Change from the Inside Out: Making You, Your Team and Your Organization Change-Capable

by Erika Andersen

Change initiatives fail because humans are hardwired to return to what's worked for us in the past. This book offers a straightforward process for rewiring ourselves and those we lead to be more change-capable.

Erika Andersen says avoiding change has been a historical imperative. In this book, she shows how we can overcome that reluctance and get good at making necessary change. Using a fictional story about a jewelry business changing generational hands, Andersen lays out a five-step model for addressing both this human side of change and its practical aspects:

Step 1: Clarify the change and why it’s needed—Get clear on what the change is and the benefits it will bring.
Step 2: Envision the future state—Build a shared picture of the post-change future.
Step 3: Build the change—Bring together a change team, engage key stakeholders, and plan the change.
Step 4: Lead the transition—Build a transition plan that supports the human side of the change, then engage the whole organization in making the change.
Step 5: Keep the change going—Work to make your organization permanently more change-capable.

With opportunities to self-reflect and try out the ideas and approaches throughout, this book is a practical guide to thriving in this era of nonstop change.

Genres: Nonfiction

Kindle Edition

Published September 1, 2021

About the author

Erika Andersen is the founding partner of Proteus, a coaching, consulting, and training firm that focuses on leader readiness. For almost forty years, Erika has developed a reputation for creating approaches to learning and business-building that are tailored to her clients’ challenges, goals, and culture.

She and her colleagues at Proteus focus uniquely on helping leaders at all levels get ready and stay ready to meet whatever the future might bring. Much of her recent work
has focused on organizational visioning and strategy, executive coaching, and management and leadership development. In these capacities
she serves as consultant and adviser to the CEOs and/or top executives of a number of corporations, including Spotify, Facebook, Spectrum, Novartis, Revolt Media, and CBS Sports.

Erika shares her insights about creating and leading successful businesses by speaking to corporations, nonprofit groups, and associations. Her books and learning guides have been translated into Spanish, Turkish, German, French, Russian, and Chinese, and she has contributed to and been quoted in a variety of national publications, including the Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and the New York Times.

Erika is also a popular leadership contributor at Forbes.com. In addition to Change from the Inside Out, she is the author of Be Bad First— Get Good at Things FAST to Stay Ready for the Future; Leading So People Will Follow; Being Strategic: Plan for Success; Outthink Your
Competitors; Stay Ahead of Change; and Growing Great Employees: Turning Ordinary People into Extraordinary Performers. Finally, Erika is the author and host of the Proteus Leader Show, a regular podcast that offers
quick, practical support for managers and leaders.

Reviews

[Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Erika Andersen’s new book, Change From The Inside Out, is an exemplary kind of leadership advice guide. Particularly because it revolves around a general theme, rather than a specified area of interest. This makes Andersen’s advice more subjective for each reader of the book, rather than something determined by the black-and-white consistency of one, particular topic. Andersen’s focal point in Change From The Inside Out is literally just that, the titular concept of how to actually instill change in one’s life patterns, one’s routines, and one’s aesthetical choices in a personalized and professionalized context. A term Andersen introduces at the beginning of the read is her advocacy of clientele’s ‘envisioned futures’, desired outcomes that she provides a literary roadmap to with specific categories detailing the psychological and pragmatic breakdown process required to achieve said outcomes in a timely manner. “Change can only happen when those in power in a given system or organization are open to the core idea that change is needed,” Andersen writes. “If key leaders in an organization…are deeply committed to (consistency), real change will not be possible. This is hard to hear but important to recognize. For instance, in your own organization, if you feel strongly that major change is needed for success, but the CEO and their main influencers and confidants are completely opposed to that change, it’s very unlikely change will occur as long as they are in power—no matter how right you are, and no matter how many of your peers agree with you.” She balances this with the following insight: “…all is not lost…Framing (your)…challenge (questions) in a simple, focused way will make sure the entire senior team is agreeing to the same core problems and that they’ll be looking in the same direction as they start to answer the question—without getting prematurely attached to specific details of how to address the challenge.”

