The views expressed in this article are strictly those of Max Wideman.
The contents of the book under review are the copyright property of the author.
Published here October 2018

Introduction | Book Structure | What We Liked: Part 1, Part 2
Downside | Summary

Introduction

Last month we reviewed Gina Abudi's book Implementing Positive Organizational Change[1] that focused on positive communication throughout any serious business remodeling project. In this book, Mastering Organizational Change Management,[2] Author Barbara A. Davis takes a rather different perspective. Barbara describes how to overcome the inevitable challenges involved in organizational change management (OCM), and includes in-depth descriptions of the available range of techniques available for doing so.

As Barbara observes:[3]

"Many organizations, and indeed many individuals, still hold the attitude that people (emloyees and customers alike) should just accept that changes are a part of life and readily adopt them.

Thankfully, attitudes are changing. Perhaps we have the Millennials to thank for it. As a direct result of how this generation was raised, we see a massive shift in the way companies operate and manage employees and customer relationships. It is out of this shift that we are seeing a shift in emphasis on social currency. In other words, we are beginning to understand that people don't have to be loyal just because someone gave them a job."

Barbara continues:[4]

"Ultimately, this means that existing companies must change the way they think and act on engagement to manage those critical relationships."

And further:[5]

"The most commonplace approach to OCM in the past at many companies was virtually nonexistent. ... This means that there was no planning, or visibility into planning by people outside the executive suite, no communication until the changes were to be implemented, no input taken into consideration, and little or no follow up. It was often referred to as a top-down approach to change management. This isn't an approach; it's a disaster."

The Key Features of this book include:[6]

  • A discussion of the barriers to successful change and how to gain a thorough understanding of the business ecosystem before planning and executing any change effort.
  • A condensation of the vast number of root causes for change into a few all-encompassing reasons.
  • A description of four proven frameworks for managing change, which work best given the barriers to change, the business ecosystem, the reasons for the change, and the project or program objectives and organizational goals.
  • How to develop and execute a winning OCM strategy, and the key stages, activities, and techniques best suited to a variety of situations.
  • How to measure organizational change, including how to develop and use a change scorecard for predicting an organization's ability to make a change successfully, evaluating it throughout the transformation, and after it is completed.

This book is supported by various assessment tools, that include a functional complexity matrix, and a change scorecard template. These are designed to assist practitioners in managing an organizational change project and measuring its success. These tools and templates are available to purchasers of the book by download on line.

About the author

Barbara A. Davis has a degree in conflict resolution and over 16 years of business experience including project management, community development, business ownership, change management and conflict resolution. She is also an international speaker who works with Fortune 500 companies to realign business analysis services and critical struggling projects in order to ensure successful outcomes in the face of conflict and challenging circumstances. Barbara has published numerous articles and authored three more books: Managing Business analysis Services: A Framework for Sustainable Projects and Corporate Strategy Success; Going beyond the Waterfall: Managing Scope across the Project Life Cycle; and Mastering Software Project Requirements.[7]

  

1. See http://www.maxwideman.com/papers/implementing/intro.htm
2. Davis, Barbara A., Mastering Organizational Change Management, J. Ross Publishing, Florida, USA, 2017
3. Ibid, pp1-2.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Observations abstracted from back cover.
7. Abstracted from pp xiii-xiv
 
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