Changing the Way We Change: Gaining Control of Major Operational Change [Hardcover]

My knowledge of change and the change process comes from a rich variety of thinkers cited in the following pages. This knowledge has been expanded, challenged, and enhanced by the people and companies I have worked with over the years. The lines between the teacher and student are often blurred. That is as it should be: understanding change is a constantly changing process.

This book is written to share with you what I know about change and how it can be managed. For many of you, incorporating this understanding will require a change in the way you have managed change; for others it will validate and help to organize what you have learned from your own experiences. For everyone, it will be an opportunity to determine how your companies are going to deal with change in the future.

The body of knowledge about change can be best understood by looking at it as four elements. Those elements form the structure and organization of this book:The process of changeThe people in that processThe systems that support changeThe planning to make change happen

To help you understand and relate to those key elements, I have looked at each from three different perspectives. Every chapter in the book is divided into three sections-a discussion of the key change element, which is entitled Element of Change; a story about a company experiencing a major change and how it copes with each of these elements, entitled Real World Example; and a set of tools to help you deal with that element in your own origination, entitled Tools for Change.

Putting this learning into a book was a task made easier by several people. I cannot thank them enough for their insights, criticisms, and support. Heath Izenson came to me fresh out of the University of Michigan and changed me. He helped me to tighten up my writing style and, most important, he challenged my thinking about the whole change process. He continues to do that and often moves faster than I do to absorb and integrate new thinking about change. Heath has reminded me what change is like and I thank him for that.

My partner, John Karnatz, made great changes for himself and for LaMarsh & Associates as this manuscript was being prepared. Those changes also had a profound impact on my thinking about change and how to share my observations and knowledge with the reader. John, too, will continue to influence and challenge my thinking about change and I thank him also.

I also thank the following reviewers: Barry Bebb, William Bridges, Sandra Harrison, Gary Kissler, Craig Lundberg, Mark Michaels, Charles Savage, Michael Sheahan, Debbie Steffenson, John Wesner, Earl Young, and Herman Zwirn.

I am very grateful to Jennifer Joss of Addison-Wesley for her support and advice in the development of this book. Jennifer made sure that we worked as partners and always made me feel as though I had a great support system behind me as I struggled to find a way to help people understand how to make change happen.

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