The Change Leader's Roadmap

The Change Leader's Roadmap

Linda Ackerman Anderson and Dean AndersonJossey-Bass/Pfeiffer£21.50ISBN 0-7879-5640-6

This is a successor – or, perhaps more properly, a companion volume– to the authors' earlier book (Beyond Change Management) and sets out to be a step by step guide to the processes by which an organisation can achieve transformation. This is real "how to" stuff and can seem a little arrogant at first – but stick with it … you will get used to the style, and you will start to learn.

The authors' suggest that the journey of change should not begin until both the desired future has been designed and the team that is to implement the change has been fully staffed and briefed, i.e. the map and the team are matched. Too often, in their haste for change, organisations run headlong (or headless) into change without having thought through to their final destination– or even when that is known, without determining the stages along the way(to avoid the rapids and the elephant pits!).

The book consists of three sections:

• 1.

  Upstream – where the need to change is identified and the resources to make the change are acquired.

• 2.

  Midstream – where the change is designed.

• 3.

  Downstream – where the change is implemented.

Within these sections, a range of steps are identified and described along with the tasks required to complete each step. The book thus becomes a kind of toolkit for understanding and managing a change process.