Change Is Everybody's Business

Change is a topic we never seem to learn enough about. The phenomenal success of Who Moved My Cheese, whose Foreword I also wrote, is evidence to that. We feel exhilarated, yes, but also overwhelmed and out of control in a world that continually moves our cheese. We need to rethink our roles and reactions.

This book picks up where Who Moved My Cheese left off. It distills a wealth of knowledge and practice. It is readable and a kind of “field guide” for dealing with change, whoever and wherever you are. The bottom line is that, with the help of insights and tips in this book, you can mine and claim your change power. It’s in your reach – in everybody’s reach.

There are many books out there on empowerment and change, including my own, Empowerment Takes More Than a Minute. In this field, Change Is Everybody’s Business has a special place. It expresses many profound ideas, but in a simple and approachable way. It is brief, but presents important and broad perspectives. It is practical, but clearly grounded in a wise and deep understanding of people at work, people in change.

Specifically, Change Is Everybody’s Business makes it clear that our beliefs, character and actions create us and our world of work. And, it shows us how to be powerful players in shifting sands, whatever our job, whatever our formal authority.

Pat McLagan has been influential in the change management field for years, working on change in executive meeting rooms and in the trenches. She’s hung in there with management boards, leadership groups, change facilitators, and the people themselves – as they struggled with new directions and challenges. She’s supported change in just about every kind of organization, numerous industries, with all kinds of people, and in many countries – including South Africa before, during and after the end of apartheid.

So, what she writes about here isn’t the latest catchy idea. It’s grounded in gritty experience and a lifetime of paying attention to how change happens in people and at work. In this simple and short book, she distills a wealth of knowledge and experience, making it fresh and accessible to all of us for action.

For example, it’s refreshing to recognize that resistance is a wake-up call rather than a problem to avoid… that leaders need to be committed learners rather than having to put up a front of perfection… that we can use rather than deny emotions. We can act as though each of us is a business within the larger business. And, as she says in Action Lesson #3, “.. put yourself in the driver’s seat. Don’t hand your management of yourself over to anyone – not to human resources, not to manage-ment – not to anyone else.” This isn’t a call to mayhem. It’s a call to responsible and conscious use of power.