The Change Monster - Hardcover

The Change Monster is a look at how to effectively plan for, address and manage the least predictable and perhaps the most important aspect of a successful change in organisation. Jeanie Daniel Duck's treatise on the human element of growth looks at fear, curiosity, exhaustion, loyalty, paranoia, optimism, rage and revelation as the typical emotions that are encountered when leaders embark on organisational change.

Duck's experience with change has been widespread and varied. During an early career running her own consulting practice and more recent years spent as a senior vice-president with the prestigious Boston Consulting Group (BCG), she has guided companies all over the world through the mountains and minefields of mergers, re-engineering ventures, and strategic transformation projects. In the process, she has developed and refined her understanding of the five phases of the "Change Curve", her own map of the territory of change. The monster in hibernation is the first of those phases, Stagnation and is awoken by forceful impetus from on high, through either internally or externally initiated change. Duck discusses both the signs of stagnation and various methods for recognising the problem--the questions that need to be asked, the analyses that need to be conducted and the appetite for change that needs to be generated. During the Preparation stage, there are essential tasks for the leaders (achieving alignment and commitment on vision, strategy and values) that will provoke behavioural change requirements of all members of the organisation, and Duck introduces a BCG tool used to help assess the change bias of any organisation. For the Implementation and Determination stages, Duck shares tips on walking the talk, being on the alert for human dynamics that threaten to derail the initiative and communicating effectively and offers advice on testing one's assumptions as a leader and staying involved with the process of change at all levels--strategies designed to lead the organization through to the final stage of Fruition. Throughout, Duck refers to the largely positive change experience of a real company, Honeywell Micro Switch and the less effective actions of a fictional merger between two pharmaceutical firms.

Duck has also spent time as an artist and teacher, occupations reflected in her understanding of how people cope with both the reality of change and the manner in which it is brought about. Though targeted at the change-management drivers of the business world, The Change Monster is infused throughout with a sense of the effects of change in all areas of life. A sensitive exploration of an often-difficult process. --S Ketchum

"Since any change effort--from merger to corporate reorganization--inevitably involves people, it's hard to believe that no book has ever addressed this issue head-on. The Change Monster is all about the 'hard part' of strategy--getting the organization to internalize, commit to, and follow through with change. As Jeanie Duck well knows, even organizations that know they need to change often can't get up the head of steam needed. The Change Monster not only talks intelligently about the social dynamics and emotions of people, it does so with wisdom, insight, and practicality. With Jeanie Duck's book, managers now have a creative, powerful tool for understanding and dealing with this crucial subject."
-- Daniel Leemon, executive vice president and chief strategy officer, The Charles Schwab Corporation

"Where else can you explore companies like Sisyphus Systems and FastMovingGoods or learn why Ennui International is mired in the past and Worldwide Frenzy is going nowhere fast? With scores of such tales from the consultant's trenches, Jeanie Duck offers a practitioner's primer on revitalization. She puts you in the shoes of some who have failed and others who have succeeded, and in doing so graphically delivers her main message to management: Learn to master the emotions and obsessions of those who stand in the way of change, including your own, and once you do, you have your hands on a miraculous engine for change."
-- Michael Useem, professor of management and director of the Center for Leadership and Change at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and author of The Leadership Moment

From the Hardcover edition.