Getting Change Right: Introduction

Getting Change Right (Jossey-Bass, 2010) by Seth Kahan

(This is the first of several posts this week on this book)
“Adapt or Fail” should be the title of this neat book. I had the pleasure of meeting Seth Kahan and listening to him address a roomful of coaches at an International Coach Federation conference. And after reading his book, I can say it accurately reflects his energy and enthusiasm. The core principle of the book is that change doesn’t happen in a smoke-filled room when a bunch of executives decide on a new course and then shove it down the throats of the masses in the trenches. Rather, bold change happens when there is engagement and conversation at every level about the new direction. It’s surely not a top-down, nor even bottom-up process.

Rather, the change process that the author presents is more like a swirl of engagement and communication that builds like a revolution from within—when all the right people, at all levels, begin to connect and share their responses and ideas around a particular issue. Composed of seven important lessons—Seth offers some clues to what I will call ‘revolutionary change.” The lessons are:

1)Communicate so people get it and spread it; 2) Energize your most valuable players; 3) Understand the territory of change; 4) Accelerate change through communities that perform; 5) Generate dramatic surges in progress; 6) Break through logjams; 7) WorkLifeSuccess to sustain high performance in the midst of change.