Paul GibbonsThe Science of Organizational Change: How Leaders Set Strategy, Change Behavior, and Create an Agile Culture (Leading Change in the Digital Age)

Winston Churchill said that every man makes mistakes, but it is the successful man who learns from his mistakes. My bet is that Paul Gibbons, the author of The Science of Successful Organizational Change, would agree. Paul Gibbons who founded his own consulting firm has appeared in the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, to name a few. He comes at the generic change management topic with a little “c” instead of a capital “C” and not from a project manager or program manager point of view. He was a quant derivatives trader who had worked for Price Waterhouse Coopers in their “Strategy, Innovation and Change” group and as his bio indicates, he helped them develop methodologies (like we need more) in change management, innovation and transformation.As Gibbons debunks neuroscience of program leadership, but does not truly provide a logical framework for this belief. He instead believes that every person can be a change agent, and a successful one, if they hue to the following strategy: think about the risks of the decision and change, think about the economics of the situation, and behavior of the individuals, circumstances and environment. He puts forth several novel ideas which while logical and commonsensical are designed to make one re-engineer a project plan. He mentions that an individual should reverse-engineer the requirements and project plan. Take the completed project plan and list the circumstances where the project could fail. In other words, force the project plan, project objective to fail. What could go wrong? Start with a blank piece of paper on a white board and collaborate with the stakeholders to understand what could go wrong. Risk rank these factors. This is more than generating the run-of the mill risk log. This is using the risk log to see how project success can be enhanced. Make the leader more accountable for decisions. His theory is that we are all change agents on a project, but it is the successful leader who performs change leadership on a global scale for the programs. Projects do not fail for the same reason, but he identifies an acronym “SOCKS” to be able to categorize these failures. This taxonomy can help identify unexpected costs, shortfalls or other analytical factors such as limited capital budgeting which will affect project success. This is more than a failed acronym or metaphor. It is a way of life to make an effort to lead unsuccessful projects to success. SOCKS – “S”, stands for “Shortfalls”, “O” for cost overruns, “C” for “unexpected consequences”, “K” for “killed programs and “S” for “unsustainable project results.” He believes that every project should undergo a SOCKS review. This is more than a review of a risk log. It is a scientific and intuitive way of fleshing out more risks or identifying unexpected tasks to drive a stalled project to success. I agree with his methodology.Another idea that he hopes to teach to the reader is that the project manager is a change agent at least 80% of the time, the rest is leadership and people management. This is a mindset which sometimes is easier said than done. It becomes a people problem and not a technical problem, why projects fail. The author mentions that change management is looked at as a cost to the business instead of a revenue generator. He doesn’t look at change management as an engineer using scientific or software tools to move code from test to production. This is too mundane. He looks at change management as the approach to review undervalued projects or failing projects at the enterprise and determine what can be done to save them through SOCKS or understanding the motivations of the people assigned to the project. Not to discount them, but to challenge them to success. Another words, as the project management textbooks have generally said, it is the soft skills which can ensure success, not the hard or technical skills. The challenge is that a project management neophyte is not exposed to this philosophy in school or in the study toward certification. Changing habits is about having a big goal to get you motivated. I agree with him that education is seriously lacking in the field of change leadership and the people skills needed to ensure success.Paul does highlight that several Fortune 500 firms, make change as part of their mission statement, and use this mission statement to motivate employees to “knock down” barriers and succeed. He does mention that more science and analytics should be done to ensure accountability of the leader too. He believes that HR should work with Senior Management to identify the general traits that a person needs to succeed in the specific position that he or she is interviewing for, and that these factors will differ by company. This is a novel approach to identify what about meshing the person’s skills with the enterprise will help the person succeed.In the end of the book, it is the belief that people can ensure success of organizational change or ensure that the organizational change will fail. And in the end, does this mean that the students of organizational behavior and psychology make the most optimal program managers and leaders instead of ones who major in accounting or finance or computer science? I wonder.

When I purchased this book I was looking for advice on how to begin and lead change within an organization. Honestly, I expected another repetitious look at management theory. However what I actually got was so much more than what I had hoped for.The Science of Successful Organizational Change delivers on what the title promises; pulling from scientific perspectives to give a much wider view of what causes change within organizations to both succeed and fail. It also takes a very honest look at what success and failure really look like as well as what the costs of both are.While Gibbons pulls from several scientific disciplines by far the most intriguing part of the book for me was the portion where Gibbons forces his readers to take a very hard look at the psychology of risk and risk behaviors. He requires his readers to ask themselves if they are “doubling down” on a losing business scenario or displaying other destructive tendencies when it comes to risk. He walks his readers through what those behaviors are and offers easy to understand examples of what they look like in the real world.After finishing the book I felt better informed and more empowered because I was more self-aware of my own tendencies, both positive and negative, and felt as if Gibbons had given me a road map to successfully change myself so that I could bring more to the constantly fluctuating business landscape.

Great overview of change principles and methodologies, with thought-provoking challenges to conventional wisdom in the field. Good source of useful references.

The Science of Organizational Change is a great book to get a good view of organizational change. The writer clearly states, with proper arguments, why a lot of famous change models don't work. Unfortunately, too many pages are devoted to this, making the book somewhat lengthy. However, the remainder of the book, containing valuable science-based insights, makes up for that. Especially the parts on cognitive biases, human behavior, the science of changing behaviors, and changing hearts and minds is of enormous value to any (change) manager and consultant.

Started reading the book today and noticed a rather odd printing error. The first page is for a different book entirely - Toxic Rage: A Tale of Murder in Tucson by A.J. Flick. Kind of funny coincidence since I’ve seen a lot of toxic rage associated with people going through organizational change.The first chapter thankfully seems to be aligned to the book I intended to purchase. I don’t have much to review about the actual book yet other than the author seems to be a bit wordy for my taste. Hoping he’ll be able to offer new perspectives to consider on this topic.

There are certain books that make you crave more, this is one of those. I have the kindle edition and I have 50+ notes and bookmarks and are in my third reading in certain chapters. This is a book for our complex world and at the same time it is another voice joining an already strong choir advocating a more humanistic & evidence based management. There are so many books about management and business that has a basis on pseudo science and actually lead people to adapt approaches that are actually harmful. This book is NOT one of them. Reading this will help you put a lot of things together to an systemic overview.This book actually addresses more than just organizational change - in my mind it is a little bit of shy of the mark, granted we could look at it more philosophically and say to live is to change but the point is that this book is so much more than just about change.