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Big Change: A Route-Map for Corporate Transformation

Paul Taffinder

Many organisations grapple with transitions, changes and transformations every year. Large financial and human resources are invested and the returns are not guaranteed. Big change can be very successful, but equally a large number of organisational changes are unsuccessful. What differentiates success from failiure?

Paul Taffinder suggests that big change, "often requires taking momentous decisions...and these decisions cannot be enacted incrementally. You cannot leap a chasm in two bounds."

In taking a critical look into real-life big changes over the last 30 years, Taffinder investigates global giants IBM, British Airways and Microsoft. His unwavering eye both congratulates and castigates as he delves into the common myths associated with change. Rather than support staid assumptions of conflict reduction, for example, Taffinder argues that real transformation demands an escalation of constructive conflict to produce and sustain radical change.

After detailing the pitfalls of change through various case studies, Taffinder turns his attention to the fundamental questions for business leaders. Here, the book focuses on providing astute answers in the form of useful, practical steps for enacting corporate change. The questions raised are critical to all change instigators:
 

• How do I kick-start transformation?
• How do I clear a path through the corporate mess of projects, initiatives and business-as-usual?
• How do I identify market discontinuities and grasp the new business opportunities they offer?
• When do I build new organisational values?
• How do I re-start change programmes that have stalled?
• How do I master change?

Winner of the prestigious 1999 Management Consultancy Association Prize, Big Change, rather refreshingly, swims against the tide of recent books, challenging unfounded assumptions.  In further providing practical steps to enacting change, Taffinder has produced a balanced and insightful discussion with a practical hands-on manual.