More Fearless Change: Strategies for Making Your Ideas Happen

by Mary Lynn Manns, Linda Rising

63 New and Updated Patterns for Driving and Sustaining Change “The hard part of change is enlisting the support of other people. Whether a top manager interested in improving your organization’s results or a lone developer promoting a better way of working, this book will give you tools and ideas to help accomplish your goal.” –George Dinwiddie, independent coach and consultant, iDIA Computing, LLC “Keep the patterns in this book and Fearless Change handy. ... These patterns transformed me from an ineffective ‘voice in the wilderness’ to a valued collaborator.” –Lisa Crispin, co-author (with Janet Gregory) of Agile Testing and More Agile Testing In their classic work, Fearless Change, Mary Lynn Manns and Linda Rising interviewed successful leaders of change, identified 48 patterns for implementing change in teams of all sizes, and demonstrated how to use these techniques effectively. Now, in More Fearless Change the authors reflect on all they’ve learned about their original patterns in the past decade, and introduce 15 powerful, new techniques–all extensively validated by change leaders worldwide. Manns and Rising teach strategies that appeal to each individual’s logic (head), feelings (heart), and desire to contribute (hands)–the best way to motivate real change and sustain it for the long haul. Learn how to More Fearless Change reflects a profound understanding of how real change not instantaneously in response to top-down plans and demands, but iteratively, through small steps that teach from experience. Best of all, as thousands of change agents have already discovered, its patterns are easy to use–and they work.

Genres: Management, Leadership, Business, Nonfiction, Psychology

336 pages, Paperback

First published February 20, 2015

Reviews

[Erhan Koseoglu · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was quite an insightful book about the leadership attitude during a change implementation. You can find many tools and practices about how could these insights help you during the journey. Most of the tools may seem already known or basic stuff however i found many tiny but inspirational insights beyond the statements. So if you are responsible for leading a change or as part of a change innyour company strongly recommend you reading this book to explore different tools while trying get buy-in from others...

[Cecilia Fernandes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a small but important update to its predecessor.

[Przemysław Dąbek · Rating 3 out of 5]

"More Fearless Change" is a quite good collection of strategies (patterns) to use in daily work. I noticed that I've already used some of them, but now I have an inspiration for few more actions.

One thing that I don't like in this book is ... a structure (or lack of). I would recommend everybody reading "More Fearless Change" to start from "Appendix" to learn vocabulary, names of patterns and their descriptions -- then continue from the beginning. It's hard to understand some references when they are introduced many pages later.

[Quinton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this if/when you are thinking about going into a major change effort. Reading it before is interesting, but it requires study and conscious effort to use the patterns, so best use as a guide when the time is right. I started in on the patterns and then put it down with a mental reminder to come back when I need the information. It sounds more appealing to me than any other change management approach I have read so far.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first edition of Fearless Change was a valuable source of information and inspiration for those who wanted to introduce new ideas into their organizations successfully. True to it's title More Feareless Change, is all that and more. Even if you were lucky enough to have discovered and read the earlier book, this edition is worth a look, as the patterns have been revised based on the authors experience.

Full of stories and examples, More Fearless Change has actionable advice you can apply to the problems you face as a change agent, regardless of your role, or the kid of organzation you are working in. One critique with many good patterns books is that they contain no new information. Patterns are by definition a way to document established good forms and practices that recur with good results. That what you will read here may seem like "common sense" to some does not diminish their value, as "common" sense is not the same as "universal sense."

If you are struggling with intruding a new idea into your workgroup, company, or volunteer organization, this book will help you to understand what is possible, and inspire you to move forward. If you are an experienced change agent, the book will help energize you and help you escape any ruts you may be in by having been successful with the same subset of approaches.

[Allan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is great reference material for when you want to affect change in an organization. Looking back at past jobs, I can see how applying some of the patterns (especially ones that I wouldn't have thought of myself) could have been very useful.

But I did find the book difficult to get through. The structure with examples is great for reference, but when reading straight through I was constantly switching gears mentally. This was exhausting and meant I had to take it in small chunks.