The Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations Hardcover – November 6, 2012

The book is a great follow-up to Kotter's best selling book, Leading Change. He emphasizes the behavior changes required to make each of eight stages come alive in a See-Feel-Change model versus a traditional view of Analysis-Think-Change.With this latest book, The Heart of Change, the author provides powerful stories to make the point that emotion plays a more powerful role in making change than most of us have been taught or know how to apply. In each chapter, suggestions are made on how to make this transition.For those are in the throes of a major change effort in their organization, this is must reading that provides a fresh view of how to insert energy back into the process of change. I highly recommend the book.

I did not read the original but read this for an Master's Organizational Change class. This book is amazing. Very well written with practical stories that reinforce the 8 step change process and why most change initiatives don't work. Service oriented change versus metric driven change is the real prize. If you have anything to do with change management this is a must read. For the price this book has trumped the $100 textbook on Organizational Change I also had to read. Read it, pass it on, and start changing the right way.

In this book Kotter explains how people change less because they are given analysis and facts about why change is needed and more because we show them a truth that influences their feelings. This concept is not adopted by all those writing on change management. Yet it is a concept that does fit with my experience. Unless the facts, figures, and general information presented by those wanting to effect change is compelling enough to generate the feelings that change is a requirement, then change will not happen. Kotter puts it this way: See, Feel, Change. So the information and analysis must be geared toward the "seeing," and the "feeling" in order to prompt people to change. If we do not actively pursue the task of driving necessary change, change management becomes an oxymoron - change forced upon us becomes chaos and we do not manage the change, it manages us.One of the things I enjoyed most about reading this book was the clear and logical layout with the interesting web-page navigation graphics. Also the case studies from "real life" gave practical examples of what successful change might look like in our companies. His eight steps to successful change are: 1. Increase Urgency, 2. Build the Guiding Team, 3. Get the Vision Right, 4. Communicate for Buy-In, 5. Empower Action, 6. Create Short-Term wins, 7. Don't let up, 8. Make Change Stick.All of this helps in building a practice of Shaping the Corporate Culture, which is, of course, near and dear to our hearts at dbkAssociates. Many of the insights in this book will be of practical use to us and to our clients.

I like this product because it is very applicable into today workplace. I work in an organization that went through some major transformations and all the steps listed in this book were made in order for those changes to happened "successfully". The books make painfully clear that positive change takes time, and gives a step by step process on how to make those changes happen. I would recommend this book to working professionals. I recommend this book to college students as well; however, college students "may" not be able to relate to the material without experience.

I'm now in a "Change Management" role with my work, and decided to read some texts on the subject to further my understanding of the topic. Of those books that I've read, this one has clearly been the most helpful. Kotter articulates the steps of change in a way that connected with me, and made it real with a number of relevant examples. It's not onerous to read (<200 pages) but equally isn't "lightweight." While I would never recommend reading only a single book on the topic, I would definitely recommend that this be one of the books you read!

I read this at the same time as Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. Sadly, it suffers in comparison. On its own, "Heart of Change" is not a bad book. There are 8 steps to making successful change, with a main theme that people need to make an emotional connection in order for change to be successfule ("See -> Feel -> Change"). However, Kotter doesn't really connect the theme specifically to his 8 steps. That specificity is where "Switch" shines. Switch uses a similar theme - that you need to appeal both to the logical and emotional sides, and you need to make it easier for change to happen by changing the environment. The difference is that Switch focuses on BEHAVIOR. I think this is a significant part of any change effort. While Kotter talks about appealing to the emotional side, he's still strongly in the camp of business cases and bringing employees around. The Heaths have an approach that's more easily broken down and replicable. I had a few takeaways from this book - for example, that quick wins have to be both meaningful and visible - which is why I gave it 3 stars. Sadly, that's not enough to make this a "must have" for a business leadership library. Switch, on the other hand, is staying on my shelf.

I had to get this for a class, which is never fun. It was an easy read, however, and the stories keep it entertaining. I've taken org change classes before so nothing was all that ground breaking, but it is a good foundational book that is written in a way that will keep the reader's attention. There are many, very short, stories that put ideas into perspective.

Bought this book for work. Good concept of change management