The Problem with Change : And the Essential Nature of Human Performance

Why is constant change bad for business? Because it's bad for human performance. Once, the job of leaders was to identify problems and fix them, while leaving nonproblems alone. Today, the notion that the new way is always better than the old way--and that if you aren't disrupting everything, you are losing--has come to constitute a new orthodoxy of business thinking. Whether it's a merger or re-org or a new office layout, change has become the ultimate easy button for leaders, who pursue it with abandon, unleashing a torrent of disruption on employees. The result is life in the blender: a perpetual state of upheaval, uncertainty, and unease. This environment--where everything from people to processes to strategic priorities are constantly in flux--exerts a psychological toll that undermines motivation, productivity, and quality. Yes, companies need to grow, innovate, and adapt to changing needs. But stressed-out employees rarely go the extra mile, chaos rarely produces agility or speed, and it's hard to grow while bleeding talent to turnover and quiet quitting. This is how change stymies the very progress that it seeks. Drawing on decades spent leading HR organizations at Deloitte and Cisco, Ashley Goodall reveals the truth about human performance and offers a radical new alternative to the constant turbulence that defines corporate life. By prioritizing team cohesion (instead of reshuffling teams at will), using real words (rather than corporate-speak), by sharing secrets (not mission statements), by honoring shared rituals (rather than mandated bonding), by fixing only the things that are truly broken (instead of moving fast and breaking everything in sight), and more, leaders at every level can create the stability that people need to thrive.

Author: Ashley Goodall

Publisher: Little, Brown Spark

Publication Date: May 07, 2024

Number of Pages: NA pages

Language: English

Binding: Hardcover

ISBN-10: 0316560278

ISBN-13: 9780316560276