New Tools to Overcome the Human Barriers to Change Leaders know that their job is to transform their organizations to keep pace with technology and an ever-changing business environment. They also know that they are bound to fail in doing so. But this discouraging prospect is not because they won't be able to solve a technological or strategic problem. Leaders will fail because of intractable human responses associated with change--responses such as fear, ingrained habits, politics, incrementalism, and lack of imagination. These stumbling blocks always arise when we humans are faced with change, but what if we had a way to transcend them? This book reveals a radical new method for doing just that. Written by the executive who designed and implemented it, the neuroscientist who helped make it work, and the academic who explains why it works and how to do it, Leading Transformation introduces an innovative yet proven process for creating breakthrough change. Divided into three steps--envisioning the possible, breaking down resistance, and prototyping the future--this process uses cutting-edge tools such as science fiction, cartoons, rap music, artifact trails, and neuroprototypes to overcome people's inability to imagine or react to what doesn't yet exist, override powerful habits and routines that prevent them from changing, and create compelling narratives about the organization's future and how to get there. Showing how these tools have been used successfully by companies such as Lowe's, Walmart, Pepsi, IKEA, Google, Microsoft, and others, the process revealed in this book gives leaders the means to transcend the human barriers that block change and lead their organizations confidently into the future.

Software is becoming more and more important across a broad range of industries, yet most technology executives struggle to deliver software improvements their businesses require. Leading-edge companies like Amazon and Google are applying DevOps and Agile principles to deliver large software projects faster than anyone thought possible. But most executives don't understand how to transform their current legacy systems and processes to scale these principles across their organizations. Leading the Transformation is executive guide, providing a clear framework for improving development and delivery. Instead of the traditional Agile and DevOps approaches that focus on improving the effectiveness of teams, this book targets the coordination of work across teams in large organizations—an improvement that executives are uniquely positioned to lead.

It is estimated that approximately seventy percent of organizations fail in their attempts to implement transformative change. This book will help lessen that rate. Using real-world examples, Bruce J. Avolio maps four states of change that any organization must go through: identifying and recognizing, initiating, emerging and impending, and institutionalizing new ways of operating. Each state is described in detail, as are the leadership qualities necessary to solidify and transition from one to the next. These "in-between moments" are an often-overlooked key to organizational transformation. So too is the fact that organizational change happens one individual at a time. For transformation to take root, each person must shift his or her sense of self at work and the role that he or she plays in the transforming organization. Intended as a road map, rather than a "how-to" manual with fixed procedures, Organizational Transformation will help leaders to locate their organization's position on a continuum of progress and confidently navigate planned, whole-systems change, overcoming the challenges of growing from and adjusting to watershed moments.

This book examines numerous topic areas that are considered to be especially relevant for making a strategic leader development investment. The topics covered are areas that have theoretical and empirical connections to important aspects of growth, change, adult development, and underlying abilities, skills, and competencies needed to lead effectively in times of great complexity. In addition, these are investment areas identified by the U.S. Army--a world-class organization faced with the need for radical transformation--as particularly relevant for success and survival. This book identifies key concerns in developing leaders and leadership, and in transforming organizations to better meet the challenges of a complex world. There are two aspects of this book that distinguish it from the numerous existing volumes on leadership in the scholarly and popular-press literatures. Most important, the overarching focus of the present book is on development. There are many offerings on the topic of leadership, but relatively few that focus on leader development--especially from a scholarly, academic perspective. Also, this volume offers a unique perspective in examining those underlying psychological competencies and processes that are viewed as especially relevant for leader development. The chapters that are collected in this edited volume were originally commissioned by the U.S. Army Research Institute as "white papers" to better help Army officers and researchers understand important issues in leader development. The present organization of the papers is around four central themes: a) Accelerating Leader Development, b) Cognitive Skills Development, c) Developing Practical and Emotional Intelligence, and d) Enhancing Team Skills.

The challenge of transforming organizational culture is at the heart of many key movements in contemporary healthcare, and understanding culture change has become a core leadership competency. However, much current practice is based on antiquated and psychologically unsophisticated theories, leaving leaders inadequately prepared for the complex task of implementing change. Leading Change in Healthcare presents relationship-centered administration, an effective new evidence-based alternative to traditional culture change methodologies. It integrates fresh insights and methods from complexity science, positive psychology and relationship-centered care, enabling a more spontaneous and reflective approach to change management. This fosters greater organizational awareness and real participation, as well as improved productivity and creativity, as well as staff recruitment and retention. Case studies drawn from primary care, hospitals, long-term care, professional education, international NGOs and other settings, rather than emphasizing the end results, are demonstrations of how to apply relationship-centered administration in everyday practice. Leading Change in Healthcare is a key resource for all practitioners, students and teachers of healthcare management, medical educators, and leaders in all areas of healthcare provision. 'We need a new way of seeing, a new way of leading - and the authors provide a clear guide and resources for the path ahead. Leading Change in Healthcare offers hope - and a method. A daily dose is just what the change doctor ordered.' from the Foreword by Carol Aschenbrener.

