The VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) World Demands Change-Agile Businesses

The Science of Organizational Change identifies dozens of myths, bad models, and unhelpful metaphors, replacing some with twenty-first century research and revealing gaps where research needs to be done. Paul Gibbons links the origins of theories about change to the history of ideas and suggests that the human sciences will provide real breakthroughs in our understanding of people in the twenty-first century. For example, change fundamentally entails risk, yet little is written for business people about how breakthroughs in the psychology of risk can help change leaders. Change fundamentally involves changing people’s minds, yet the most recent research shows that provision of facts may strengthen resistance.

Gibbons’ explorations of the frontiers of twenty-first century behavioral science will help you build influence, improve communication, optimize decision making, and sustain change.

In complex organizations and systems, there are no silver bullets. But you can shift away from techniques that are harmful or that science says do not work and toward techniques supported by solid evidence.

• Leading people through change: Tactics from 21st century human sciences
  Getting beyond flawed “pop psychology”–and failed “pop leadership”
• New ways to change behavior–without coercion (carrots and sticks)
  Preserving dignity and autonomy, avoiding coercion or paternalism–and succeeding
• A new science of changing hearts and minds
  Reconceiving resistance, handling social complexity, using facts, and leveraging metacognition
• Leading with science: The emergence of evidence-based management
  From “anti-scientific” management to experiment, hypothesis testing, and analytics

• Discard metaphors such as “carrots and sticks,” “burning platforms,” the “soft side” of business, and “resistance,” all of which destroy effectiveness
• Think about the risk, the true costs, and the results of change programs in a completely new way
• Turn new insights from mindfulness, behavioral economics, complexity theory, and analytics into practical tools
• Discard pseudoscience, and pop psychology as guides for how people in business behave
• Make the shift towards greater accountability, scientific validity, and measurement
• Replace change management with change agility and change leadership

To make change work, you need to base it on science, not intuition or myth. In this book, Paul Gibbons offers the first blueprint for change that integrates recent advances in neuroscience, mindfulness, behavioral economics, sociology, complexity theory, and analytics.

Rigorously grounded in evidence, this multi-disciplinary approach fully reflects the realities of change in today’s complex organizations. Gibbons offers actionable guidance for every facet of your change initiative–from strategy and planning, through the tactics of changing hearts minds and behaviors, to creating change-agile organizations.

You’ll gain a more mature understanding of how people and systems change. And you’ll learn to apply these insights–increasing resilience, agility, and innovation throughout your organization.

Paul Gibbons has a 35-year career straddling international business and academia. His research and writing explores how philosophy and science can be used to enlighten contemporary business thinking and solve practical business problems, including changing culture, developing leaders, and using analytics and evidence to make strategic decisions. During his 30 years in Europe, he was a derivatives trader, consultant, adjunct professor, and founder/CEO of an award-winning Organization Development consulting firm, Future Considerations. He now writes, teaches, and raises two boys in Colorado.