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Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas

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Change is hard. I've been part of companies that merged, were acquired, acquired others, downsized drastically, changed the CEO, moved corporate headquarters to another state and completely changed their target market. The change was difficult in each of these circumstances. That's not particularly surprising. What is surprising is that change is also difficult when doing something as seemingly simple as changing the company health plan. I wish I'd read this book before going through those changes.

A large part of my current work is in helping companies manage the transition from how they currently develop software to developing software with an "agile process." The book codified some of the things I've done for years without thinking about why but more importantly it also presented ideas I hadn't thought of. For example, the "Champion Skeptic" pattern says to designate a skeptical, strong opinion leader to be the "official skeptic." I've always made a point of involving these skeptics because they can become your best advocates if you convert them. However, I've experimented with the idea as presented here and it works well.

Change will remain hard, even after reading this book. But, you'll be much better prepared and you should find many of the patterns here very helpful.

Have you ever wondered how to effectively introduce new ideas in your organization and get them to fly? Wonder why some people effortlessly get buy-in on their ideas while you struggle? Mary Lynn Manns, Ph. D. and Linda Rising, Ph. D. reveal some of those secrets in the book Fearless Change - Patterns For Introducing New Ideas (Addison Wesley).

Chapter list:
Part 1 - Overview: Organizations and Change; Strategies or Patterns; Where Do I Start?; What Do I Do Next?; Meetings and More; Take Action!; It's All About People; A New Role: Now You're Dedicated!; Convince The Masses; More Influence Strategies; Keep It Going; Dealing with Resistance
Part 2 - Experiences: Multiple Sclerosis Society Experience Report; UNCA Experience Report; Sun Core J2EE Patterns Experience Report; Customer Training Experience Report
Part 3 - The Patterns
Appendix; References; Index

I'd have typed in each of the patterns, but that would have put me over Amazon's word limit on reviews! :-)

The concept of "patterns" involve finding a practice, or a method of doing something that is successful and can be applied to multiple situations. This is similar to the use of patterns in programming, where you use a particular type of program structure to solve a problem, knowing that the architecture and process has been proven to work in multiple settings. Manns and Rising use this pattern concept to show how you can successfully push new ideas through in an organization without making mistakes that will derail you before you even get started.

For instance, "Location, Location, Location" talks about how moving to a off-site area (or a very nice area) can limit distractions and also show the group how important the idea is. "Guru On Your Side" helps you understand how cultivating a guru who likes your idea can help smooth the path as others in the organization will be more willing and ready to accept the idea from them. A "Champion Skeptic" pattern is to bring in a person who may be less than thrilled with your idea, but is willing to talk about why and help you make it a better one. There are a total of 49 patterns you can utilize during all phases of an idea or project, but I think you can get the idea where the value in this book lies.

As everyone is involved in selling their ideas at some point, this book will be important to just about everyone across an organization. If you want to be more effective in getting people to follow you when things change (or need to), reading this book will get you there.

While rapid change has always been a fundamental component of the computing field, recent changes have been far more substantial and difficult to deal with. In the past, changes were generally things like the introduction of a new language or a change in the structure of an old language. While these were difficult, experienced IT workers grew to accept them as part of the job.
However, the recent changes are far more significant and often differences in kind rather than differences in degree. Previously, collaboration between programmers could usually be handled by a gathering in a meeting room. Now, with the globalization of a project, organizing a collaboration literally is a difference between night and day. While it is daytime for some of the workers, for those on the other side of the world it is nighttime. There are also cultural, social and language differences to be factored into the communication protocols. Writing the source code is constantly shrinking as a relative percentage of the effort needed to create a software package. Developers are being forced to learn more about the business side and need to talk intelligently and persuasively about return on investment, time to market and profit/loss expectations.
Manns and Rising describe fundamental methods that can be used to introduce change into an organization without having the cure be worse than the disease. As the presence of the word "patterns" in the title indicates, these are not specific recommendations for particular types of changes. They are general formulas for smoothly transitioning a social and political structure from one systemic belief to another. Since organizations are group entities where everyone shares some common beliefs and practices and those beliefs and practices cannot be changed by a mere decree, Manns and Rising provide advice that can aid nearly all companies. Generally, the effectiveness of the aid will rise with the size of the company, as clearly small one or two-person companies can probably introduce change easily.
The solution to most problems faced by a company is to modify a process within that company. Since the changes in IT organizations have increased in magnitude over the last few years, this has grown more difficult. Manns and Rising show you how to prepare the ground for the change, which is the first step in solving most problems. I ranked it the best book of the year 2004 in my best books of the year column for the online "Journal of Object Technology."

