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Learning to Change: A Guide for Organization Change Agents Léon de Caluwé and Hans Vermaak Sage Publications Thousand Oaks California, USA 2003
Review DOI 10.1108/02683940410537981
When a consultant or manager needs to help her organization change a process, how should this "change agent" approach this task? What models should be utilized? For both professionals involved in change management and students wanting to gain insight into the field, Learning to Change is an excellent resource. The authors, Léon de Caluwé and Hans Vermaak, take a theoretical and practical approach to the subject and narrow their focus to planned change in professional organizations. Students of organizational learning and organizational development may recognize several of the theorists referenced, such as Karl Weick for sense-making, Chris Argyris for double loop learning, and Gareth Morgan for metaphors. A major contribution of the authors is their creation of a five-color model presenting different ways to think about change. Thus, the change agent can look at how an organization may respond best to each approach and which works best for her style to develop a change strategy.
The organization of the book is critical. The reader should start with the introduction to gain an overview of the book's structure. At the beginning of each chapter, the authors again state what the reader will expect to learn and how the chapter ties in with the previous ones. The change management specific material starts with the second chapter. Apart from the introduction and epilogue, the seven chapters of Learning to Change include: why change is complicated; thinking about change in five different colors; the main elements of planned change; from idea to outcome; examples of diagnostic models; examples of intervention; and the change agent: from expertise to authenticity.
The second chapter "Why change is complicated" discusses the obstacles change agents face and their implications. This chapter sets the stage for what change agents must do to help organizations reach their desired outcomes. The subsections include: loosely coupled system, management, chaos thinking, and sociopolitical mechanisms. Noted management theorist Karl Weick was the influence for the loosely coupled system. He reasons that organizational objectives and processes are ambiguous, which differs from the classic metaphor of an organization as a well-designed machine. Organizations have many parts that...