HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Change Management, Vol.2
Various Contributors in Collaboration with HBR Editors
Harvard Business Review Press (2021)

“If that’s way you’ve always done it, it’s probably wrong.” Charles Kettering

This volume is one of several in a series of anthologies of articles that initially appeared in the Harvard Business Review. Remarkably, none of their key insights seems dated; on the contrary, if anything, all seem more relevant now than ever before as their authors discuss what are (literally) essential dimensions of organizational and/or individual change.

Over the years, I have been centrally involved in change initiatives at several Fortune 50 companies and agree with James O’Toole that the strongest resistance tends to be cultural in nature, the result of what he so aptly characterizes as the “the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom.”

This is the second volume in which cutting-edge thinkers again focus on how to lead change management in a business world that is more volatile, more uncertain, more complex, and more ambiguous now than it was when Volume 1 was published in 2011. In fact, more so today than at any prior time that I can recall.

Each article includes two invaluable reader-friendly devices, “Idea in Brief” and “Idea in Practice” sections, that facilitate, indeed expedite review of key points. Some articles also include mini-commentaries on even more specific subjects. For example, understanding each of five quests: global presence, customer focus, innovation, nimbleness, and sustainability (27-28); mechanisms for getting the most from your culture (46); why the launch is just one stage in the process (80); and the six forces shaping the future of work (146-147).

These eleven articles do not – because they obviously cannot – explain everything that one needs to understand about formulating and then executing an effective strategy. However, I do not know of another single source at this price (only $17.29 for the paperbound edition from Amazon) that provides more and better information, insights, and advice that will help leaders to achieve success in the business dimensions explained so well by the authors of the articles in this volume.

In the lead (“bonus”) article, “Accelerated!,” John Kotter explains why most (if not all) organizations need to manage disruptive change with a second operating system, “devoted to the design and implementation of strategy , that uses an agile, networklike structure and a very different set of of processes.”

He agrees with Jim Collins and Marshall Goldsmith that a company’s traditional hierarchy and processes may have gotten it “here,” but cannot get it “there.” What does Kotter recommend? Here are eight “accelerators”:

1. Create a sense of urgency around a single big opportunity.
2. Build and maintain a guiding coalition.
3. Formulate a strategic vision and develop change initiatives designed to capitalize on the big opportunity.
4. Communicate the vision and the strategy to create buy-in and attract a volunteer army.

Note:  It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of creating what Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell characterize as employee “evangelists.”

5. Accelerate movement toward the vision and the opportunity by ensuring that the network removes barriers.
6. Celebrate visible, significant short-term wins.
7. Never let up. Keep learning from experience. Don’t declare victory too soon.
8. Institutionalize strategic changes in the culture.

I think Kotter’s article all by itself is worth more, far more than the cost of the entire volume.

It would be a fool’s errand to attempt to apply all of the information, insights, and counsel provided in all — or in only one — of the eleven articles. Absorb, digest, and process the material and focus on whatever is most relevant to the given circumstances. I presume to offer two other suggestions. First, keep a lined notebook near at hand in which to record your own comments, questions, etc. Also, keep in mind that what your organization now does best is only buying time for what must be done even better, much better, and it may not be the same “core” business.

Within a year after Henry Ford introduced the Model T in 1908, four of the five most profitable buggy whip manufacturers went out of business. What about the fifth? It began to design and manufacture automotive products.  At first, it couldn’t manufacture them fast enough to meet demand.

John Kotter explains why most (if not all) organizations need to manage disruptive change with a second operating system, “devoted to the design and implementation of strategy , that uses an agile, networklike structure and a very different set of of processes.”