My favorite change management tools and books.

One of my main objectives when I launched this blog was to share ideas, tools and experiences on how to bring positive change to people´s lives (individual change),  within organizations and to society as a whole.

Today, I want to share with you some of my favorite books on how to manage organizational change processes.

I will enrich it from time to time.

If you want to share yours please leave a comment with your preferred ones and I will add it  as well.

Thanks!

  • Leading Change, by John P Kotter, 2012
  • From the ill-fated dot-com bubble to unprecedented M&A activity to scandal, greed, and ultimately, recession—we’ve learned that widespread and difficult change is no longer the exception. It’s the rule. John Kotter’s eight-step process for managing change with positive results has become the foundation for leaders and organizations across the globe. By outlining the process every organization must go through to achieve its goals, and by identifying where and how even top performers derail during the change process, Kotter provides a practical resource for leaders and managers charged with making change initiatives work.
  •  Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations by John P. Kotterby John P. Kotter and Dan S. Cohen, 2012
  • Why is organizational change so hard? Because in order to make any transformation successful, you must change more than just the structure and operations of an organization—you need to change people’s behavior. And that is never easy. According to bestselling author and renowned leadership expert John Kotter and co-author Dan Cohen, this focus on connecting with people’s emotions is what will spark the behavior change and actions that lead to success. Kotter and Cohen argue that change initiatives often fail because leaders rely too exclusively on data and analysis to get buy-in from their teams instead of creatively showing or doing something that appeals to their emotions and inspires them to spring into action. They call this the see-feel-change dynamic, and it is crucial for the success of any true organizational transformation.
  • Change-Friendly Leadership: How to Transform Good Intentions into Great Performanceby Rodger Dean Duncan and Stephen M. R. Covey, 2012
  • Around the world, countless change efforts are underway in all kinds of organizations, spearheaded by leaders with good intentions. Despite the good intentions, the majority of these programs will not succeed. Why? In this book, practitioner Rodger Dean Duncan shows that humanness, approachability, and friendliness are necessary but often overlooked elements of making change successful. Change cannot be achieved by a press release, slogan, or announcement. Effective organizational change requires the active, mindful participation of the people affected by the change. Leaders must learn how to bring their entire team on board with changes and ensure they are invested in the process as well as in the outcome.
  •  Organizational Culture Change: Unleashing your Organization’s Potential in Circles of 10by Marcella Bremer and Marcel Lamers, 2012
  • Culture, leadership and the ability to change determine organizational performance… But 75% of Organizational Change programs fail – being too conceptual, organization wide and command-and-control like. Change consultant Marcella Bremer got frustrated and developed this pragmatic 21st Century approach to organizational culture, change and leadership which includes using an organizational Culture Assessment Instrument based on the Competing Values Framework by Cameron and Quinn. Next, the author suggests engaging in Change Circles to develop vital change before copying, coaching and correcting behavior on a peer basis to Be the change and Lead the way!
  • The Fifth Dicipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organisation
  • You all know how much I admire Peter Senge’s groundbreaking ideas on building organizations. I have written quite a few articles and posts based on his work.  His theories help businesses to clarify their goals, to defy the odds, to more clearly understand threats, and to recognize new opportunities.  He introduces managers to a new source of competitive advantage, and offers a marvelously empowering approach to work.Mastery of Senge’s five disciplines enables managers to overcome their obstacles to growth and creates brave new futures for them and their companies.  The five disciplines are drawn from science, spiritual wisdom, psychology, the cutting edge of management thought, and Senge’s own work with top corporations that employ his methods.
  • HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Change by Harvard Business Review, 2011
  • This HBR book is one of the volumes in a series of anthologies of articles that first appeared in Harvard Business Review. The 10 articles featured in this nook (including the widely known and well-regarded “Leading Change,” by John P. Kotter which became a whole book) was drawn from many Harvard Business Review articles on change management. The most compelling were selected the most important ones to help individuals to spearhead change in his or her organization.
  • Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture: Based on the Competing Values Framework (Jossey-Bass Business & Management), 2011
  • The Third Edition of this book provides a means of understanding and changing organizational culture in order to make organizations more effective. It provides validated instruments for diagnosing organizational culture and management competency; a theoretical framework (competing values) for understanding organizational culture; and a systematic strategy and methodology for changing organizational culture and personal behavior. New edition includes online versions of the MSAI and OCAI assessments and new discussions of the implications of national cultural profiles.
  • Changemaking: Tactics and resources for managing organizational changeby Richard Bevan, 2011
  • It’s ironic that while most people know what conditions need to be in place for effective management of change, these straightforward needs are often missed. The intent gets the attention; the details of execution are forgotten. The authors of this book suggest that success change involves the following: listen to the stakeholders, learn about the issues, lead with clarity and involvement, align systems, communicate relentlessly, follow-up and course-correct. Then consider who will be most affected; ask questions and listen carefully to the responses. These steps can be performed on a small, local scale, through informal conversations. Or it can be on a larger, even corporate-wide scale, through meetings, surveys, social media, focus groups or a combination.
  • Theory U: Learning from the Future as It Emerges (Bk Business)
  • We live in a time of massive institutional failure, one that requires a new consciousness and a new collective leadership capacity. In this groundbreaking book, Otto Scharmer invites us to see the world in new ways and in so doing discover a revolutionary approach to leadership. What we pay attention to and how we pay attention is key to what we create. What prevents us from attending to situations more effectively is that we aren’t fully aware of and in touch with the inner place from which attention and intention originate. This is what Scharmer calls our blind spot. By moving through Scharmer’s U process, we consciously access the blind spot and learn to connect to our authentic Self—the deepest source of knowledge and inspiration—in the realm of “presencing,” a term coined by Scharmer that combines the concepts of presence and sensing. Based on ten years of research and action learning and interviews with over 150 practitioners and thought leaders, Theory U offers a rich diversity of compelling stories and examples and includes dozens of exercises and practices that allow leaders, and entire organizations, to shift awareness, connect with the best future possibility, and gain the ability to realize it.
  • ADKAR: a Model for Change in Business, Government and our Community: How to Implement Successful Change in our Personal Lives and Professional Careersby Jeff Hiatt, 2006
  • After more than 14 years of research with corporate change, the ADKAR model has emerged as a holistic approach that brings together the collection of change management work into a simple, results oriented model. This model ties together all aspects of change management including readiness assessments, sponsorship, communications, coaching, training and resistance management. The ADKAR perspective can help you develop a “new lens” through which to observe and influence change. The perspective enabled by the ADKAR model allows you to view change in a new way. You can begin to see the barrier points and understand the levers that can move your changes forward. ADKAR allows you to understand why some changes succeed while others fail. Based on research with more than 1100 companies from 59 countries, ADKAR is a simple and holistic way to manage change.