Champions of Change: How Ceos and Their Companies Are Mastering the Skills of Radical Change

Very quick service and book was also in good condition.

"Your first visit to a new company can be awfully confusing. From the outside you see the front of the headquarters building and the visitor's entrance-but not much more. Inside you see a maze of offices and work areas-but at first glance they don't seem to be arranged in any particular pattern. You see people rushing busily to and fro, but you have no idea what they're doing or what, if anything, they're actually accomplishing. If you're to have any chance of quickly making sense of what's going on-of how the company is organized and how it really operates-you need a mental template, a systemic way to observe and understand the organization. For executives and managers intent on leading change, that kind of template, or model, is essential. Without it you haven't a clue where to start...Throughout this book I'm going to be talking about organizational change in terms of a model my colleagues and I have developed and refined over the past two decades" (p.21).In this context, David A. Nadler divides his book roughly into three sections. In the first section, he (1) overviews the forces that make change at once so inevitable and so difficult in modern organizations, (2) describes the pivotal role of top leadership, (3) describes the four basic types of organizational change, with a special emphasis on the most difficult of all-the Overhaul, or radical discontinuous change, (4) explores the inevitable resistance to change, and (5) offers some specific techniques for overcoming those barriers. In the second section, he (1) deals with the substantive tools and techniques that are required as the organization passes through the five stages of the change cycle, (2) describes in turn the issues that confront leaders as they go about changing each component of the organization. In the third section, he deals with the unique role of top managers in leading change.In Chapter 4, he introduces five stages of discontinuous change:1. Recognizing the change imperative: The easy description of this stage is simply that it answers the question, What's going wrong here? (for detailed discussion see Chapter 6)2. Developing a shared direction: Providing clear direction for change and building coalition that will provide the support essential to the success of any radical change effort. (for detailed discussion see Chapter 7)3. Implementing change: The core of the change process. (for detailed discussion see Chapters 8 to 11)4. Consolidating change: Making change an integral part of the way the organization operates. (for detailed discussion see Chapter 12)5. Sustaining change: The challenge of maintaining momentum, avoiding complacence, and searching for signs of the next wave of change. (for detailed discussion see Chapter 12)On the other hand, in Chapter 5, he lists and discusses twelve action steps for overcoming resistance to change as follows:1. Build the support of key power groups.2. Use leader behavior to generate suppor

This is a highly informative work that explores the nature of organizational change and presents an approach to initiating, designing, and implementing change. The authors propose that the core principles of change managers are: appropriate involvement, committed leadership, valid information exchange, informed choices and integrated change. The book also discusses the role of management at all levels. It conveys experiences, guidelines and a congruence model for understanding the organization as a system. This book is on-target, providing in-depth understanding and insights into the change process.