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Title: Real Change Leaders: How You Can Create Growth and High Performance at Your Company by Jon R. Katzenbach, Rcl Team, Frederick Beckett, Christopher Gagnon ISBN: 0812929233 Publisher: Times Books Pub. Date: July, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4.33

Rating: 5
Summary: Invaluable Guidance to Prudent Growth and Real Achievement
Comment: There are several reasons why I think this is one of the most important business books I have read in recent years. Here are three. First, it is the best single-source I have as yet encountered which prescribes and explains a cohesive program by which create growth and high performance in an organization. Also, this program allows for all manner of adjustments and modifications to accommodate the specific, sometimes unique needs and interests of any organization. Finally, it is extraordinarily well-written. In fact, this edition combines two books in one volume because the original version has since been expanded to include "The RCL's Handbook for Action."

To gather the information they needed, Katzenbach and his associates at McKinsey & Company (the "RCL Team") examined more than 30 different change situations and interviewed more than 150 change leaders. In the Introduction, they discuss seven common characteristics among the RCLs and then cite three shared beliefs:

1. "Tough standards of performance, but not just financial performance; customer value and workforce rewards are important as well.

2. "A set of democratic principles that tap the creative power inherent in every person; but they also enforce consequence management, believing they can truly empower people only by requiring results in return.

3. "The essence of self-governance is joint accountability (among leaders and constituents alike) for creating new opportunity; the basic approach is open dialogue and interaction to resolve conflicts by working to obtain the best contributions from multiple points of view."

The material is organized within three Parts: People-Intensive Change, Engaging the Organization, and Leadership Capacity and Growth. Throughout the book, the reader is provided with immensely informative as well as convenient charts (eg "Differences Between 'Good Managers' and RCLs) which feature key points. I have already noted "The Real Change Leader's Handbook for Action" (pages 341-391 in the softbound edition) which, in effect, gives each reader a template as well as a frame-of-reference to implement whichever combination of concepts, strategics, and tactics is most appropriate. The "Handbook" offers comments, suggestions, checklists and frameworks "for getting started in areas where change leadership help is needed."

For me, one of the book's greatest values is derived from its response to the question, "What distinguishes a real change leader from traditional managers?" The answer may in some ways surprise you, as it did me. For example, "Real change leaders do not care if the change effort is fast or slow, empowered or controlled, one-time or recurring, cultural or engineered -- or all of the above. They only care that it is people-intensive, and performance oriented....Simply put, real change leaders learn how to survive and win in the delta state, while traditional managers can only survive in the current state or the future state." The real change leader is committed to delivering results beyond the bottom line and instilling a working vision in the hearts and minds of associates while doing whatever is the right thing to do. They help others to perform above expectations (especially their own), constantly nourishing relations with customers while developing and applying the skills needed to remain flexible. Over time, they achieve results with a no-excuses mindset.

If you share my high regard for this book, I urge you to check out O'Toole's Leading Change and Hamel's Leading the Revolution as well as Buckingham and Coffman's First, Break All the Rules.

Rating: 3
Summary: Nothing New
Comment: Reading the introduction, one is promised that the McKinsey team has hit upon a totally different type of leader: a real change leader (RCL). In reality, this book does not break any new ground. To be frank, much of the book concerns the difference between regular middle managers and RCLs. This can easily be rephrased as the difference between leaders and managers, a territory pioneered and well worn by Warren Bennis. Katzenbach does not add much to Bennis's past work. I agree that courage, clarity of vision, and risking failure are the heart of good leadership, but it is also nothing new. What is good about this book is two things: 1) It concerns middle managers and it is nice to read about people other than top managemers 2) The examples are good and should be helpful to any mid-level change leader. Otherwise, this one is skippable.

Rating: 5
Summary: Very good book - down to earth examples
Comment: This is a very good book about the practical issues of Change Management. You should read it together with Smith's "Taking Charge of Change". These two books will give you advise about the "how to" side of Change Management. Highly recommended.

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