Every leader understands the burning need for change–and every leader knows how risky it is, and how often it fails. To make organizational change work, you need to base it on science, not intuition. Despite hundreds of books on change, failure rates remain sky high. Are there deep flaws in the guidance change leaders are given? While eschewing the pat answers, linear models, and change recipes offered elsewhere, Paul Gibbons offers the first blueprint for change that fully reflects the newest advances in mindfulness, behavioral economics, the psychology of risk-taking, neuroscience, mindfulness, and complexity theory. Change management, ostensibly the craft of making change happen, is rife with myth, pseudoscience, and flawed ideas from pop psychology. In Gibbons’ view, change management should be “euthanized” and replaced with change agile businesses, with change leaders at every level. To achieve that, business education and leadership training in organizations needs to become more accountable for real results, not just participant satisfaction (the “edutainment” culture). Twenty-first century change leaders need to focus less on project results, more on creating agile cultures and businesses full of staff who have “get to” rather than “have to” attitudes. To do that, change leaders will have to leave behind the old paradigm of “carrots and sticks,” both of which destroy engagement. “New analytics” offer more data-driven approaches to decision making, but present a host of people challenges—where petabyte information flows meet traditional decision-making structures. These approaches will have to be complemented with “leading with science”—that is, using evidence-based management to inform strategy and policy decisions. In The Science of Successful Organizational Change , you'll learn: How the VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) world affects the scale and pace of change in today’s businesses How understanding of flaws in human decision-making can help leaders guide their teams toward wiser strategic decisions when the stakes are largest—including “when to trust your guy and when to trust a model” and “when all of us are smarter than one of us” How new advances in neuroscience have altered best practices in influencing colleagues; negotiating with partners; engaging followers' hearts, minds, and behaviors; and managing resistance How leading organizations are making use of the science of mindfulness to create agile learners and agile cultures How new ideas from analytics, forecasting, and risk are humbling those who thought they knew the future–and how the human side of analytics and the psychology of risk are paradoxically more important in this technologically enabled world What complexity theory means for decision-making in the context of your own business How to create resilient and agile business cultures and anti-fragile, dynamic business structures To link science with your "on-the-ground" reality, Gibbons tells “warts and all” stories from his twenty-plus years consulting to top teams and at the largest businesses in the world. You'll find case studies from well-known companies like IBM and Shell and CEO interviews from Nokia and Barclays Bank.

"Identifies dozens of myths, bad models, and unhelpful metaphors, replacing some with twenty-first century research and revealing gaps where research needs to be done ... Links the origins of theories about change to the history of ideas and suggests that the human sciences will provide real breakthroughs in our understanding of people in the twenty-first century ... Change fundamentally involves changing people's minds, yet the most recent research shows that provision of facts may 'strengthen' resistance ... will help you build influence, improve communication, optimize decision making, and sustain change"--Jacket.

The overwhelming majority of a software system’s lifespan is spent in use, not in design or implementation. So, why does conventional wisdom insist that software engineers focus primarily on the design and development of large-scale computing systems? In this collection of essays and articles, key members of Google’s Site Reliability Team explain how and why their commitment to the entire lifecycle has enabled the company to successfully build, deploy, monitor, and maintain some of the largest software systems in the world. You’ll learn the principles and practices that enable Google engineers to make systems more scalable, reliable, and efficient—lessons directly applicable to your organization. This book is divided into four sections: Introduction—Learn what site reliability engineering is and why it differs from conventional IT industry practices Principles—Examine the patterns, behaviors, and areas of concern that influence the work of a site reliability engineer (SRE) Practices—Understand the theory and practice of an SRE’s day-to-day work: building and operating large distributed computing systems Management—Explore Google's best practices for training, communication, and meetings that your organization can use

