Book review - Change management

Abstract

The introductory chapter discusses the dire necessity of organizational change in the arena of business and non-business organizations. The authors believe that attitudes towards change results from a complex interplay of emotions and cognitive processes and because of this complexity everyone reacts to change differently. They base their change management model on models of change developed by Kurt Lewin in 1951, who described change as a three-stage process; Anthony Giddens in 1984, who believed that routines and structures reduced anxiety; and Edgar Schein, who discussed learning and survival anxiety. The authors emphasize that change aims at challenging the existing routines and structures which in turn can be achieved by changing the mental models and that learning brings about change if the survival anxiety is more than the learning anxiety. Here again the authors have discussed the Change Need Analysis tool, developed by Pradip Khandwala in 1985, for assessing, measuring, and analyzing the need for change.