Book Review: Mastering The Challenges Of Leading Change: Inspire the People and Succeed Where Others Fail

I like change. More precisely, I like improving things. An as some of the people in my entourage would say, I can be a bull in a china shop. So this book sounded interesting.

Discussion

The book is split in four parts that are explained in the introduction: priorities, politics, people and perseverance.
At the end of each chapter, there is a small questionnaire with actions to do to improve your ability to change.

Let’s try with priorities. Obviously, this is all about how you want to start the change. If you stay put, you are not going forward. So the first chapter is about looking for people who will help you to change. The second chapter deals with setting up a team ready for leading the change, and the last one of this part is about the type of changes we are aiming for.

Second part tackles politics, or more precisely what happens behind the change. Communication is crucial, for the fourth chapter, but I think communication is also getting the message that lies behind a situation. It’s also about being ready to listen to others solutions than yours to improve a situation. The bad part is there are also people who just want to mess with you. I do remember some cases where it happened, and I wish I had in lace all the tools from the first two parts, it would probably have solved my problems with Machiavellis, as the author calls them!

Then we move to handling people. We go back to communication, and the importance of getting direct communication, and not indirect one, then how to handle a group and move in the same direction. I liked also the last part, when you don’t do something just for your job, but also for having new friends.

Last part is about perseverance. There are going to be issues, fires to put out, and you need a proper team. Then perseverance is also about keeping in movement and be ready for the next change. And to do so, you also need to cultivate people who may lead the next change!

Conclusion

Great book. Even if part of it is just sanity, it’s also about noticing that some of the things you may do for your friends, you need to do them when leading change. For me, this proves (all aspects of) communication (are/)is everything.

So now, let’s apply this book to my professional life!

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