Never before have strategic leaders been confronted with so much overwhelming change. The traditional approach taken by the leader or leaders is to direct or control the organization's reaction on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis. This approach is stressful and overwhelming for executive leaders, makes middle managers feel torn between honoring their senior leaders and listening to the demands of frontline employees, and is alienating for frontline employees. This approach is hardly a prescription for the pursuit of excellence, and does not enable the organization to be sufficiently agile or nimble to cope with the "white water" conditions in which the organization typically finds itself. This book offers an alternative to the traditional approach by focusing on building the change capacity of the entire organization in anticipation of future pressures to change. An organization's capacity for change is an eight-dimensional dynamic capability of an organization or organizational unit to successfully adapt to the changing organization-environment interface. In change-capable organizations, the strategic leader's role is more of an architect or designer of the organization in anticipation of oncoming change, rather than a commander or controller reacting to change. This approach unleashes the organization's creative potential while maintaining accountability, clarifies the roles of each and every employee in the change process while enhancing organizational flexibility, aligns organizational systems to facilitate change, and builds the organization's leadership pipeline for the future. Based on systematic research of more than 5,000 respondents working within more than 200 organization or organizational units conducted during the previous decade, this book offers a clear and proven method for diagnosing your organizational change capacity. Building on my previous consulting experience and anecdotal evidence, you will also learn how to enhance your organization's change capacity. While building organizational change capacity is not fast or easy, it is essential for effective leadership and organizational survival in the 21st century. This book provides guidance on how to do that essential work in the new millennium.
