Book Summary Preview : Viral Change

The Big Idea

Many people have the idea that organizational change is a long, agonizing, drawn-out process, and this is indeed true in many cases.

However, there is another face of change – one that can rapidly take place in small, incremental steps. Moreover, it need be initiated neither by large groups of people and/or influential individuals; positive change can come not only from the people on top, but can be effected by just one person. In addition, change is inevitable, so openness to it is key; large corporations usually get into trouble because of their inflexibility and non-acceptance of change, considering the dynamic nature of industries.

Why You Need This Book

Viral Change is about how a small number of people can initiate a small set of behaviors that could bring about sustainable change. It can thus serve as a companion for today's leaders, especially those who are focusing on dealing with "change management", and can even be used as an interesting guide for creating change in one’s own workplace. It will help readers understand how and why organizations are evolving and how to adjust to these changes in order for them to lead and manage.

Author Leandro Herrero once again proves why people and their ways should be open to going beyond tried-and-true solutions to overcome problems. This insightful book will remind you that it's time to move on.

Making Success Fashionable

• The concept of Viral Change is all about contagious behaviors that spread. They reach a tipping point and become ‘the norm’ – and this can be achieved with a relatively small number of such behaviors.
• In addition, specific networks of a relatively small number of individuals also help with this spread by carrying the infection and creating the fashion.
• Fashions and infections have many things in common. After all, fashion is the infection of ideas or habits.
• Viral Change is a fundamentally different way of understanding not only how organizations work but also how change is induced and made sustainable.

The Change Management ‘Speak’

• Caius Petronius wrote in AD 65, “We trained hard… but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up in teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later on in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.”
• Machiavelli stated in The Prince, “There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”
• There is no other statement more used in management conversations than ‘people are resistant to change’. By repeating this like parrots, people end up taking it at face value.

Want to read the rest of this summary? click here >>