I had found myself moderately successful at introducing new ideas and influencing change in my organizations, but never knew why, or how to improve my ability to influence and sustain the change effort. The lightbulb was illuminated immediately upon getting a few patterns into this book- I had been, in one way or another, using some of these patterns without realizing it. Opportunities I had failed to take advantage of in the past became obvious as well in many patterns that were new to me, and in the past went unrecognized (next time, they will either be easy to spot or part of the plan in the first place!)

Once you are able to recognize techniques as patterns, influence becomes something much more controllable. This is a powerful, easy-to-use (and reuse) toolkit for introducing ideas and influencing change. I believe that those experienced in influencing change will find a well thought out set of techniques and those unsure of even how to start will have a great roadmap and set of practices to start with and to invoke as-needed as their change efforts evolve.

In addition to excellent, well written, patterns that tell you what to do, this books is full of stories that help you to understand how to use the patterns to influence people, overcome roadblocks, and spread new ideas. Anyone who has new ideas to share will benefit from this book including: Managers and Team members, Professionals and Volunteers, people in industry and those in community organizations. This book is one that I will reference frequently and share with others.

I was in a situation where I couldn't get anyone to listen to my ideas, much less try them out. I used some of these patterns, and lo! my coworkers and managers got interested, and some of my ideas were adopted. If you can see ways your team or organization could work better, but you can't get any traction in getting your ideas across, the information in this book will put you on the right road.

This book isn't only for managers. Even if you're a small cog in a big wheel, using the techniques in this book, you can effect change that will benefit your team. With this book as a reference, you won't feel like you're wandering into the wilderness; you'll have proven techniques to guide you. Keep it handy, because you'll go back to it again and again!

Whether we acknowledge it or not, everyone in an organization has the responsibility to drive positive, forward change. From the CEO down to each individual, ideas need to be brought to bear that can potentially change and improve the organizations direction and potential.

The challenge is in moving (people) forward. In this book, the authors give everyone of us the tools (patterns) and the methods (stories) to successfully influence change in organizations.

None of the patterns should come as a surprise. You've probably seen all of them in practice at one time or another. It's the packaging and the sage advice that is worth the price. Having a single source of wisdom for a broad variety of change approaches is, as they say - priceless.

Just like all books on patterns, this gives you the feeling of 'oh, this is soooo obvious' the first reading it. The fact is that a second after reading it you start thinking and talking about brown bags, angles and evangelists and refer to the book all the time. Linda and Mary Lynn give us an idiom, a very very useful idiom.

Also, the book is funny. Must read.

Fearless Change is a catalogue of patterns for introducing change in a company. Personally I've been in the role of change agent for years and this book provided me many "ah-hah"s which you get from reading good patterns. Most of the patterns I've applied in the past. Now I realized it and I got a name for them, which makes me more able to reuse the patterns. Some of the patterns were new to me and I've applied them immediately in my work.

The book is organized in three parts. The first part tells short stories on the different phases of change. These stories already made me understand the basics of the patterns and how they were related. The second part has a couple of case studies. Personally I found this part rather boring, but it was very short. The third part of the book is the actual pattern catalogue which provided the needed details.

The book was easy to read and, except for the case studies, didn't make me feel bored at any time. I've learned an awful lot from the book and it gave me some new tools in my toolbox when trying to introduce change.

I've rated this book 4 stars, which should have been 4.5 starts, but I don't have that option. I wouldn't want to give it 5 stars for the small boring parts and since I wouldn't call it perfect yet, but close! The books is an absolute must for anyone introducing change in an organization though!

We are in a time of massive change. Most people are under the impression that people hate change and that change is hard. That may be true of boomers, but look out for the millenials. They have grown up with change and change permeates their lives every day. Work for the same company for 30 years? Use the same phone for more than 2 years? Don't think so.

Even if the world is more ready for change than it has been in the past, the way folks experience change may remain the same, and that's why this book is relevant. We will always have the Innovators, the Early Adopters, the Early Majority, the Late Majority, and the Laggards even if the change process is significantly accelerated these days. This book describes the process in significant detail and guides the reader through predicable patterns on organizational change. There are several case studies in this book and a list of patterns to look for.

The structure of the book is different from most books (such as consistently referring to later parts of the book in the early sections), but it makes sense once you put it all together. This is a good resource for a person or company looking to institute organizational change.