In essence, Andersen articulates, instituting change is as much about being able to effectively express ideas, as it is about knowing how to refine your communication techniques. In less able hands, her ruminations on this approach could come across as meandering, tangential, and preachy. What saves Andersen’s book from unintentionally reading as such is her ability to contextualize each proposed set of tools with analogized, detailed scenarios. This simultaneously humanizes the process Andersen swears by, while also showing how the application of said tools - in a step-by-step literary breakdown - successfully engages the opposing party, steering them towards the articulated outcome. There’s never a sense Andersen is going to out-and-out swear by what she preaches via consistent, hard data. After all, the generality of the change concepts presented is more aligned with the nuts and bolts of corporate-related and behavioral psychology. But by presenting the legitimacy of each concept by laying it out from A to Z, Change From The Inside Out comes across as a successful advice guide that actually works.

[CYNTHIA · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this book, business author Erika Andersen addresses the important and complex topic of how to effectively navigate, create and lead change...and she does so with her characteristic simple, insightful, practical guidance. This book points out convincingly how, in our increasingly turbulent world, the skill of being change-capable is more crucial than ever! One of the things I found most helpful in this book was that the author considers what a successful change effort entails from the point of view of an entire organization-the steps, structures and processes involved. But she doesn't stop there: she also looks at the often very different, individual change journeys members of organizations must also embark on, for the larger scale organizational change efforts to succeed! And she explains all this with a lucidity that makes it easy to apply her insights to the change challenges in our own lives. A very worthwhile read!

[Rachel Van Carpels · Rating 5 out of 5]

As with her previous books, Andersen does the often challenging job of offering inroads to all kinds of readers - those who are gung-ho to make changes and those who find the prospect terrifying. She takes time in the early chapters to lay the foundation for why the work of change (and being able to recognize the need for it) is so important, particularly in our constantly shifting times. There is a clear structure to the process that makes it feel possible, even when the challenge of major change feels overwhelming. Her signature authorial voice balances confidence and a clear sense of expertise (she's been helping businesses through this work for almost 30 years) with humor and the optimism you'd hope to find when seeking support from a favorite colleague or mentor. This is a business books but anyone can use it right now - the vast majority of adults have had to face major changes in the past 2 years, and many of the tools within this guide can be useful on an individual level. Rather than just trying to keep our heads above water and cross our fingers it all turns out ok, we can take the helm and make those changes with intention, forethought, and a sense of hopefulness.

[Erika Andersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dear Goodreaders -

At the risk of being outrageously self-aggrandizing, I believe this new book is tremendously useful and timely. In this era of non-stop and ever-increasing change, becoming change-capable is essential to our happiness and success. Change from the Inside out provides insights, skills and tools to support anyone - and any organization - to develop that capability.

Hope you enjoy it - and I'd love to hear from you about it.

Warmly,
Erika

[Robert Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Humans don't do change well. That's gotta change

Throughout most of human history, the pace of change was slow enough that individuals and organizations did not have to spend much time worrying about adapting. Today, the exponential growth rate of information, technology and innovation means that change has become pervasive in nearly every aspect of life and work. Organizations that figure out how to do change well will enjoy a tremendous advantage. With her clear and engaging style, Erika Andersen focuses on the human factors side of change- an aspect that those who aspire to lead and manage change processes ignore at their peril. Andersen proposes the "change arc"- the mindset shift and new behaviors that every individual must move through before change successfully occurs- as the heart of her change model. She explains the five steps that underpin the overall change process along with specific tools, examples and exercises which help individuals move from "difficult, costly and weird" (proposed change) to "easy, rewarding and normal" (successfully implemented change). Incorporating the processes in "Change from the Inside Out" will help any organization successfully move through the constant change that faces us all.