Harvard Business Review on Culture and Change


Book Description

A collection of articles on the messy and often difficult process of changing workplace culture. The book examines why people resist change on both the corporate and individual levels.




Tempered Radicals


Book Description

This text explores the experiences of tempered radicals. These are people who want to become valued and successful members of their organisations without selling out on who they are and what they believe in.




HBR's 10 Must Reads on Building a Great Culture (with bonus article "How to Build a Culture of Originality" by Adam Grant)


Book Description

You can change your company's culture. Organizational culture often feels like something that has a life of its own. But leaders are the stewards of a company's culture and have the power to shape and even change it. If you read nothing else on building a better organizational culture, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you identify where your culture can be improved, communicate change, and anticipate and address implementation challenges. This book will inspire you to: See what your company culture is currently like--and what it could be Explore your company's emotional culture Gather input on what needs to be fixed or initiated Improve collaboration Foster a culture of trust Articulate the new culture's mission, values, and expectations Deal with resistance and roadblocks This collection of articles includes "The Leader's Guide to Corporate Culture," by Boris Groysberg, Jeremiah Lee, Jesse Price, and J. Yo-Jud Cheng; "Manage Your Emotional Culture," by Sigal Barsade and Olivia A. O'Neill; "The Neuroscience of Trust," by Paul J. Zak; "Creating a Purpose-Driven Organization," by Robert E. Quinn and Anjan V. Thakor; "Creating the Best Workplace on Earth," by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones; "Cultural Change That Sticks," by Jon R. Katzenbach, Ilona Steffen, and Caroline Kronley; "How to Build a Culture of Originality," by Adam Grant; "When Culture Doesn't Translate," by Erin Meyer; "Culture Is Not the Culprit," by Jay W. Lorsch and Emily Gandhi; "Conquering a Culture of Indecision," by Ram Charan; and "Radical Change, the Quiet Way," by Debra E. Meyerson.




Leading Change


Book Description

From the ill-fated dot-com bubble to unprecedented merger and acquisition activity to scandal, greed, and, ultimately, recession -- we've learned that widespread and difficult change is no longer the exception. By outlining the process organizations have used to achieve transformational goals and by identifying where and how even top performers derail during the change process, Kotter provides a practical resource for leaders and managers charged with making change initiatives work.




The Culture Cycle


Book Description

The contribution of culture to organizational performance is substantial and quantifiable. In The Culture Cycle, renowned thought leader James Heskett demonstrates how an effective culture can account for 20-30% of the differential in performance compared with "culturally unremarkable" competitors. Drawing on decades of field research and dozens of case studies, Heskett introduces a powerful conceptual framework for managing culture, and shows it at work in a real-world setting. Heskett's "culture cycle" identifies cause-and-effect relationships that are crucial to shaping effective cultures, and demonstrates how to calculate culture's economic value through "Four Rs": referrals, retention, returns to labor, and relationships. This book: Explains how culture evolves, can be shaped and sustained, and serve as the organization's "internal brand." Shows how culture can promote innovation and survival in tough times. Guides leaders in linking culture to strategy and managing forces that challenge it. Shows how to credibly quantify culture's impact on performance, productivity, and profits. Clarifies culture's unique role in mission-driven organizations. A follow-up to the classic Corporate Culture and Performance (authored by Heskett and John Kotter), this is the next indispensable book on organizational culture. "Heskett (emer., Harvard Business School) provides an exhaustive examination of corporate policies, practices, and behaviors in organizations." Summing Up: Recommended. Reprinted with permission from CHOICE, copyright by the American Library Association.




Win from Within


Book Description

There is significant evidence that an effective organizational culture provides a major competitive edge—higher levels of employee and customer engagement and loyalty translate into higher growth and profits. Many business leaders know this, yet few are doing much to improve their organizations’ cultures. They are discouraged by misguided beliefs that an executive’s tenure and an organization’s attention span are too short for meaningful transformation. James Heskett provides a roadmap for achievable and fast-paced culture change. He demonstrates that an effective culture supplies the trust that makes managing change of all kinds easier. It provides a foundation on which changes in strategy can be based, and it’s a competitive edge that can’t easily be hacked or copied. Examining leading companies around the world, Heskett details how organizational culture makes employees more loyal, more productive, and more creative. He discusses how to quantify its effects in order to sell the notion of culture change to the organization and considers how to preserve an organization’s culture in the face of the trend toward remote work hastened by the COVID-19 pandemic. Showing how leadership can bring about significant changes in a surprisingly short time span, Win from Within offers a playbook for developing and deploying culture that enables outsized results. It is a groundbreaking demonstration of organizational culture’s role as a foundation for strategic success—and its measurable impact on the bottom line.




HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing People


Book Description

Business.




