The End of Change

Like a seagull in a growing storm, companies must become masterful at maximizing stability amid turbulence. Some gulls will struggle to survive. The most skillful will ride the winds, drawing on their experience and applying the techniques perfected in milder weather. These will know best how to anticipate major currents, how to spot and avoid obstacles, how to respond rapidly and vigorously to unexpected updrafts and downdrafts. The less experienced and less skillful will eventually exhaust themselves. We need to learn from seagulls.

• Part 1: Stability Structures
1. The Pyramid
2. The Cube
3. The Cylinder
4. The Sphere
5. Shock Absorbers
6. Bridging and Creeping
7. Surging
8. Matching Schock Absorbers to Structures
9. Your Collection of Structures
10. Energia
11. Drawing Maps
12. Coco
• Part 2: Strategy, Tactics and Operations
13. Learning About Stabilizers
14. Breaking Through the Thought Barrier
15. Sweet Dreams
16. The Play's the Thing
17. It's How You Play the Game
18. Pattern Recognition
19. Navigating in the Fog
20. Different Tools, Different Toolboxes
21. Ferrying Between Thinking and Doing
22. Understanding the Tactical Tools
23. How One Telecom Used the Tools
24. Applying Tactical Tools to the Structures
25. Focusing on the Destination
26. Radar Screens
27. The War Room
28. Adapting to Stay on Course
29. Rapid Response Capability
30. Matching Tools to Structures
• Part 3: Teams, Quality and Communication
31. Collaborating for Stability Through Individualism
32. Mirror, Mirror
33. Managing the Marketplace
34. I Got Rythm
35. Matching Teams' Tools to Structures
36. Ensuring Performance by Allowing Mistakes
37. Tweet, Tweet
38. Prototypes
39. "Yes, Master"
40. Matching Tools to Toolboxes
41. Applying the Power of the Word
42. If the Suit Fits…
43. Crisis!
• Part 4: The Bigger Picture
44. From Structure to Structure
45. Seagulls in a Growing Storm

A good title, but the book fails to live up to it. But it is nevertheless a very interesting and unique viewpoint of change (that of ADL and its consultants) and how to handle it. Read for no other reason than to gain an insight in how management consultant attack an area like this.