Book Review Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Book Review - Term Paper Example Unfortunately most of the organizations fail in this remake effort. Some fail miserably but most of the organization lie somewhere in between. According to Peter Senge in his 1999 book â€Å"Dance of Change† â€Å"This failure to sustain significant change recurs again and again despite substantial resources committed to the change effort (many are bankrolled by the top management), talented and committed people driving the change and high stakes. The companies that fail to sustain significant change end up facing crises. Despite this high failure rate the need for change is undeniable for sustained growth. In fact the sooner is the better otherwise options gets dried up and it requires heroic efforts to successfully bring change. The powerful macroeconomic forces that necessitate change are technological, international economic and open market forces. These forces simultaneously create opportunities and challenges for the organizations. The phenomena that some companies succ essfully manage dramatic changes, while others fail, intrigued Kotter. It led him to study more than hundred organizations involved in the change effort. He believes that the defining factors between success and failure of these change initiatives in business are some critical differences. This extensive study resulted in the development of a framework. He devised an eight phase process necessary for successful change. The most general lesson he derived from the case of successful companies is that each company has to undergo eight phases or steps in the change process without skipping any step. It requires a great deal of time and care because any critical mistake at any phase can be very costly to the company. Kotter’s view about change is quite dissimilar to the views of the vast majority on change management. Kotter emphasizes on leadership rather than management hence the name leading change rather than change management. He negates the common perception that change is a ll about management. He believes that successful transformation is 70-90 percent leadership and only 10-30 percent is management. Kotter not only recognizes the complexity of organizational change but also has proposed its solution with leadership, which is neither simple nor easy, instead of a logical process to manage change as prescribed in most of the books. Kotter’s book is also different from other books on account of its reliance on personal experience based on his exposure to companies for many years instead of drawing on other sources to bolster his arguments and conclusions. Kotter has attributed this undue emphasis on management to the mushroom growth of organizations by entrepreneurs in the twentieth century. Hundreds of mangers were required for the management of these organizations. A single leader with lots of managers could fulfill the requirements of a relatively slow pace of change in business. But the ever accelerating pace of change in the fast moving worl d of the twenty first century, decisions need to be made quickly and cannot take the ponderous and slow route of the management style. Dynamic adaptive enterprises of today’s world demand leadership. Kotter in his book has firstly identified the reasons of change programs failures and urged the importance of leadership and secondly has developed the change