How to minimize the disruption

How to minimize the disruption

The End of Change -- How Your Company can Sustain Growth and

Innovation while Avoiding Change Fatigue

By Peter Scott-Morgan, Erik Hoving, Henk Smit and Arnoud van der

Slot

McGraw-Hill, 2001

302 pp

US$24.95

JAKARTA (JP): Nothing is permanent but change.

As ancient as this famous quotation from Heraclitus is, it is
much more applicable today in the increasingly complex business
world. Dealing with, or adapting to, change is what every
business organization must grapple with all the time to survive.

The End of Change, however, says there is a limit on how
frequent and how fast any business organization can change.
Sooner or later, managers and employees will suffer from change
fatigue. Unless managed properly, change could bring disruptions
to the organization's activity, resulting in dire consequences.

The book gives tips on how to minimize the disruption to your
business caused by change. Stability is also important for a
business to operate. At the same time, the authors also suggest
that business organizations embrace change, in other words, to
innovate, as and when needed.

The authors use quadrants to identify types of business to
deal with change. One axis denotes the frequency of innovation
and the other the level of innovation. Each quadrant is assigned
a structure: a pyramid (maintains stability in an incremental
innovation), a cube (maximizes periods of stability by clustering
spasmodic innovations into short, efficient bursts), a cylinder
(minimizes disruption by building repetitive innovation), and a
sphere (reduces disruption amid incessant innovation).

The book is rather on the heavy side, with too much jargon or
consultant-speak. Nevertheless, it makes good reading,
particularly if you work in an organization that is constantly
under pressure to change or innovate. (Endy M. Bayuni)