The Caterpillar Doesnt Know: How Personal Change Is Creating Organizational Change

Though the book is based on the American experience, managing change is an international phenomena.The book is therefore useful especially if you are change leader. In fact, the "critical insights" at the end of each chapter can be thought provoking and stimulate discussion in successfully managing transitions. A must read in any change management programme - personal or organisational.

Hey and Moore's central message is that too many leaders of major corporations are continuing to apply an old and self-referent view of the world, despite massive changes in the culture of wider society. The result is increasing frustration as the old remedies - downsizing, demands for total commitment from staff and traditional approaches to consumer promotion become less effective and even counter-productive. They argue that the world-view of (American) society is changing dramatically. They characterise the change as a shift from 'communities of wealth' through a 'world out of control' to a world based on 'communities of meaning'. Whereas society is well into the third stage, many organisations, and particularly their leadership, have too often failed to change with society. The authors claim that a similar and similarly chaotic complete transformation of organisations and their leadership is needed if they are to confront the new realities successfully. The title of the book refers to the fact that a caterpillar, in changing to a butterfly, does not go through step by step change, but actually dissolves inside the crysallis (ie goes through a chaotic stage) before restructuring completely and the authors use this as a metaphor for what is needed among leaders and among organisations.

This thought-provoking book needs to be read at the highest levels of our Fortune 500 companies. Many of our executives just don't "get it." The authors clearly explain what is wrong with the cost-cutting approach to profitability that is so prevalent in business today. Excellent!