Survival Is Not Enough: Why Smart Companies Abandon Worry and Embrace Change
by Seth Godin

This author is a former Yahoo executive, a renowned speaker, a contributing editor to Fast Company and author of Unleashing the Ideavirus which has been downloaded more than a million times, making it the most popular ebook ever. He’s been credited as being one of the world’s most original thinkers and doesn’t hesitate to demonstrate it chapter after chapter.

Godin is the creator of the concept he declares is the description for business survival. He calls it “Zooming” and defines it as “stretching your limits without threatening your foundation.”

In this book, he turns his attention to the predominant issue facing all business today: change. The result is a wide-ranging and eclectic menu of useful ideas that just about anyone looking to enhance their career, job satisfaction, and their company’s prospects would do well to consider.

This book advocates making it easier for employees to initiate small changes. He makes the case that companies need to evolve more quickly in the current environment, and he identifies policies and attitudes that are conducive to more rapid evolution. Although he is obviously an original thinker, I couldn’t help but notice that so many of his observations were little more than common sense.

For example, he argues that most companies:

• are too careless when they fill positions;
• are too lazy about firing managers who reduce employee effectiveness;
• often fail to take advantage of the talent in companies that they acquire.

Now that I look back over these examples, I guess I should say they are little more than “uncommon sense” due to the fact that most leaders know and agree with these observations but seldom do anything to avoid the negative consequences of each.

Godin provides a groundbreaking new way to organize companies to thrive during times of change. It contains a simple yet revolutionary idea: We can evolve our companies the same way nature evolves a species. Throughout the book, the metaphor of evolution is used in this way to enliven the discussion. He claims Darwin was absolutely right when he declared that evolution was a fundamental force of nature. Godin demonstrates how this force can be unleashed in any organization and become more profitable upon doing so.

He shares tactics for accelerating evolution, declares that the basic building block is people, challenges readers with a long list of very direct eye-opening questions, and revisits a number of traditional truths about the subject of change.

(This book review was originally published in 2002 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 10.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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The Change Monster: The Human Forces that Fuel or Foil Corporate Transformation and Change
by Jeanie Daniel Duck

Can you remember a time in the workplace when we haven’t been discussing the subject of change and how we must adapt to it if we are to survive? You’d think by now we’d not only accept the fact that change is constant, but we’d be experts in adapting to it. That, however, has yet to happen. So, let’s add another change metaphor to the ever-growing list. We’ve recently been informed that change is cheese, five frogs on a log, and even a rampaging river. This author, a senior vice-president at Boston Consulting Group, once likened managing change to balancing a mobile. In this book, she identifies change as a monster. She uses this term to describe the unpredictable “human issues that swirl around change.”

It is Duck’s contention that corporate transformations fail not because of operational tasks or systems but because of emotional factors and social issues. To understand and control the monster, Duck devised the “change curve” to represent the five phases of change: stagnation, preparation, implementation, determination, and fruition. As she goes in depth about each stage, the author illustrates her explanation with personal examples from her experiences as an organizational consultant. Duck explains that each company’s experience along the curve will vary; the phases, though, will always remain the same. She then uses examples to illustrate successes and difficulties in negotiating the curve.

The Change Monster is a tough-minded but compassionate book about leadership when major changes are demanded: after a merger, when profits are falling, or markets are being lost. It is also about the discipline and kindness it takes to get the people who report to and depend on you to confront their fears and move on to a new agenda, strategy, or company.

Though targeted at the change-management drivers of the business world, The Change Monster is infused with a sense of the effects of change in all areas of life. This book is a reminder, through stories and anecdotes, of the essentials of the heart and mind that provide the basis for leadership. It also offers warnings that probably will be heeded only after they have been ignored.

Duck is very clear about this and the steps it takes to be successful. She pares away the jargon, excuses and finger pointing this subject engenders and leaves us with an understandable and inspiring map of the territory. Refreshing and to the point, Duck offers corporate leaders uncommon business advice in this evolving age of bricks-and-clicks.

