Cambridge Business Association
Change Management Masterclass
Book

Change Management Masterclass

A Step-By-Step Guide to Successful Change Management

Mike Green
Kogan Page, 2007
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Editorial Rating

6

Qualities

  • Comprehensive
  • Scientific
  • Well Structured

Recommendation

As former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson once said, “The only human institution which rejects change is the cemetery.” For firms that are all too aware of this fact, English business consultant Mike Green provides a comprehensive, if at times ponderous, examination of change management. He considers various models that have defined the field since the 1950s and examines contemporary theories. His book delves into a grab bag of change management “metaphors and paradigms,” from the classic construct of “freezing” and “unfreezing” organizations to recent thinking comparing organizations to “machines” or living “organisms.” It includes detailed case studies of good and bad change management, and a step-by-step guide to achieving positive change. The book is at its best when it looks at corporations the way an anthropologist would examine strange cultures, detailing phenomena like the “shadow” or dark side of organizations. Alas, Green’s sociology jargon and seemingly pedantic mathematical formulas for change makes his work sometimes sound academic. You may wish for more short, pithy sentences. But, if you can handle those stumbling blocks, getAbstract finds that this is an in-depth, valuable organizational-change resource.

Summary

Elements of Organizational Change

Increasing competition and speed rule in the international business world. This constant upheaval takes its toll on the people who run organizations. A 2006 study found that 90% of corporate managers feel that cutting costs, hiring outside contractors and shifting corporate cultures undermine their morale and loyalty. Another ’06 study said that change in organizations creates employee “anxiety, confusion, frustration, fatigue and resistance.”

As exponential change rocks the business world, managing these shifts is more important than ever. Change management is the practice of moving an organization from an old state to a new one in a planned way. One basic tenet of the field teaches that the way you “conceptualize” or define change affects how well you manage it. Philosopher Alan Watts once drew the universe as a scribble across a page and said that humans always try to “put some sort of grid across it in an attempt to make sense of it.” Change management attempts to do the same thing with change, using various constructs and theories to define types of organizations and the different ways change can reshape them.

To instigate...

About the Author

Psychotherapist Mike Green has worked in change management for more than 20 years. He runs Transitional Space, an organizational development consultancy. He is a Visiting Executive Fellow at Henley Management College, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England.

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