Making a Difference: Strategies and Real Time Models to Transform your Organisation

Citation

(1999), "Making a Difference: Strategies and Real Time Models to Transform your Organisation", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 23 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/jeit.1999.00323cae.003

Making a Difference: Strategies and Real Time Models to Transform your Organisation

Making a Difference: Strategies and Real Time Models to Transform your Organisation

Bruce NixonGilmour Drummond Publishing1998ISBN 1 901912 01 9£19.95

Keywords Human resource development, Improvement, Organizational change, United Kingdom

This book is all about transformation. All of a sudden, transformation is an acceptable, mainstream word used by business leaders and many others. In our global technological age, everyone is involved in transformation and innovation, be it in business, other types of organizations, the world community, politics or the family. This book provides ways of looking at things and tools to help people cope, thrive and play their unique part, whatever it is, in leading, influencing and easing transformation ­ in short how we can make a difference.

The book is written for people in business and formal organizations who are passionate about wanting their organizations to flourish and become better, more creative places to work in and realize they have the power to make a difference. It is primarily aimed at the human resource development practitioner ­ the organization's "internal consultant" or "facilitator". But you could be a chief executive, director, president, vice president or manager who wants to exert your influence on how the organization leads its people and engages with other shareholders. It will have widespread appeal because most of us work in organizations (such as business, schools, communities, the arts, voluntary work, government, churches, citizens associations), or are close to people who do.

Making a Difference aims to give you:

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  a "systems" understanding of what is going on in our world so you can see you are not alone and are not powerless;

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  vision, inspiration and support;

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  strategies and tools, including "whole system" processes that can engage all stakeholders in your organization;

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  a more successful approach to leadership that will engage the whole workforce, all stakeholders in continuous innovation and teamwork, and encourage everyone to take full responsibility and to see themselves as partners;

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  ways of working with resistance and embedding change;

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  encouragement to be yourself, lead and play your unique and valuable part in transformation;

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  ways of developing people through working on the real opportunities and issues of the business (real time management development) that encourage personal responsibility and self-development.

Most books about transformation originate in the US. This book has the advantage of being set in the context of UK culture yet written by someone who has links on both sides of the Atlantic, the Caribbean and across the world. Four honest, "warts and all" case studies about change efforts ground the book in the reality of life in organizations, enabling conclusions to be drawn from what worked and what did not.