Two good books on change...

Date last updated 5:46 pm Aug 20th, 2007

I've recently read two very good books that support the value of taking control and challenging the status quo:

"Blue Ocean Strategy", by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, challenges traditional competitive strategies to increase “profitability”. The authors give examples of creative managers, in both the public and private sectors, that chose to use “value innovations” to achieve their goals and make their competition irrelevant.

"Change or Die", by Alan Deutschman, examines the characteristics that predispose individuals and organizations to resist change, even in the face of empirical data that shows that their failure to change may produce dire consequences. Duetschman gives several examples of a three faceted approach – relate, repeat, and reframe – that has yielded sustained, positive, changes in both individuals and groups by changing fundamental norms of behavior.