(This book review was originally published in 2001 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 8.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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Terms of Engagement: Changing the Way We Change Organizations
by Richard H. Axelrod

For decades, organizations have been preaching the need for change. Fast Company chose this subject as a recent cover story for its rapidly growing readership. Everything in our lives seems to be changing on a regular basis—including the way we manage change. The change management paradigm first appeared 20 years ago and was hailed as revolutionary at that time. Today, the entire field of organizational change is undergoing a massive revolution.

Author Richard Axelrod, a pioneer in the field of change management, points out that leader-driven change may have worked well in times past but obviously falls short in today’s technology-driven workplace. He doesn’t stop at critiquing conventional change management programs. He recommends a four-aspect change model, the Engagement Paradigm, designed to overcome communication stalls and mis-communications.

This new approach provides a basis for change that truly involves the entire organization. Four essential new principles make the difference:

1. Widen the circle of involvement,
2. Connect people to each other and ideas,
3. Create communities for action, and
4. Practice democratic principles.

Axelrod provides excellent examples from such companies as Hewlett-Packard, First Union Bank, Mercy Healthcare, and others. He explains how these four principles enable leaders to create energy and commitment rather than apathy and resistance. Recognizing the potential for misapplication, he also shows how engagement can disengage, and identifies potential pitfalls to avoid.

This practical guide offers innovative, practical guidance for bringing the entire organization to the level of engagement vital to successful change outcomes.

(This book review was originally published in 2001 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 8.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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Leading the Revolution: How to Thrive in Turbulent Times by Making Innovation a Way of Life
by Gary Hamel

What you will probably notice immediately upon picking up this book is the glossy, heavy-weight paper, the stunning colorful photos, and the vivid, attractive diagrams and charts. Once into the content, you’ll note a similarity to Tom Peters’ commentary on the necessity of revolution, rebellion, and change. If you enjoyed Hamel’s first book, Competing for the Future, and Tom Peters’ approach to revolution, you’ll appreciate the author’s no-holds-barred assessment of the issues facing companies all around the world as they struggle to catch up with the new economy.

Based on an extensive study of revolutionaries, this book is packed with insight and practical advice. Leading the Revolution shows you how to: 

• Get off the treadmill of incrementalism
• Harness the imagination and passion of every employee
• Save your company from becoming a “one-vision wonder”
• Create vibrant internal markets for ideas, capital, and talent

Drawing on the examples of activists who profoundly changed their companies, the author outlines the practical steps anyone can take to lead a successful revolution in their own organization.

(This book review was originally published in 2001 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 6.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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Living the 7 Habits: The Courage to Change
by Stephen Covey

Stephen Covey has been teaching people and organizations how to be more effective since 1989. He has, at times, been criticized for not using enough real-life inspirational stories in his motivational speeches and texts. This book strives to rectify that situation. 

Covey presents 70 short stories of people as they meet challenges and practice the 7 Habits. Some are ordinary slices of life while others are pivotal moments or life changes. The stories are organized thematically into four areas labeled individual, family, community and education and workplace. Covey, himself, stitches the stories together with commentary. 

If you liked Covey’s previous work, if you practice the 7 Habits, and if you seek inspiration and a feeling of community, you’ll want to add this book to your library.

(This book review was originally published in 2000 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 4.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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The Dance of Change: The Challenges to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations
by Peter Senge

A follow-up on his groundbreaking book The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge has written The Dance of Change for managers and executives at every level of an organization, revealing how business leaders can work together to anticipate the challenges that profound change will ultimately force the organization to face. Filled with individual and team exercises, in-depth accounts of sustaining learning initiatives by managers and leaders in the field, and well-tested practical advice, this book provides an insider’s perspective on implementing learning and change initiatives at leading organizations around the world.

You don’t have to read this book from cover to cover. Just open to any page; you’ll be surprised and challenged. On every page an idea stops you in your tracks and makes you rethink everything you thought you knew about the subject.

(This book review was originally published in 1999 as one of the Top 10 Books – Edition 2.)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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