transition plan and dealing
with the legal and regulatory issues.
DEVELOPING THE TRANSITION PLAN
In April 2002, Bowens took the senior team
from the old Aviation Division to an off-site
workshop to discuss the creation and management of an effective transition process. This
group understood the importance of SDCRAA
quickly becoming a stand-alone agency and the
need to be seen differently in the marketplace.
The group recommended revising the existing
strategic plan, to hire staff to research, discuss,
and create a transition plan, and to conduct
retreats with employees from multiple organizational levels. In response, Bowens chartered
the Airport Transition Team to ensure the
smooth and seamless transfer of operations
and public services provided by the airport
without regard to which agency was responsible for their provision.
In May 2002, seven employees were handpicked from the Aviation Division to become
members of the Airport Transition Team and
relieved of their day-to-day job responsibilities
so they could focus on the transition. The selection criteria included the ability to work within a
process yet think outside of the box, to communicate well with others in a team, and to influence directors and managers without having
formal authority. A one-and-a-half-day kick-off
meeting was held to set expectations, to communicate goals and responsibilities, and to initiate the team. A “war room” was established
for the team to keep records, hold meetings,
and serve as a communication hub. The team
named themselves the “Metamorphs.”
Many Metamorph members came from different parts of the organization and, having never
worked together, needed to rely on each other
to effectively design the transition process.
Senior team member Angela Shafer-Payne,
then director of Airport Business and Administration, worked closely with the Metamorphs and
led formal team-building activities throughout the
year. Through their work together, the Metamorphs discovered how large and daunting the
organizational change was and yet appreciated
the unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to
make an impact. As one member put it, “How
many times in your life can you say that you
helped put together a brand-new organization?”
The Metamorphs decided that to meet their
charter, any transition plan had to be designed
specifically to minimize disruption to customers
and service, minimize airport and nonairport
financial impacts, and properly address and
resolve all legal and regulatory matters. These
31
32
PART 1 OVERVIEW OF ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT
criteria guided the creation of 12 functional teams
(which expanded later to 19). Responsibility for the
teams was divided among the transition team members, and each team was composed of employees
from the old Aviation Division and other Port of San
Diego departments. Their mission was to collect
data, establish new or parallel functions for the
SDCRAA, and highlight any issues related to the
start-up of that particular function. Once the teams
were in place, they were given tools to use and
questions that needed to be addressed. Each team
set aside time to review all of the records in each
functional area. For example, the human resources
functional team consisted of Aviation Division
employees, HR professionals from the Port of
San Diego, and Port attorneys; it was charged with
developing the actual transition mechanism, HR
operations, and HR organizational structure. Another
team focused on the environmental issues involved
in the transition. They examined over 100 different
environmental permits held by the Port of San Diego
to understand if SDCRAA needed a similar permit,
needed to be a copermittee with the Port of
San Diego, or if the SDCRAA could stand alone. If
it were a stand-alone situation, then documentation
would be prepared to transfer the permit.
To ensure that no issues fell through the
cracks, three distinct peer reviews were held in
the summer and fall of 2002. The peer review
panels were staffed by professionals within the
aviation industry, people who had experienced a
transition of some type within an organization, or
those who were integral to the start-up of the organization. The first peer review panel examined the
transition plan and offered advice on whether to
add any other critical and/or missing components.
The second peer review panel, consisting of
mostly human resources professionals, examined
the proposed organizational structure. The final
peer review panel focused on the IT systems portion of the transition plan because of technology’s
critical role in the overall success of many of the
internal processes.
DEALING WITH THE LEGAL
AND REGULATORY ISSUES
By January 2002, the SDCRAA was not yet a full
agency and had only one employee, Thella Bowens.
Despite all the work of the Metamorphs and the
functional teams, and sometimes because of it,
Bowens also had to interface with the California legislature. The original legislation (California Senate Bill
AB93 [2001–2002]) provided a framework for setting
up the new agency but left many questions unanswered, including issues relating to property transfer
(SDCRAA would lease land from the Port on a 66-year
lease) and the transitioning of employees from one
public agency to another. To provide clarity and
another layer of understanding, “clean-up” legislation
(SB 1896) was passed in mid-2002. Together with the
original bill, the legislation protected employees to
ensure no loss of jobs or benefits. This gave the Metamorphs additional information and guidance to deal
with employee contract issues. For example, in the
middle of the transition planning process, the Port District had to renegotiate its union contract. The Metamorphs had to work closely with the airport’s external
counsel, the Port of San Diego counsel, and state
senators to ensure a smooth negotiation.
