Who Killed Change?

Change has been an organizational buzzword for a long time now. No matter where in the world you are, and no matter whether your business is a start-up or a large corporation, you're constantly trying to launch, or at least succeed with, change initiatives. Our continuous trysts with change teach us that it's an easy phenomenon to talk and write about but a very hard one to implement in any truly meaningful way. That's why two-thirds of all change initiatives sink without a trace, according to a study by the Center for Creative Leadership.
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Agent Mike McNally, the dark-sedan-driving, cheap-cigar-smoking (and trying to kick the habit) detective in Who Killed Change? Solving the Mystery of Leading People Through Change, by Ken Blanchard, John Britt, Judd Hoekstra and Pat Zigar (William Morrow, 160 pp., $21.99), is out to find the culprits behind the failed change efforts at a corporation called ACME.

One by one, Agent McNally interviews 13 prime suspects. Each one stands for a key attribute that can make or break a change process in any organization. We relate easily to these unique characters doubling as real-life organizational qualities because is depicted in a light, lively and entertaining way. For example, Mr. Change Leadership Team likes to be known as Pecs. Pecs has biceps three times the size of a normal man's. He developed them by holding up "change" all the time. He also has pencil-thin legs. They resemble "poodle legs walking around with a pit bull's torso," reflecting how most organizations hold up change for its own sake but never pay real attention to actually taking it anywhere. The other suspects include Earnest Urgency, a bundle of raw nerves, and Victoria Vision, who wears rose-tinted glasses. The plot eventually reveals how each one of them played a role in sabotaging change.

What sets the book apart is the way it makes sharp and vivid and distinct the general forces that bring down almost every failed change effort. Agent McNally's interviews with his 13 suspects lay out these forces from a first-person perspective, and we get to know each character's' organizational role, relationships and expectations. He also acquaints us with the parts played by the leadership team and by the employees in general, and we get to see how all these pieces fit together in the context of managing--or murdering--change.

Agent McNally shares notes and reflections at the end of every chapter to help us see the picture from a neutral perspective--that of a management consultant. This assists us in understanding what really deserves attention and what must be discounted among the claims made by each of the suspects in their interviews. McNally's notes also raise ideas about the tough questions we each have to ask ourselves before we invest in an organizational change undertaking. (Ken Blanchard, the book's lead author, is the best-selling motivational speaker whose other books include The One Minute Manager.)


Britt and Blanchard's Who Killed Change presents a fabulous model of how and whyu change so often fails in corporate America today. We are using this text in several of our B-School courses. Dr Pa

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The central topic of the book, change management, has been written about many times before. What makes this book stand out is its unorthodox style of presentation and the way it brings out the intricacies involved in organizational change in an easy but engaging manner.