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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
weLEAD Book Review by the Editor of leadingtoday.org, October 18, 2006
This review is from: Making Change Stick: Twelve Principles for Transforming Organizations (Paperback)
Author and consultant Richard Reale wants to help your organization to become sticky! In Making Change Stick he defines sticky as the ability to accomplish and sustain change. Reale correctly observes that leaders tend to focus on the technical side of change but typically ignore the human or people side of change. But, change is personal and involves human emotion and commitment. Any process that emphasizes technical skills at the expense of soft skills is doomed to failure. To provide a balance, Making Change Stick offers the reader twelve principles for making change effective and lasting. These principles are based on a philosophy that long-term success is built on a foundation of a culturally open system. Reale defines this as, "ready to adapt as necessary to prosper under any market conditions." He further adds this culture should be "dynamically adaptive and supportive of the needs of customers, employees, and shareholders."
The twelve principles for making change stick are a series of repeating patterns that help an organization to become change-capable. Reale believes that one or more of the twelve principles have been violated or ignored when change does not last in an organization. For example, principle number six is confront fear. Many leaders are unaware of why individuals are fearful of change and how to openly discuss it. A healthy culture nurtures an environment where workers feel safe to discuss their fears. It is when these fears are gracefully exposed, they can be confronted by the individual, and their feelings defused.
After the twelve principles are discussed, Making Change Stick concludes with a couple of beneficial chapters. One outlines how to create a culture that sustains change. Reale is a strong proponent of establishing a guidance team or transformation management group to facilitate this need. The final chapter offers sage advice to organizational leaders, and encourages them to use their emotional intelligence to relinquish control throughout the organization to committed and competent followers. Each chapter ends with some questions to ponder and practical ways to put each principle into practice. Reale also spices the book with his personal experiences, quotations and charts to develop his major points.
Making Change Stick is a practical primer for anyone involved in the change process within an organization. It provides many valuable points that together show how connected the entire company must be for change to be lasting and successful. It reinforces why change is both a technical and people oriented process. If you are personally involved in any change process, this book will help it to all make sense and help you to be a productive part of the process.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good, common sense guide to a tough topic..., March 16, 2010
This review is from: Making Change Stick: Twelve Principles for Transforming Organizations (Paperback)
In Making Change Stick, Richard C. Reale introduces twelve principles for transforming organizations. These principles urge us to know where we are going, challenge our thinking, involve and be involved, align our culture, honor emotions, confront fear, don't wait for perfection, communicate intentionally, set people up for success, catch people doing something right, measure stuff that matters and lead from the heart. Reale's principles drive the reader toward embracing organizational and individual change as a choice - one chooses to change or not. Reale coins the term sticky change to refer to those changes that become institutionalized as a part of the corporate culture - the Company DNA.
While Reale's twelve principles seem trite and shallow on the surface, they are filled with depth and insight. Being obvious doesn't make them any less true or lessen their impact when properly implemented, it simply means that we should have done them all along.
I recommend Making Change Stick by Richard C. Reale. His simple yet effective blueprint for embracing change draws the leader toward an endgame strategy of helping the organization choose to change - a willing change that will be embraced and embodied by the organization.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
How to transform an organization within a continuous and disciplined process, October 9, 2007
This review is from: Making Change Stick: Twelve Principles for Transforming Organizations (Paperback)
Those who are preparing to launch change initiatives or who have only recently done so would be well-advised to consider the truth of what Peter Drucker suggested more than 40 years ago: "There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all." In this volume, Richard C. Reale identifies and then examines twelve principles that can help to guide and inform the formulation and execution of initiatives that can transform any organization, whatever its size and nature may be. He devotes a separate chapter to each principle, none of which is a head-snapping revelation nor does Reale make any such claim.
Of special interest to me is his clever use of various reader-friendly devices such as "Questions to Ponder" and "putting the Principle into Practice" with which he concludes chapters. They focus on key issues and summarize key points that facilitate, indeed expedite frequent reviews of the material after a first reading. They also serve as "gut checks" that enable the reader to evaluate the progress of change initiatives and to measure their effectiveness throughout various stages of the change initiative process. I also appreciate the provision of relevant quotations from various sources. For example:
"The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." Albert Einstein
"On a group of theories one can found a school; but on a group of values one can found a culture." Ignazio Silone
"We see the world not as it is, but as we are." The Talmud
"Scalded cats fear even cold water." Thomas Fuller
"One great mistake is to try to extract from each person virtues which he does not possess, neglecting the cultivation of those which he does have." Hadrian
All change initiatives encounter resistance and many barriers are the result of what James O'Toole has aptly characterizes as "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom." Reale offers a number of strategies and tactics to overcome resistance but reiterates throughout his narrative of setting crystal clear objectives ("know where you are going"), validate the assumptions and premises on which the action plan is based ("challenge your thinking"), establish a broad and deep base of participation by others ("Involve and be involved"), maintain proper alignment of initiatives and resources with the given strategy to achieve objectives ("align your culture'), and rigorously monitor progress throughout the entire process ("measure stuff that matters"). I presume to add that unless and until those involved, especially leaders, nail these and other fundamentals, much of the resistance to change initiatives will be justified.
Presumably Reale agrees with me that it would be a fool's errand to read his book and then attempt to adopt and then apply all of the material he provides. Think of his book as an operations manual for organizational transformation. It can guide and inform both the planning and subsequent implementation of a plan that is most appropriate to the needs, resources, and ultimate objectives of the given organization, whatever its size and nature may be.
I think his book will be of great value to all decision-makers but especially to those who have little (if any) understanding of the mindset, perspectives, and analytical skills that effective change agents have. They see each problem as a challenge, of course, but also as a learning opportunity. They realize that what those who comprise a team know is much greater than what any one member does. And finally, they have patience as well as determination when facing the resistance their efforts will inevitably encounter.
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