Real Time Strategic Change: How to Involve an Entire Organization in Fast and Far-Reaching Change

by Robert W. Jacobs and Frank McKeown

Book Overview

A top business consultant presents an eye-opening guide to fast, effective corporate change, based on successful experiences of organizations such as Marriott Hotel and Seattle Metro. "This approach... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1576750302
• ISBN13: 9781576750308
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Length: 360 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.2" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Good text book.

This book is not that bad for a text book. Plenty of good ideas and an easy read. Thumbs up.

Insightful!

Consultant Robert W. Jacobs walks you through his "Real Time Strategic Change" program, which, he explains, has been successfully implemented in numerous companies and organizations. He discusses how and why it works, and points out why other commonly used change strategies don't. Although the book achieves its mission nicely, it gets bogged down by continuous, detailed examples of each step in the process, which provide little in the way of illumination. His excellent guidelines for change still manage to shine through. We [...] recommend this book to all those who are or will be involved with implementing individual, group or organization-wide change.

Making Change Possible and Positive

As an OD practitioner, I highly value Jake's simple but powerful method of making change happen. His approach overcomes the root cause for so many befuddled change attempts. The whole idea that involvement must precede commitment isn't new but the easy-to-accept approach is. With a little practice, anyone with high concern for both the relevance of the change and the well-being of the people making the change can apply Jake's ideas and make almost any change scenario more effective and lasting. Similarity to most problem-solving processes with slight twists to connect a change process with the strategy of the organization provides familiarity which employees need when working differently.For the past 4 years I have been applying Jacob's key principles to a variety of change interventions including groups from 10 to 350 employees. The natural hesitation from Senior Leaders is quickly overcome when they see the power that commitment can have in quickly lowering resistance and developing an almost unbridled desire to move to a new state. Employees who initially greet the process as potentially laborious, quickly see that "going slow now to go faster later", as a friend once said, is really worth it.This book is a key text and resource in a Masters in Management class that I teach. Students frequently leave class with insight and return the next week telling me that they have already applied some of the thinking in their daily management of the business. To their delight, Jacob's mental model gives students enhanced ability to envision and plan change initiatives. Often I get e-mail suggesting that this book has been one of the best investments that they made during their masters program and that the book is a reference that they rely upon.In a nutshell, my experience with Jake's philosophy and process has completely restructured my thinking about how to facilitate change initiatives of any size. The results have compelled me to vigorously teach this process to all levels of leaders in the organization and in the classroom.

Making Change in REALLY BIG Groups

This is a great overview of Real-Time Strategic Change (RTSC), a method for involving dozens, hundreds or even thousands of people in the planning of organizational change. The meetings usually require a single bloc of three days and two nights.The underlying theory is that people support changes that they help to plan. Processes such Future Search or Search Conference can be used by smaller groups (usually 15 to 65 people) to develop an initial plan. RTSC can bring that plan to an entire company for refinement and implementation planning.Ford Motor Company's Mustang division used a version of RTSC to introduce total quality management in the 1980s, responding to the challenge of Japanese automobiles.Generally speaking, RTSC involves the "whole system" - everyone who is involved in the development of a product or service as well as the customers who buy it. In the food industry, for example, an RTSC conference would include suppliers of raw materials and grocery retailers as well internal groups such as Logistics, Manufacturing, Sales, etc. Suppliers and customers can provide information on how the company stacks up compared with competitors, often by using a panel discussion format. Industry experts may also provide information on key trends.Work is done in a combination of large and small group settings. In the large-group sessions, people are assigned to sit at round tables of eight to ten people. These are "max-mix" groups representing different departments or organizations. Following various presentations, the groups are asked to discuss what happened and formulate a brief response. This helps keep the meetings lively and creative.In the classic RTSC format, senior managers present an overview of their proposed plan to the entire group. After small group discussions, people use post-its to write what they agree with, what they disagree with, and what questions they have. The managers have a full night to review this feedback. They return the next day to answer the questions, reinforce areas of agreement, and respond to areas of disagreement. This can be a lively event!People then move into implementation groups to write more detailed action plans to help kick-start the change process.The large groups generate a great deal of energy, an important factor in successful change.While Jacobs provides a good overview for agenda development, he has little to say about the very important logistics of a meeting like this. Important topics include meeting site selection, room size, room arrangement, methods for sharing information, and audio-visuals. When I facilitated an RTSC conference, I hired someone to manage a team of 10 people devoted to conference logistics. While some practitioners have published handbooks on this topic, I don't see any that are widely available. So that is a hole in Jacobs' book.