Real Time Strategic Change: How to Involve an Entire Organization in Fast and Far-Reaching Change (Paperback)

For the past 4 years I have been applying Jacob's key principles to a variety of change interventions including groups from 10 to 350 employees. The natural hesitation from Senior Leaders is quickly overcome when they see the power that commitment can have in quickly lowering resistance and developing an almost unbridled desire to move to a new state. Employees who initially greet the process as potentially laborious, quickly see that "going slow now to go faster later", as a friend once said, is really worth it.

This book is a key text and resource in a Masters in Management class that I teach. Students frequently leave class with insight and return the next week telling me that they have already applied some of the thinking in their daily management of the business. To their delight, Jacob's mental model gives students enhanced ability to envision and plan change initiatives. Often I get e-mail suggesting that this book has been one of the best investments that they made during their masters program and that the book is a reference that they rely upon.

In a nutshell, my experience with Jake's philosophy and process has completely restructured my thinking about how to facilitate change initiatives of any size. The results have compelled me to vigorously teach this process to all levels of leaders in the organization and in the classroom.

The underlying theory is that people support changes that they help to plan. Processes such Future Search or Search Conference can be used by smaller groups (usually 15 to 65 people) to develop an initial plan. RTSC can bring that plan to an entire company for refinement and implementation planning.

Ford Motor Company's Mustang division used a version of RTSC to introduce total quality management in the 1980s, responding to the challenge of Japanese automobiles.

Generally speaking, RTSC involves the "whole system" - everyone who is involved in the development of a product or service as well as the customers who buy it. In the food industry, for example, an RTSC conference would include suppliers of raw materials and grocery retailers as well internal groups such as Logistics, Manufacturing, Sales, etc. Suppliers and customers can provide information on how the company stacks up compared with competitors, often by using a panel discussion format. Industry experts may also provide information on key trends.

Work is done in a combination of large and small group settings. In the large-group sessions, people are assigned to sit at round tables of eight to ten people. These are "max-mix" groups representing different departments or organizations. Following various presentations, the groups are asked to discuss what happened and formulate a brief response. This helps keep the meetings lively and creative.

In the classic RTSC format, senior managers present an overview of their proposed plan to the entire group. After small group discussions, people use post-its to write what they agree with, what they disagree with, and what questions they have. The managers have a full night to review this feedback. They return the next day to answer the questions, reinforce areas of agreement, and respond to areas of disagreement. This can be a lively event!

People then move into implementation groups to write more detailed action plans to help kick-start the change process.

The large groups generate a great deal of energy, an important factor in successful change.

While Jacobs provides a good overview for agenda development, he has little to say about the very important logistics of a meeting like this. Important topics include meeting site selection, room size, room arrangement, methods for sharing information, and audio-visuals. When I facilitated an RTSC conference, I hired someone to manage a team of 10 people devoted to conference logistics. While some practitioners have published handbooks on this topic, I don't see any that are widely available. So that is a hole in Jacobs' book.