Corporate Culture and Performance


Book Description

Going far beyond previous empirical work, John Kotter and James Heskett provide the first comprehensive critical analysis of how the "culture" of a corporation powerfully influences its economic performance, for better or for worse. Through painstaking research at such firms as Hewlett-Packard, Xerox, ICI, Nissan, and First Chicago, as well as a quantitative study of the relationship between culture and performance in more than 200 companies, the authors describe how shared values and unwritten rules can profoundly enhance economic success or, conversely, lead to failure to adapt to changing markets and environments. With penetrating insight, Kotter and Heskett trace the roots of both healthy and unhealthy cultures, demonstrating how easily the latter emerge, especially in firms which have experienced much past success. Challenging the widely held belief that "strong" corporate cultures create excellent business performance, Kotter and Heskett show that while many shared values and institutionalized practices can promote good performances in some instances, those cultures can also be characterized by arrogance, inward focus, and bureaucracy -- features that undermine an organization's ability to adapt to change. They also show that even "contextually or strategically appropriate" cultures -- ones that fit a firm's strategy and business context -- will not promote excellent performance over long periods of time unless they facilitate the adoption of strategies and practices that continuously respond to changing markets and new competitive environments. Fundamental to the process of reversing unhealthy cultures and making them more adaptive, the authors assert, is effective leadership. At the heart of this groundbreaking book, Kotter and Heskett describe how executives in ten corporations established new visions, aligned and motivated their managers to provide leadership to serve their customers, employees, and stockholders, and thus created more externally focused and responsive cultures.




HBR's 10 Must Reads on Change Management, Vol. 2 (with bonus article "Accelerate!" by John P. Kotter)


Book Description

Lead change amid constant turbulence and disruption. Get more of the ideas you want, from the authors you trust, with HBR's 10 Must Reads on Change Management (Vol. 2). We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you successfully transform your organization. With insights from leading experts including John Kotter, Tim Brown, and Roger Martin, this book will inspire you to: Master the eight accelerators of strategic change Turn your culture into a catalyst for transformation Use your network ties to win over resisters Apply design thinking to secure buy-in Scale agile practices across your organization Get reorgs right Avoid pursuing the wrong changes This collection of articles includes "What Everyone Gets Wrong About Change Management," by N. Anand and Jean-Louis Barsoux; "Cultural Change That Sticks," by Jon R. Katzenbach, Ilona Steffen, and Caroline Kronley; "Culture Is Not the Culprit," by Jay W. Lorsch and Emily McTague; "The Network Secrets of Great Change Agents," by Julie Battilana and Tiziana Casciaro; "Design for Action," by Tim Brown and Roger L. Martin; "Agile at Scale," by Darrell K. Rigby, Jeff Sutherland, and Andy Noble; "The Merger Dividend," by Ron Ashkenas, Suzanne Francis, and Rick Heinick; "Getting Reorgs Right," by Stephen Heidari-Robinson and Suzanne Heywood; and "Your Workforce Is More Adaptable Than You Think," by Joseph B. Fuller, Judith K. Wallenstein, Manjari Raman, and Alice de Chalendar. HBR's 10 Must Reads paperback series is the definitive collection of books for new and experienced leaders alike. Leaders looking for the inspiration that big ideas provide, both to accelerate their own growth and that of their companies, should look no further. HBR's 10 Must Reads series focuses on the core topics that every ambitious manager needs to know: leadership, strategy, change, managing people, and managing yourself. Harvard Business Review has sorted through hundreds of articles and selected only the most essential reading on each topic. Each title includes timeless advice that will be relevant regardless of an ever‐changing business environment.




Global Dexterity


Book Description

“I wrote this book because I believe that there is a serious gap in what has been written and communicated about cross-cultural management and what people actually struggle with on the ground.”—From the Introduction What does it mean to be a global worker and a true “citizen of the world” today? It goes beyond merely acknowledging cultural differences. In reality, it means you are able to adapt your behavior to conform to new cultural contexts without losing your authentic self in the process. Not only is this difficult, it’s a frightening prospect for most people and something completely outside their comfort zone. But managing and communicating with people from other cultures is an essential skill today. Most of us collaborate with teams across borders and cultures on a regular basis, whether we spend our time in the office or out on the road. What’s needed now is a critical new skill, something author Andy Molinsky calls global dexterity. In this book Molinsky offers the tools needed to simultaneously adapt behavior to new cultural contexts while staying authentic and grounded in your own natural style. Based on more than a decade of research, teaching, and consulting with managers and executives around the world, this book reveals an approach to adapting while feeling comfortable—an essential skill that enables you to switch behaviors and overcome the emotional and psychological challenges of doing so. From identifying and overcoming challenges to integrating what you learn into your everyday environment, Molinsky provides a guidebook—and mentoring—to raise your confidence and your profile. Practical, engaging, and refreshing, Global Dexterity will help you reach across cultures—and succeed in today’s global business environment.