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Exercises
Conclusion

In this chapter I have sought to introduce the themes of this book. I argue strate-
gic change is both an intellectual challenge and a process for handling people
and uncertainty. A recent book links these two as in effect the same challenge –
that of finding ever more ingenious solutions to age-old problems of markets,
competitiveness, technology, etc. (Homer-Dixon, 2000). I think the challenge is
to do both well and propose to explore that point in the chapters that follow.
Thus making change successfully is indeed an intellectual task. It is much more
than about being ‘good with people’. It is capable of being understood more
thoroughly and should not be consigned to the ‘mystery’ surrounding behav-
ioural science theory and often attached to the use of psychometric tests. It is a
challenge for management and leadership teams. It is not a task or set of tasks to
be shunned or to be passed on to the new ‘wizards’ of organization design. But
the various professional and academic disciplines can and do help – our task is to
better understand how.

EXERCISES

1 What change architecture can you identify in the KPMG case study?

2 What mechanisms have you seen used to ensure that learning and development
forms part of a change programme?

3 How might we seek to learn from a failure in organization change?

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