"Cohen and Bradford give both leaders and followers the tangible tools they need to create high performance. Their transformational leadership system is both sophisticated enough to capture the realities of life in today's organizations and simple enough to be immediately useful to managers in any part of the world. This book will be read, re-read, and sent to bosses everywhere."--Rosabeth Moss Kanter, author of Rosabeth Moss Kanter on the Frontiers of Management "In Power Up, Bradford and Cohen not only convincingly argue the benefits of leading by building a shared responsibility team, they also describe in detail how to do it. Loaded with many powerful examples and detailed cases that bring their concepts to life, this book will inspire any leader."--Jerry Porras, coauthor of Built to Last and Lane Professor of Organizational Behavior and Change, Stanford Business School "Traditional assumptions about the roles of managers and subordinates are barriers to long-range success . . . Bradford and Cohen provide practical insights into how to transform the leadership systems of modern business organizations, and these insights should be shared among employees and managers at all levels."--Yotaro Kobayashi Chairman and CEO, Fuji-Xerox "Post-heroic leadership and shared responsibility teams have made a big difference in how we operate at Autodesk. Power Up is critical reading for every manager in high-tech." --Carol Bartz President and CEO, Autodesk "Power Up's message is clear: in today's business arena, global players must rely on shared leadership, not a single voice. Post-heroic leaders place responsibility where the knowledge is: at every level. Siemens is committed to this new way of working."--Dr. Heinrich von Pierer President and CEO, Siemens Countless articles and books have called for an end to "heroic," command-and-control management. In principle, at least, business has heeded that call. Acknowledging the need for employee leadership and shared responsibility, companies worldwide have invested heavily in every variety of employee-empowerment program. Yet, such reform efforts seldom have any lasting effect, and managers and subordinates quickly slip back into old follow-the-leader patterns of thinking and behaving. Does this mean that the skeptics were right all along? Are participative management, self-directed work teams, and other popular empowerment programs just part of a futile effort to change "human nature"? Not at all, say David L. Bradford and Allan R. Cohen in this practical follow-up to their international bestsellers Managing for Excellence and Influence Without Authority. They show conclusively that to believe this grossly underestimates human capabilities and sacrifices any chance for success in today's fiercely competitive global marketplace. Drawing upon close observation of successful leaders and followers, Bradford and Cohen reconceptualize shared leadership to show how it requires tough and decisive behavior from managers and those who report to them. The authors provide a blueprint for making it work personally and in your organization, whatever your position or formal power. Exercising their critically acclaimed talent for translating complex concepts into actionable advice and guidance, they show how to create a dynamic, supercharged organizational culture of shared responsibility. Using many real-life examples and vignettes, the authors reveal the mind-traps that keep organizations locked into outmoded concepts of leadership. A pathbreaking contribution to the new leadership from two pioneers in the field, Power Up arms managers with the concepts and tools to release the potential of employees for greater heights of productivity and performance.

From the ill-fated dot-com bubble to unprecedented merger and acquisition activity to scandal, greed, and, ultimately, recession -- we've learned that widespread and difficult change is no longer the exception. By outlining the process organizations have used to achieve transformational goals and by identifying where and how even top performers derail during the change process, Kotter provides a practical resource for leaders and managers charged with making change initiatives work.

Lee Roy Beech seeks to avoid pedantry, gimmicks & hero worship while addressing the complex issues involved in trying to lead an organization. He does not offer any quick fixes, but concentrates on practical strategies.

Explores the practical lessons learned from internationally renowned companies to bring about lasting and fundamental organizational transformation, providing a useful set of field-tested concepts and techniques for anyone seeking to promote change. In-depth interviews with such key corporate change leaders as Bob Allen of AT&T and Jamie Houghton of Corning, Inc., provide valuable insight and firsthand advice on the role CEOs and leadership teams can play in organizational transformation.

This book represents the synthesis of twenty years of consulting. It integrates best practices from consulting firms, colleagues, and clients. I would first like to acknowledge Accenture and PricewaterhouseCoopers for providing practical opportunities for me to learn and build strong skills in consulting, organizational change, large-scale systems change, and strategic thinking, among many others. It was this solid foundation that allowed me to create this methodology. As a theoretical foundation, I worked with or studied the work of many thought leaders in the fields of leadership development, developmental psychology, integral theory, and others. The theoretical giants on whose hard work we built the Innovative Leadership and Organizational Transformation models include: Terri O'Fallon, Ph.D., Susanne Cook-Greuter, Ph.D., Hilke Richmer, Ph.D., Roxanne Howe-Murphy, Ed.D., and Peter Senge, Ph.D., Cindy Wigglesworth Ph.D., and Ken Wilber. These leaders shared not only their theories, but ongoing guidance and encouragement helping to create a solid framework that is comprehensive and theoretically grounded.