Selfish Altruism: Managing & Executing Successful Change Initiatives

Albert Einstein famously said, "Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, and expecting different results". Life is all about change and organizational life is not any different. But how well do we understand change, other than when suddenly we are forced into it?


As humans, we crave stability and change seemingly upsets the status quo, as it well should. Selfish Altruism is all about first understanding ourselves on a personal level and then understanding what motivates us within an organization. Using these examples, we are able to better understand that successful change initiatives rely on our being selfish.


We must first successfully answer 'What's in it for Me?' before we ourselves are motivated and more importantly before we can motivate others in the organization. There is a corrollary to this: Return on Investment.


In the corporate world, a project (or change initiative) is given the 'green-light', if it can generate a positive return on investment. But to attain this, the change team must first realize their own personal return on investments (PROI).


Selfish Altruism explores the key stakeholders in any change initiative and what are the likely PROI's for each of them. Using real world examples of organizational change intiatives, we are able to clearly discern the critical components of both change success and change failure.


Selfish Altruism explores these components that make up the Chains of Change along with the likely personality types that either impede or accelerate progress. By better understanding both change success and change failure chains, we are then better able to lead successful organizational change.