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The Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations
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Sales rank 3,588
Customers rating (based on 30 reviews)
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John Kotter's international bestseller Leading Change struck a powerful chord with legions of managers everywhere. It acknowledged the cynicism, pain, and fear they faced in implementing large-scale change-but also armed them with an eight-step plan of action for leaping boldly forward in a turbulent world. Now, Kotter and coauthor Dan S. Cohen delve deeper into the subject of change to get to the heart of how change actually happens. Through compelling, real-life stories from people in the trenches, in all kinds of organizations, the authors attack the fundamental problem that underlies every major transformation: How do you go beyond simply getting your message across to truly changing people's behavior? Based on interviews within over 100 organizations in the midst of large-scale change, The Heart of Change delivers the simple yet provocative answer to this question, forever altering the way organizations and individuals approach change. While most companies believe change happens by making people think differently, Kotter and Cohen say the key lies in making them feel differently. They introduce a new dynamic-"see-feel-change"-that fuels action by showing people potent reasons for change that spark their emotions. Organized around the revolutionary eight-step change process introduced in Leading Change, this story-driven book shows how the best change leaders use not just reports or analysis, but gloves, video cameras, airplanes, office design, and other concrete elements to impel people toward positive action. The authors reveal how this appeal to the heart-over the mind-motivates people to overcome even daunting obstacles to change and produce breathtaking results. For individuals in every walk of life and companies in every stage of change, this compact, no-nonsense book captures the heart-and the how-of successful change.
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| Publisher | Harvard Business School Press | | Release date | 08/2002 | | Availability | Usually ships in 24 hours | | Edition | Hardcover |
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Book Review: Feelings Change: People change not so much because they are given analysis that shifts their thinking as because they are shown a truth that influences their emotions (@ CIO Insight)
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 Excellent book
Excellent book, easy to read, understand and follow the steps. The examples are so plentiful and so easy to moldable to one's own challenges. I would suggest this read to anyone, employees and CEOs alike, that wants to make a change in their organization or in their life.
 The Heart of The Heart of Change
Your heart allows you to thrive...right? So a book entitled "The Heart of Change" probably should show signs of life! And that it did! I felt that this book was very well written and offered some life-changing information! The real-life stories only encouraged the reader to pursue more and more of what we all want. And that is to FEEL in our HEART that what we are doing is WORTHWHILE and PURPOSEFUL! Page 11 and it's diagram of the concept of See-Feel-Change is terrific! Terrific, not only because it matched the content, but because it met the visual reader as well as the logical reader as well as the emotional reader. The script them backed up it's information with the 8 stages of successful large-scale change. This worked becuase we all know that you usually experience individual/personal change amidst a bigger/greater change! Page 78 and 79 with the story of "the body in the living room" was more than real and humbling, while the story on page 50 about the boat capsizing and the need for "trust" through a change was priceless!
I would recommend this book for those in the educational realm as well as the business world, and even those just pursuing change for their own personal life! As John Kotter said, if we see it and feel it, we will desire the change!
Fantastic
A very well written book on how to lead change in your organization (or family) taking into account how others will react.
Change Management
This is a must read for any executive facing a large initiative requiring changing the way people do their jobs. Book provides application instead of theories found in most texts.
An examination of "the centrality of emotion" when leading change
This book was first published in 2002 and I recently re-read it, curious to know how well John Kotter's core concepts have held up since then. My conclusion? Very well indeed. The Heart of Change is in several respects a sequel to Kotter's previously published classic, Leading Change, in which he observes that "Over the past decade, I have watched more than a hundred companies try to remake themselves into significantly better competitors...Their efforts have gone under many banners: total quality management, reengineering, right-sizing, restructuring, cultural change, and turnaround. But in almost every case the basic goal has been the same: to make fundamental changes in how business is conducted in order to help cope with a new, more challenging market environment. A few of these corporate change efforts have been very successful. A few have been utter failures. Most fall somewhere in between, with a distinct tilt toward the lower end of the scale. The lessons that can be drawn are interesting and will probably be relevant to even more organizations in the increasingly competitive business environment of the coming decade."
Whereas in Leading Change Kotter examines the eight steps people tend to follow to produce new ways of operating, in this volume he and Dan Cohen examine "the core problem people face in all of those steps, and how to successfully deal with the problem." And the central issue is never strategy, structure, culture, or systems. "All these elements, and others, are important. But the core of the matter is always about changing the behavior of people, and behavior change happens in highly successful situations mostly by speaking to people's feelings." (Those who do that effectively have what Daniel Goleman characterizes as "emotional intelligence.") Kotter and Cohen structure this book around the eight steps "because that is how people experience the process. There is a flow in a successful change effort, and the chapters follow that flow."
They duly acknowledge the importance of clear thinking to large-scale change when selecting a strategy, locating information and then determining what to do with it, selecting possibilities for short-term achievements (i.e. picking "low-hanging fruit"), and formulating periodic progress reports. That said, I agree with Kotter and Cohen that effective leaders are sensitive to the emotions that undermine change (e.g. false pride, pessimism, cynicism, insecurity, and fear of the unknown), and they find ways to reduce those feelings.
Effective leaders are also sensitive to the emotions that facilitate change (e.g. faith, trust, optimism, reality-based pride, enthusiasm), and they find ways to nourish and enhance those feelings. Most important of all, effective leaders master the "See-Feel-Change" approach: They help others to recognize a problem or a solution to a problem, then help them to visualize it as concretely as possible, anchored in human terms, so that they will be emotionally committed to the given change initiatives. Kotter and Cohen devote a separate chapter to each of the eight steps, explaining with a series of real-life stories how various people changed their organizations and how others can change theirs. John Kotter and Dan Cohen understand, of course, that change initiatives inevitably encounter resistance. However, they have demonstrated in their book that almost anyone can help give direction to, or energize, at least a part of one the eight steps. "We need more of these people, and there is no reason we cannot have more. We need more people doing what they already do, but better - and there is no reason why that also is not possible." I agree.
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