Change
Management:
The Harvard Business Review paperback series is
designed to bring today's managers and professionals the
fundamental information they need to stay competitive in a
fast-moving world. Here are the landmark ideas that have
established the Harvard Business Review as required reading for
ambitious businesspeople in organizations around the globe. From
the seminal article "Leading Change" by John Kotter to Paul Strebel
on why employees so often resist change, Harvard Business Review on
Change is the most comprehensive resource available for embracing
corporate change--and using it to your company's greatest
advantage.
The Fieldbook is an intensely pragmatic guide. It
shows how to create an organization of learners where memories are
brought to life, where collaboration is the lifeblood of every
endeavour, and where the tough questions are fearlessly asked. The
stories here show that companies, businesses, schools, agencies,
and even communities can undo their "learning disabilities" and
achieve superior performance. If ever a work gave meaning to the
phrase hands-on, this is it. Senge and his four co-
authors cover it all including:
-
Reinventing relationships
-
Being
loyal to the truth
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Building
a shared vision
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Organizations as communities
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Designing an organization's governing
ideas
Since Peter Senge published his groundbreaking
book The Fifth Discipline, he and his associates have frequently
been asked by the business community: "How do we go beyond the
first steps of corporate change? How do we sustain momentum?" They
know that companies and organizations cannot thrive today without
learning to adapt their attitudes and practices. But companies that
establish change initiatives discover, after initial success, that
even the most promising efforts to transform or revitalize
organizations--despite interest, resources, and compelling business
results-- can fail to sustain themselves over time. That's because
organizations have complex, well- developed immune systems, aimed
at preserving the status quo.
Now, drawing upon new theories about leadership
and the long-term success of change initiatives, and based upon
twenty-five years
of experience building learning organizations, the
authors of The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook show how to accelerate
success and avoid the obstacles that can stall momentum. The Dance
of Change, written for managers and executives at every level of an
organization, reveals how business leaders can work together to
anticipate the challenges that profound change will ultimately
force the organization to face. Then, in a down-to- earth and
compellingly clear format, readers will learn how to build the
personal and organizational capabilities needed to meet those
challenges.
These challenges are not imposed from the outside;
they are the product of assumptions and practices that people take
for granted--an inherent, natural part of the processes of change.
And they can stop innovation cold, unless managers at all levels
learn to anticipate them and recognize the hidden rewards in each
challenge, and the potential to spur further growth. Within the
frequently encountered challenge of "Not Enough Time," for
example--the lack of control over time available for innovation and
learning initiatives--lays a valuable opportunity to reframe the
way people organize their workplaces.
This book identifies universal challenges that
organizations ultimately find themselves confronting, including the
challenge of "Fear and Anxiety"; the need to diffuse learning
across organizational boundaries; the ways in which assumptions
built in to corporate measurement systems can handcuff learning
initiatives; and the almost unavoidable misunderstandings between
"true believers" and non-believers in a
company.
Filled with individual and team exercises,
in-depth accounts of sustaining learning initiatives by managers
and leaders in the field, and well-tested practical advice, The
Dance of Change provides an insider's perspective on implementing
learning and change initiatives at such corporations as British
Petroleum, Chrysler, Dupont, Ford, General Electric,
Harley-Davidson, Hewlett-Packard, Mitsubishi Electric, Royal
Dutch/Shell, Shell Oil Company, Toyota, the United States Army, and
Xerox. It offers crucial advice for line-level managers, executive
leaders, internal networkers, educators, and others who are
struggling to put change initiatives into
practice.
Organizations are like automobiles. They don't run
themselves, except downhill.
Leadership now requires very different behaviour
from the leadership tradition we are used to. It requires leaders
who speak to the collective imagination of their people, co-opting
them to join in the business journey; leaders who are able to
motivate people to full commitment and have them make that extra
effort. It's all about human behaviour. It's about understanding
the way people and organizations behave, about creating
relationships, about building commitment, and about adapting your
behaviour to lead in a creative and motivating
way.
So, ask yourself what you're doing about the
leadership factor. How do you execute your own leadership style?
Whether you work on the shop floor or have a corner office on the
top floor of a shimmering skyscraper, what have you done today to
be more effective as a leader?
There are no quick answers to leadership
questions, and there are no easy solutions. In fact, the more we
learn the more it seems there is to learn. In The Leadership
Mystique, management and psychology guru Manfred Kets de Vries
unpicks the many layers of complexity that underlie effective
leadership, and gets to the heart of the day-to-day behaviour of
leading people in the human enterprise.
"Your business can have all the advantages in the
world; strong financial resources, enviable market position, and
state-of-the-art technology, but if leadership fails, all of these
advantages melt away."-Manfred Kets de Vries,
author
Leading Change, John P.
Kotter, Harvard Business School Press, ISBN
0-87584-747-1
From Publishers Weekly
Harvard Business School professor Kotter (A Force
for Change) breaks from the mold of M.B.A. jargon-filled texts to
produce a truly accessible, clear and visionary guide to the
business world's buzzword for the late '90s change. In this
excellent business manual, Kotter emphasizes a comprehensive
eight-step framework that can be followed by executives at all
levels.
Kotter advises those who would implement change to
foster a sense of urgency within the organization. "A higher rate
of urgency does not imply ever-present panic, anxiety, or fear. It
means a state in which complacency is virtually absent."
Twenty-first century business change must overcome over managed and
under led cultures. "Because management deals mostly with the
status quo and leadership deals mostly with change, in the next
century we are going to have to try to become much more skilled at
creating leaders." Kotter also identifies pitfalls to be avoided,
like "big egos and snakes" or personalities that can undermine a
successful change effort.
Kotter convincingly argues for the promotion and
recognition of teams rather than individuals. He aptly concludes
with an emphasis on lifelong learning. "In an ever changing world,
you never learn it all, even if you keep growing into your '90s."
Leading Change is a useful tool for everyone from business students
preparing to enter the work force to middle and senior executives
faced with the widespread transformation in the corporate
world.
