Book Summary Preview : Managing at the Speed of Change

The Big Idea
Written a decade ago but still very useful for today’s world, this book will help you if you need to know:

• Why do some people absorb change quicker and adapt faster than others?
• Why do some companies flourish during turbulent times while others flounder?
• Why software systems changes may cause less havoc than moving the paper clips and envelopes to the other room?

With key insights into the fear of change many of us encounter, and many important lessons to understanding how humans, the most controlling type of species on the planet, can better work with change when it happens.

When living beings cannot adapt, they cannot survive. Our children’s future is more uncertain than ever, our lives are more complicated with all the new technology presented to us, and like the old adage states, “the only thing constant is change”. Human beings and organizations need to know how change affects everything, and what we know today can never really prepare us for tomorrow.

The key questions raised are:

• What distinguishes resilient people from those who suffer future shock?
• Why is major change so difficult to assimilate?
• What are the key elements and the flow of events involved in human transition?
• What roles are central to change in organizational settings?
• How and why resistance to change forms
• How do people become committed to change?
• Why is organizational culture so important to a change’s success?
• Why powerful teamwork is at the heart of achieving change objectives
• . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Meet the Beast

The implications of an unanticipated change can torment you from early childhood experiences of moving nomadically from state to state, to job loss or loss of a loved one. Instead of being victims of change, we must learn to work with change.

For businesses today, change is imperative. Darwinian as it may seem, it is the survival of the fittest, whether in the IT business or traditional businesses like banking.

The lily pad riddle

It only takes 29 days for a pond to be nearly suffocated by lily pads, and 24 hours more until it is completely overwhelmed. The idea is to absorb change faster and keep pace with it. Waiting too long to take action is like waiting for the lily pads to completely overwhelm a pond. It may be too late. . . . . . . . . . . . .

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