Leading Successful Change: 8 Keys to Making Change Work

Why do as many as 75% of change initiatives fail?

We live in an era where constant change is the norm rather than the exception. Given globalization, increased competition, and constant technological turnover, no organization can run in place: change is not optional. However, the sad fact is that the vast majority of change efforts fail. As authors Gregory P. Shea and Cassie A. Solomon argue, they do not fail for a lack of trying or leadership. Chances are you have led or been part of a failed change. But why did it fail and how can the next change be successfully implemented?

In this essential guide, authors Gregory P. Shea and Cassie A. Solomon deal with the real reasons change efforts fail—and how that failure can be avoided. They argue that change—real change—means changes in behavior and that the work environment itself is the greatest obstacle to making behavioral change stick. They reveal a tested method for leading successful change, which they have developed over a combined 50 years of helping organizations do just that.

In Leading Successful Change, they share the 2 tenets for making successful change; how to create a scene that will provide a vision of the future; the 8 Levers of Change, a tried-and-true method for designing the work environment to support the changes; and how winning companies—from IKEA to a hospital near you—are successfully implementing change.

Change is not optional and it is difficult—but it is also not impossible. Shea and Solomon present a thorough, well-researched explanation of how to make change work.

Gregory P. Shea, PhD, is president of Shea and Associates, Inc. He is also adjunct professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, active in its Aresty Institute of Executive Education and a faculty associate of the Wharton School’s Center for Leadership and Change; adjunct senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at Wharton; senior consultant at CFAR; and a principal in the Coxe Group. Shea is coauthor of Your Job Survival Guide: A Manual for Thriving in Change.

Cassie A. Solomon is the president and founder of The New Group Consulting, Inc. Prior to starting her own company, she spent sixteen years with CFAR. While there, she codirected the Hospitals and Health Care Systems practice. She is a principal in the Coxe Group and an affiliate of Schaffer Consulting. She has taught health care executives at Wharton’s Leonard Davis Institute and teaches change management to executives at Wharton’s Aresty Institute.