In today's complex work world, things no longer get done simply because someone issues an order and someone else follows it.Most of us work in socially intricate organizations where we need the help not only of subordinates but of colleagues, superiors, and outsiders to accomplish our goals. This often leaves us in a "power gap" because we must depend on people over whom we have little or no explicit control.This is a book about how to bridge that gap: how to exercise the power and influence you need to get things done through others when your responsibilities exceed your formal authority.Full of original ideas and expert insights about how organizations—and the people in them—function,Power and Influencegoes further, demonstrating that lower-level personnel also need strong leadership skills and interpersonal know-how to perform well.Kotter shows how you can develop sufficient resources of "unofficial" power and influence to achieve goals, steer clear of conflicts, foster creative team behavior, and gain the cooperation and support you need from subordinates, coworkers, superiors—even people outside your department or organization.He also shows how you can avoid the twin traps of naivete and cynicism when dealing with power relationships, and how to use your power without abusing it.Power and Influenceis essential for top managers who need to overcome the infighting, foot-dragging, and politicking that can destroy both morale and profits; for middle managers who don't want their careers sidetracked by unproductive power struggles; for professionals hindered by bureaucratic obstacles and deadline delays; and for staff workers who have to "manage the boss."This is not a book for those who want to "grab" power for their own ends. But if you'd like to create smooth, responsive working relationships and increase your personal effectiveness on the job, Kotter can show you how—and make the dynamics of power work for you instead of against you.

This book explains how change encompasses many different phenomena, occurs in a variety of ways, and can have widely divergent causes and driving forces. It also helps to develop a constructive theory dealing with planned organizational change. The book is divided into two main sections. Part 1 discusses how organizations can tackle change actively in order to meet the new challenges they are facing. The author provides an analysis model based on four elements: driving forces, the content and scope of change, the process of change and the context of change. Part 2 addresses how an organization can implement a planned change. Emphasis is placed on how those who are responsible for implementing the change – the change agents – can apply various change strategies, and how planned change processes can be managed. The author shows how various change strategies and different ways of managing change can be equally effective, but in different situations. The book uses an interdisciplinary outlook, and it is based on research in the fields of psychology and sociology as well as political science and economics. The extensive references to source materials also mean that it is useful for anyone who would like to study organizational change in more depth. Dag Ingvar Jacobsen is the author of several books in the fields of organization and management, political science and methodology. He is co-author of the book Hvordan organisasjoner fungerer (How Organizations Function), which is one of the most frequently read books in Scandinavia about organization theory. Jacobsen is a professor at the University of Agder, and is a very popular speaker.

Change isn’t going anywhere. Learn how to manage it. We live in a wild world of volatility, unpredictability, chaos, and ambiguity, with change seemingly as the only constant. Change can be difficult. It often induces resistance, panic, and fatigue. And, as you may expect or have experienced first-hand, many organizations aren’t handling change all that well, with many efforts resulting in failure. What you may not realize, however, is that some workplace change initiatives are stunning successes, rolling out smoothly and more easily embraced. Why do some change initiatives fail while others succeed? How can organizations and employees handle change better? In The Hard and Soft Sides of Change Management, Kathryn Zukof offers practices and approaches to help you and your organization roll out, receive, and manage change effectively. Namely, Zukoff shows that you need to manage the process (or the “hard”) side and the people (or the “soft”) side of change and find the sweet spot between the two. She demonstrates that when you integrate both sides, you and your organization can make change less of a hit-or-miss affair. Successful change management means deploying sound project management techniques that increase the odds of achieving the outcomes of your change initiative. It also means helping employees understand the need and vision for change, so they feel less threatened by it and become excited and energized by what’s ahead. To deliver best results, you need to: Define the change and how to get there—with project charters and plans. Involve the right people in the right ways—from dedicated change teams to affected stakeholders. Build support, understanding, and awareness—with communication, training, and resistance management plans. Assess progress and adjust along the way—through action reviews and steps to tackle thorny issues. Capturing the inherently messy nature of workplace change—from technology implementations, mergers and acquisitions, and business transformations to office relocations and more—this book offers tangible insights to help you and your organization tackle change challenges. Follow the book’s tools and practices to lessen the messy and objectionable parts of change and actively give your change initiatives the best chance for positive outcomes.

Change management is the missing piece that takes good ideas and turns them into business success. This book is not only a solid introduction to the discipline of change management, but is the primer to catalyze change leadership and competency in your organization. The responsibility for creating competencies to manage and lead change does not rest solely with HR, but lies within all management, right to the seat of the CEO. This book is a practical look at what it means to manage the people side of change