On Change Management

A book review.

On Change Management

by Harvard Business Review

published: 2011

ISBN: 9781422158005

genre: Business (Management)

reviewed:2013.06.29

👍🏼 recommended

This is a collection of excellent articles on instituting change in the corporate environment. The articles are assembled to discuss topics that are mutually exclusive in coverage. For instance, the lead article "Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail" by Kotter talks about the typical killers: lack of vision, lack or urgency, and so on. He promotes the process of building a coalition, building on success, and changing the organization through normalizing change. By contrast an article called "Tipping Point Leadership" by Kim and Mauborgne - easily the best read in the book - is on the work of William Bratton, the chief of police that turned New York around in the '90s. It talks about techniques such as ensuring that the people making decisions are exposed to the actual problems so they can make much better decisions. It talks about how he identified and removed would-be saboteurs early on.

It's the combination of concepts and explicit examples that makes this one strong.

Each of the articles contains a "TL;DR" summary that encapsulates the message in quick bullet points.

Edit 2021: There's now a sequel to this book, published ten years later.