Managing at the Speed of Change
How Resilient Managers Succeed and Prosper Where Others Fail
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4.8 • 6 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
This classic, newly updated, is an indispensable source for anyone–from mid-level managers to CEOs–who must execute key business initiatives quickly and effectively. Once groundbreaking and now time-honored, Managing at the Speed of Change has helped countless business leaders learn how to orchestrate transitions vital to their organizations’ success. Rather than focusing on what to change, this book’s aim is far more valuable: It shows readers how to change.
Daryl R. Conner, founder and chairman of the consulting firm Conner Partners, is a leading expert on change management. He has served as “change doctor” for clients that include non-profit enterprises, government agencies and administrations, and Fortune 500 companies in an array of industries such as Abbott Laboratories, PepsiCo, American Express, Catholic Healthcare West, JPMorgan Chase, and the U.S. Navy.
Based on Conner’s long-term research and his decades of consulting experience, Managing at the Speed of Change uses simple, easy-to-understand language and elegant visuals to explore the dynamics of change, and in doing so, teaches readers
• why major change is difficult to assimilate
• what distinguishes resilient individuals from those who suffer future shock
• how and why resistance forms
• how people become committed to change
• why organizational culture is so important to the success of change
• the roles most central to change in organizational settings
• why powerful teamwork is at the heart of achieving change objectives, and how to foster it
In this pioneering book, updated for the twenty-first century, Conner demonstrates how both individuals and organizations can develop the capacity not only to endure change but to thrive on it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this clinical study cum management guide, psychologist and business lecturer Conner discusses change as an inevitable, often disorienting element of the modern worker's business life. Citing the dysfunction likely to occur among employees facing corporate-merger upheavals or new high-tech equipment, he defines ``resilience'' as essential to viewing change as an ``understandable and manageable process.'' Conner charts a system of ``support patterns'' for achieving transitions at ``appropriate'' speed. Also essential to successful navigation of change, he observes, is ``interdependent synergy,'' exemplifed by the cooperation of a foxhole gunner and his ammo-toting partner, at every corporate level. In his book of wise counsel, Conner also points out that true resilience means ``never being surprised that you are surprised.'' 25,000 first printing.
Customer Reviews
A deeper perspective into the psychology of change
Understanding that people do not embrace change, if ever, leaves a yearning to understand how and why this exist, still, in a world so rapidly changing. People gain comfort and security in knowing how things are done and how they perform doing those things. When change is imposed on people, there is resistance. To that extent is what most people know of change.
This book took it beyond the individual level and applied an organizational approach that embraces various views on change, the reason and the causes that enlighten the reader to see greatly beyond the initial understanding why organizations resist change. We all know what happens when organizations refuse to change. This book identifies with great insights how to understand cultures within that collude in resisting change and provide a healthy alternative to bringing onboard those who resist and how to manage change.
Classic, still-relevant, but poor iBook
The star rating is for the book itself, an absolute must-have classic and always-relevant reference for organizational change. Conner explains the principles of change better than anyone else I’ve read and most readers will recognize their own experiences when reading the book.
Only a 1-star rating for the iBooks version (Kindle, too).
Conner uses visual aids, in the form of diagrams and charts, very effectively so the way the diagrams have been implemented is a HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT. Some, like Figure 9 in Chapter 6 of Part 3 are almost completely different from the same diagram in the printed book. (The diagrams are similarly poor in the Kindle version.) Oh, and about those chapters — they don’t show up in the Table of Contents!
The ONLY redeeming feature of the iBook version is the ability to do keyword searches.
It’s disappointing that the iBooks version of this book is so poorly implemented, especially considering the potential compared to other iBooks. Maybe Random House deserves the blame, but whoever implemented this wonderful classic as an electronic book did the author and content a huge disservice.