Catalysing Change: Some Practical Tips

This book is about catalysing and supporting positive change. Its primary target audience is non-specialist individuals who engage with organisations as a whole, or significant parts thereof, as insider or (consultant) outsider, with a brief to improve things as they are. It will introduce you to different perspectives on ‘organisations’, and in particular the powerful ‘Five capabilities’ framework to explore key aspects of organisational effectiveness with. It also invites you to consider different reasons why there is resistance to change and offers a repertoire of change strategies to choose from. It unpacks ‘power’, and presents frameworks to analyse power with and promote more shared power. It highlights that change needs positive energy, and how ‘appreciative inquiry’, as a method but also a fundamental attitude and mindset, can be much more powerful than the tendency to fall into ‘deficit thinking’. It draws your attention to the critical importance of developing your ‘asking skills’, that invite others to think more deeply, widely, and creatively, to rediscover the common purpose and the strengths that will drive the change to a more desirable future.