Finally, Bowens and the Metamorphs had to
address changes to federal security regulations outlined in the Aviation and Transportation Security Act
that resulted from the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Those events caused a number of disruptions for
many stakeholders in the air transportation industry.
They required the transition plan to include a component that focused on keeping costs contained to
enable aviation partners, the airlines, the gate gourmets, and tenants, to weather the storm.
IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION
The final transition plan was presented to the
interim board and then to the Board of Port Commissioners for approval in October 2002. The
approved plan was comprised of several components, including an IT conversion plan and the process for formally transferring responsibility to the
SDCRAA, but the key elements were human
resources and communication plans.
The human resources plan specified the transition of 145 budgeted Aviation Division employees to 52 vacancies plus the 90 other positions
identified by the Metamorphs to make the organization whole. The plan called for all of the positions
to be filled by mid-2005. The human resources
plan also provided for the purchase of services,
like the Harbor Police, from the Port of San Diego
until mid-2005.
CHAPTER 2 THE NATURE OF PLANNED CHANGE
The communication plan was critical to the
implementation phase. The Metamorphs regularly
carried information about their progress to coworkers in their respective departments. In addition,
communication meetings with the entire organization, called “all hands meetings,” were held to provide information about the transition. The Airport
Transition Plan contained a special emphasis on
the needs of the employee. Bowens understood
the sociotechnical nature of change and did not
want the human factor to be forgotten in the
midst of all the legal, technical, and other transitions. She included a number of changemanagement education sessions for all employees.
The change-management education sessions were
developed to reassure employees; to encourage
genuine, candid, frequent, high-quality communications; and to neutralize anxiety and fears.
During the sessions, employees were
(1) updated on the progress of the transition;
(2) introduced to change theories, models, and
concepts; and (3) encouraged to share their issues,
fears, anxieties, concerns, and creative ideas.
Employee input was organized into themes, then
documented and communicated to Bowens and
her direct reports. The leadership team was
committed to answering questions and addressing
concerns that emerged from the changemanagement sessions. Airport managers met regularly to select and answer questions for publication
33
in the organization newsletter or live communication
at “all hands meetings.” In addition, the employee
satisfaction survey was updated with questions to
learn about transition concerns.
Thella Bowens was named President and CEO
of the SDCRAA on January 1, 2003. By June 2003,
the SDCRAA had received awards based on superb
customer service and outstanding levels of performance. The SDCRAA, based on all available
metrics, is successfully operating San Diego’s international airport and serving over 15.2 million passengers on 620 daily flights in and out of the airport.
Part of the success is due to the way the transition
plan was developed. Because of the broad participation in its creation, many employees understood the
plan. When issues arose, identifying the personnel
to become part of an ad hoc problem-solving group
already familiar with the topic was easy.
“Ms. Bowens accomplished the extraordinary
job of leading a successful transition of the airport
from the Unified Port of San Diego to the Authority,”
said Joseph W. Craver, Authority (SDCRAA) Chairman. “She is highly regarded and respected for
both her breadth of knowledge of aviation management issues and her visionary leadership.” Thella
Bowens added, “Fortunately, we’ve been supported
by very dedicated professional employees who have
exhibited great resolve and sheer hard work through
the transition process, and continue to do so as we
create a ‘world-class’ organization.”
limited to the defined issues, although additional problems may be uncovered and may
need to be addressed. Similarly, the change process tends to focus on those organizational systems having specific problems, and it generally terminates when the problems
are resolved. Of course, the OD practitioner may contract to help solve additional
problems.
In recent years, OD has been increasingly concerned with fundamental change. As
described in Chapter 1, the greater competitiveness and uncertainty of today’s environment have led a growing number of organizations to alter drastically the way in which
they operate. In such situations, planned change is more complex, extensive, and long
term than when applied to incremental change.30 Because fundamental change involves
most features and levels of the organization, it is typically driven from the top, where
corporate strategy and values are set. OD practitioners help senior executives create a
vision of a desired future organization and energize movement in that direction. They
also help them develop structures for managing the transition from the present to the
Purchase answer to see full
attachment
