One of my favourite sites is Five Books which has specialists pick the five texts they recommend complete with explanations for their choice.
In that spirit, I am today offering
the first instalment of a three-part series on useful
reading on the subject of Change – be it at the individual,
organisational or societal level.
I find it odd that when I google “books on change” I get lists of inspirational “life-changing” texts (eg Paul Coelho) when I am after more serious stuff - which bookshops store in three completely different sections, depending on whether you’re the “self-help” stuff, books on managing organisational change or social change. My interests extend across all three categories – although I’ve been more interested in public sector reform, “doing development differently” and psychological overviews.
So these lists (and explanations) offer something which you simply won’t find in other lists.
And part one will give many of you a glimpse into history
Enjoy!!
Key Texts about change – in
ascending order. A lot of the titles can be read in full.
|
Title |
Focus – and readership |
Notes |
|
Dilemmas of Social Reform
– poverty and community in the US by Peter Marris and Martin Rein (1967) |
Implementation of poverty policies General Public |
The most-exciting, blow-by-blow account of the
US War on Poverty. A bible at the time for me |
|
Future Shock; Alvin Toffler (1970) |
Coming waves General public |
The book which alerted us all to the reality of
constant change |
|
Beyond the Stable State – Donald Schoen (1971) |
A more analytical look at organ change Specialists |
No book made more impact
on me than this one whose core arguments I vividly remembering listening to
on the family radio as Reith Lectures in 1970…..This when I became seriously
interested in organisations… |
|
Rules for Radicals; Saul Alinsky (1971) |
agitprop Community activists |
the follow-up to Reveille for Radicals which had been
published in 1946 and became THE handbook for generations of activists… |
|
Academics |
Gives a superb sense of what was available in
the US on the subject 50 years ago! |
|
|
Putting the Last First; Robert Chambers (1983) |
Developing world Donors |
A morally powerful book which challenged (to
little avail) the “imperialist” assumptions of most technical assistance
programmes |
|
From Dictatorship to
Democracy – a conceptual framework for liberation; Gene Sharp (1993) |
Regime change Political activists |
The handbook for a lot of soi-disant
revolutionaries….its US provenance makes it highly suspect in my eyes |
|
Change the World; Robert Quinn
(2000) |
Leaders and change agents |
A profound analysis of the power of normative
change - tragically neglected book |
|
Change
Here! Managing change to improve local services (Audit Commission 2001) |
An early text on managing change Change agents |
A very useful “how to do it” from the UK body
charged with the responsibility for getting value from public money |
|
Managing Change; Bernard Burnes (2004) |
Students |
Just one of the many books available from the
1990s on the subject |
|
Building the Bridge as
you walk on it;
Robert Quinn 2004 |
Organ change Change agents |
Quinn’s follow up to the 2000 book |
|
Challenging Authority –
how ordinary people change America; Frances Piven (2006) |
Social change Activists and Academic |
A classic - Click the title and you get the full
book |
No comments:
Post a Comment