The Dance of Change: The Challenges to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations

Now, drawing upon new theories about leadership and the long-term success of change initiatives, and based upon twenty-five years
of experience building learning organizations, the authors of The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook show how to accelerate success and avoid the obstacles that can stall momentum. The Dance of Change, written for managers and executives at every level of an organization, reveals how business leaders can work together to anticipate the challenges that profound change will ultimately force the organization to face. Then, in a down-to-earth and compellingly clear format, readers will learn how to build the personal and organizational capabilities needed to meet those challenges.

These challenges are not imposed from the outside; they are the product of assumptions and practices that people take for granted--an inherent, natural part of the processes of change. And they can stop innovation cold, unless managers at all levels learn to anticipate them and recognize the hidden rewards in each challenge, and the potential to spur further growth. Within the frequently encountered challenge of "Not Enough Time," for example--the lack of control over time available for innovation and learning initiatives--lies a valuable opportunity to reframe the way people organize their workplaces.

This book identifies universal challenges that organizations ultimately find themselves confronting, including the challenge of "Fear and Anxiety"; the need to diffuse learning across organizational boundaries; the ways in which assumptions built in to corporate measurement systems can handcuff learning initiatives; and the almost unavoidable misunderstandings between "true believers" and nonbelievers in a company.

Filled with individual and team exercises, in-depth accounts of sustaining learning initiatives by managers and leaders in the field, and well-tested practical advice, The Dance of Change provides an insider's perspective on implementing learning and change initiatives at such corporations as British Petroleum, Chrysler, Dupont, Ford, General Electric, Harley-Davidson, Hewlett-Packard, Mitsubishi Electric, Royal Dutch/Shell, Shell Oil Company, Toyota, the United States Army, and Xerox. It offers crucial advice for line-level managers, executive leaders, internal networkers, educators, and others who are struggling to put change initiatives into practice.

The question one is left with, as with many books of this type, is not the value of the book (it is excellent), but How many leaders of change will read this volume, take its insights to heart, and ACT upon them?

The book is divided into three sections around the challenges of initiating, sustaining, and redesigning and rethinking. Within these sections are the ten key challenges to profound change. The notes from the field provide a record of organizational change initiatives and specific approaches taken by GE, Hewlett-Packard, British Petroleum, Ford, Dupont, and others. The book includes case histories, round-table discussions, team exercises, checklists, and solid guidance.

This work is densely packed with valuable insights, guidance, and developmental techniques. It offers enormous potential to receptive and motivated readers who are able to move from thought to action. Highly recommended. Reviewed by Gerry Stern, founder, Stern & Associates, author of Stern's Sourcefinder: The Master Directory to HR and Business Management Information & Resources, Stern's CyberSpace SourceFinder, and Stern's Compensation and Benefits SourceFinder.


Great book to look at change from different lenses   January 27, 2003
Gautam Ghosh (Bangalore, India)
15 out of 16 found this review helpful

This book is touted as a "resource" to the Fifth Discipline, but my view is that it could itself stand on its own steam as a handbook for change management. With articles contributed by a variety of authors, the book looks at the challenges of triggering, initiating, aligning and sustaining change and the various diverse ways to confront and solve those challenges.
The challenges that the book identifies are the challenges of:

Orientation, Generating Profound Change, Not Enough Time, No Help, Not Relevant, Walking the Talk, Fear & Anxiety, Assessment & Measurement, True Believers and Non-believers, Governance, Diffusion, Strategy & Purpose.

The book is choc-a-block with tools, explanation of jargon and
references to other resources. An orientation to Systems Thinking and looking at organizations as complex systems would help in clarifying the book more. Hence it is desirable to read "the fifth discipline" before you read it.
However, the delightful nature of this book ensures that you can flip open any page, read a little bit and keep it back, and feel refreshed and not thirst for more.
For people who look at organizations as communities, as networks and as human systems in addition to just being an economic entity this book will delight and scare.
For others, this book will act as a provoking way to look at change and organizations in search of equilibrium.


Highly Recommended for all Organizations   October 31, 2000
yo-tambien (Reno, NV)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful

Senge and crew return with another message of change; this one in clear form delineating the barriers to change in organizations. Senge approaches his systems thinking model pragmatically, and he cautions those in companies about key areas that can and will impede progress to new ways of thinking about, say, management. His goal is realistic, his examples lucid and what he forewarns and suggests can improve any organization that is experiencing learning disabilities. Senge's influence is from group process theory, psychotherapy, environmental sustainability (Ray Anderson and Daniel Quinn are cited), consultation gurus and even spiritualists. What kept coming up for me his how Senge treats organizations much like how a therapist may work with a client: as an advocate, a coach and mentor. The processes to change are similar. My only complaint is that Senge speaks of learning organizations commonly as corporations -- even though this work can be applied to even a small business -- and I wish he could have used more diverse examples: from social service agencies, schools and others (these grounds are covered, I hear, in The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook). His focus is corporate. Not that this pegs him as the antichrist, but merely that his language often reflects and is directed toward the business culture. Nevertheless, his conclusion expands parameters to include not only humanity but the more-than-human world in which we reside. He closes with quotes from Quinn's My Ishmael about how the "revolution" will be incremental, and how the dance of change will occur organically, much like the process of the living world.