Amazon Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review to be helpful:
Simple and Profound, June 18, 2008
By CPS
I love it when I find a book that is both easy to understand as well as profound. Salerno and Brock have offered an easy to understand model to help navigate through the sometimes not so friendly waters of change!
Even though this book is geared towards business, I have found it helpful in all areas of my life...I highly recommend this book to anyone exploring ways to deal with and understand change.
2 of 2 people found the following review to be helpful:
Powerful Resource Guide, June 17, 2008
By OutdoorVases
What a great read! This book has enough science to make the case for their 6 stage Change Cycle, and plenty of stories and illustrations to make it user-friendly. Their content combination of what to notice and consider vs what to do and when and how -- make for a powerful resource guide for those of us in the middle of workplace change after change.
I appreciated Salerno and Brock's guidance about thoughts, feelings and behaviors to watch for in each stage and how to interpret their meaning and intentions. I need all the 'how-to' help I can get, and this book laid out for me a sequence of good management and communication strategies in a way that I can understand and now begin to implement to help others.
1 of 1 people found the following review to be helpful:
Cycling Through The Change Cycle, August 14, 2009
By David A. Schmaltz
If you're anything like me, you approach every new business book skeptically. It might take you a while to pick up the thing, and a long time to get through the first chapter or two. Why? Because, perhaps like you, I don't want to be changed. My world view has gotten me this far, thank yew very much, and I am not in the market for some shattering revelation. Not even a minor insight.
This is the first business book I've ever read that encouraged me to read like I read, which means it encouraged me not to read it at first. Perfectly normal response, even a wise one. The first step of any change is a red light. Stop and poke around a while. Do some milling around. Progress at this stage is dangerous and perhaps delusional.
When the time is right, and you'll know when it's right, you can start poking a little stick out there, and perhaps learn that nothing seriously life-threatening lurks. Go ahead, read another chapter. Start to get to know these folks. Reacquaint yourself with yourself.
No, they aren't know-it-alls (Thank heavens!), and they've been just as lost, confused, angry, and dismayed as you feel. They suggest that we are all this way, sometimes. Now isn't that more reassuring than a library filled with all-ya-gotta-do exhortations?
Okay, I crept through this book. I liked creeping through it. It confirmed some stuff I already knew and reassured me about some stuff I always suspected, and generally left me feeling as if I were a member in reasonably good standing of the human race. When was the last time you read a business book and you didn't feel inspired to become someone you will never realistically become or discouraged that you'll really never be the sort of proto-human described in there? Read this one. Keep it handy. It will have a long, and useful shelf-life. A wise counselor. Someone handy with a reassuring phrase. Someone as ready as you are to step into the change you're procrastinating stepping into.
Oh, yea, that's wisdom holding my feet here, not anything but a deep and curious wisdom. Don't expect that the people you loan this book to will return it right away. Once you've read it, you'll understand why. And anticipate the languid response. Once they get around to poking their way through, they'll understand, too. Later, when the book is back on your shelf, you'll occasionally notice it sitting there and quickly cycle back through your latest change cycle. And recall, fondly I suspect, what used to be the status quo and just won't be anymore. And also reflect that this new, still a little stiff status quo will soon enough slip into fond memory, too.
1 of 1 people found the following review to be helpful:
A helpful guide to the personal aspects of experiencing profound change, January 13, 2009
By Craig Matteson
Ann Salerno and Lillie Brock provide a simple and helpful model to help you not only manage organizational and technical change, but to assist the people who must go through it with you. They help you understand the six stages that can move your from the sense of loss people feel when change occurs through developing a sense of integrated satisfaction and confidence in one's ability to handle change. If you fail to hand each stage properly the issues don't go away, they thwart you ability to move on constructively.
The six stages are:
1) Loss - You will likely feel fear. Your thinking will be cautions and your actions will be more or less frozen and you will not feel comfortable moving ahead.
2) Doubt - Feelings of resentment appear and you are skeptical of everything and everyone. You will resist the change and try to keep things as they were.
3) Discomfort - You are now full of anxiety because you know the change has to come. You are confused about how to best handle it and your work suffers because you are less productive than you were.
4) Discovery - By getting a handle on the change you discover new talents and feel more resourceful. You have made the transition and now feel energized.
5) Understanding - Not only have you handled the present change, you have developed skills to help you become more pragmatic about future change. You are now more productive than ever and more capable of handing new challenges.
6) Integration - You new level of performance fills you with a sense of satisfaction, you are able to focus on work and your personal life more directly than ever before. You now have the strength to give and share your learning with others.
This is an easy to read book with helpful diagrams, lists, and illustrations. Since change is an inevitable part of modern life, I think this book can be helpful to anyone not already confident about how to handle it.
Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI
1 of 1 people found the following review to be helpful:
A must read!!, October 10, 2008
By G. Kagaoan
A must read for anyone in the private or public sector going through organizational change. Easy read and easy to relate to.
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