Demands, Instabilities, Manipulations, Careers: The Lived Experience of Driving Change

The findings from this study indicate that, despite the pressures and unpredictabilities of strategic change, there can be significant personal development, and career benefit, for those in driving roles.

Abstract

This article explores the lived experience of change drivers involved in a whole-hospital re-engineering programme. As these drivers were not a select management group, but included staff from all organization levels, this illustrates a `dispersed responsibility' model of change implementation. Other research suggests that many public and private sector organizations may similarly be blurring demarcations between change `drivers' and `driven'. The findings from this study indicate that, despite the pressures and unpredictabilities of strategic change, there can be significant personal development, and career benefit, for those in driving roles. Human resource management issues concerning the appointment, support, career progression and retention of change drivers may thus become critical.