Synopses & Reviews
How do today's most outstanding executives inspire change throughout their organizations? What makes them effective leaders, driven to champion change? This compelling guide offers managers a rare, behind-the-scenes glimpse into real-world change strategies successfully put into practice by corporate leaders. Top management consultant David Nadler reveals the experiences and insights of the CEOs and key managers he has advised over the course of twenty years. In
Champions of Change he combines their applied visions into a clear, common-sense approach to initiating, designing, and implementing organizational change.
Drawing on the personal experiences he and his colleagues at Delta Consulting Group have had with companies as varied as Lucent Technologies, Sun Microsystems, Xerox Corporation, Corning, Chase Manhattan, and Kaiser Permanente, Nadler offers organizational leaders a coherent approach that has been tested, refined, and tested again in the marketplace. He candidly reveals why corporate change must be driven by top executives and vividly illustrates how they do it.
In his highly readable style, Nadler presents the core principles shared by successful change managers: appropriate involvement, committed leadership, valid information, and informed choices. He clearly demonstrates how effective leaders actively involve key managers and articulate visions and goals that address the basic values and highest aspirations of people throughout the organization. Without exception, he says, they support sharing and questioning information at all levels, and act with the understanding that the best decisions emerge from full and open consideration of the widest range of alternatives.
Champions of Change gives leaders and managers a new repertoire of concepts, ideas, tools, and techniques for understanding the dynamics of change and managing it within their own area of responsibility. This essential guide offers an unprecedented opportunity to learn the lessons of the "champions of change" those CEOs who lead change themselves, and then provide support for others who dare to challenge the status quo.
Review
"In today's environment, every manager needs to be a champion of change. This book will be immensely valuable to managers at all levels of the organization. David Nadler provides the practical advice and real-life examples that can help people become effective leaders of organizational change." -Walter V. Shipley, chairman and chief executive officer, The Chase Manhattan Corporation
"A practical, thoughtful guide to change management. It is a pleasure to read, full of great examples and ideas." -Ed Lawler, director, Center for Effective Organizations, University of Southern California
"Few executives expect the future to be more stable than the present. Yet few have seriously begun the long journey of thinking and redesigning themselves and their organizations for the future. The insights and methods presented by David Nadler will, hopefully, engender the courage to embark." -Peter M. Senge, director, Center for Organizational Learning, Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"Immensely readable. This work bolts together the image or theory and the reality of what is required to change the performance of an enterprise. Whether the challenge is renewal or fundamental change, this book delivers real-life depictions that will help all who invest the time." -Richard A. McGinn, president and chief operating officer, Lucent Technologies Inc.
Synopsis
New Tools for Challengng the Status QuoImmensely readable, this work bolts together the image or theory and the reality of what is required to change the performance of an enterprise. Whether the challenge is renewal or fundamental change, this book delivers real-life depictions that will help all who invest the time.
--Richard A. McGinn, president and COO, Lucent Technologies, Inc.
Stand on the front lines of innovation with today's top business leaders. Throughout this page-turner, archconsultant David Nadler leverages twenty years of work with many of the world's most acclaimed CEOs to provide a detailed, inside account of how they've led the most difficult and significant change efforts of our times. Case examples include initiatives undertaken at Sun Microsystems, Lucent Technologies, Xerox, Corning, AT&T and Kaiser Permanente. Engaging and inspiring, it offers leaders and managers at every level a new, field-tested repertoire of concepts, tools and techniques for understanding the dynamics of change and managing it effectively.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 311-313) and index.
About the Author
DAVID A. NADLER is one of the nation's leading consultants and advisors to corporate executives on the subjects of organizational architecture and organizational change. Since 1980, he has served as CEO of the Delta Consulting Group, Inc. Prior to that, he served on the faculty of the graduate school of business at Columbia University. Nadler has authored or edited more than a dozen books on management, organizational change, and leadership, including Organizational Architecture (1992), Discontinuous Change (1994), and Executive Teams (1997), all from Jossey-Bass.
Table of Contents
1. What It Takes: Confronting the Realities of Change.
2. Where to Start: Understanding Organizations.
3. From Tuning to Overhaul: The Dimensions of Change.
4. Reshaping the Entire Enterprise: The Special Challenges of Discontinuous Change.
5. Winning Hearts and Minds: Overcoming the Obstacles to Change.
6. Setting the Stage: Recognizing the Change Imperative.
7. Waging the Great Campaign: Developing a Shared Direction.
8. Building a New Strategy: The Strategic Choice Process.
9. Redesigning the Organizational "Hardware": The Keys to Strategic Design.
10. When Worlds Collide: Aligning Strategy And Culture.
11. Finding the Right People: A Guide to Strategic Selection.
12. Staying the Course: Consolidating and Sustaining Change.
13. Leading the Charge: The Unique Role of Senior Management.
14. Learning to Lead Change: The New Principles for CEOs and Companies.