What Is Change?

Hopefully, if you are picking up this book, you recognize that the world around you is changing almost faster than you can say “organizational change.” As a thought exercise, think of all the things you use and do every day that your grandparents did not have access to. For some, that might be a car; for others, a phone, television, and maybe access to education. Now think of things you use and do every day that your parents did not have access to: the Internet, color television, ATMs, and cell phones. How about things you use and do every day that even you didn’t use 4 or 5 years ago: Facebook, for instance, or text messages? Think about it: How many people actually get a check from their employer, walk over to a bank, and deposit it? So the issue really isn’t why organizations change; the issue is that the world is changing and organizations just have to keep up with it. We can only imagine how cheap a 3-D television will be by the time you are reading this book. Think about it: 3-D—something that only 5 years ago we would have thought can only be meant for large, expensive movie theaters—might become something that everybody has in their basement.

All change, however, is not the same in terms of magnitude or impact. We don’t need to change everyone in the entire organization, as well as all the systems and all the processes, if by change we just mean adjusting the temperature setting by 2 degrees. Similarly, we don’t suggest that if you are trying to lose 5 pounds you need to go through the same efforts to lose weight as someone trying to lose 25, 50, or even 200 pounds. While these examples are indeed change, we suggest the magnitude of the change dictates the effort needed to lead the change.

So for different types of changes, you will need different tools, approaches, and even language to lead the change. In the following sections, we describe three different approaches to change: standardization, incremental improvement, and transformation.