Portable Magic
Reading, for me, is entertainment and an escape from the real world. But it can also inform and stretch the boundaries of the life I live.
Currently reading
A Survival Guide to the Stress of Organizational Change ★☆☆☆☆
This small book appears to be intended for the employees of organizations going through a major planned change process. The authors are evidently change consultants, and I pity their clients if this is how the consultants recommend companies communicate with their employees during times of great stress. The tone is ridiculously condescending and paternalistic, written in a hearty “just us regular guys” sort of jargon you see with adults who try to come across as “cool” with teenagers. Excerpts from the opening chapter:
“Mother Earth is producing a lot more people. And people cause change. Like, they make stuff.”
“The third powerful force driving change is information. Knowledge. Get this. There was more information produced in the 30 years between 1965 and 1995 than was produced in the entire 5,000-year period from 3000 B.C. to 1965.”
The essential message the authors convey in their 15 “basic mistakes” chapters is that, if you are feeling stressed or unhappy about the change process at your organization, you just need to get over yourself and deal with it, because your unhappiness is all your own fault. “Upper management” has their reasons, which are most likely in your own best interests if you want to continue having a job, and you’re just too stupid or not important enough to understand them. You are not encouraged to ask questions or to try to understand so you can better contribute. You are instead advised to shut up, surrender, get with the program, and follow orders. The only piece of advice that is not couched in a completely offensive manner is the survival tip advising employees to actively seek new assignments in order to keep their skills and work experience marketable and desirable, which is good advice at all times, independent of organizational change.
Compare this to the Managing Transitions book, where the authors actually advise change agents to first sell the problem necessitating the change, communicate the plan, and recognize that changing employee behavior requires that we recognize that people are always losing something in a change and need to be given space to grieve that loss, even while we’re moving them toward a new identity and way of being.
This was a required text for my Organizational Assessment class.
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