Leading and Managing Change

Managing change is consistently ranked as one of the most critical and difficult tasks that leaders face. This note outlines the key choices that leaders must make when engineering change. It is organized into four sections, offering guidance on how to 1) diagnose the need for change; 2) determine what sort of change is called for (e.g., radical or incremental); 3) develop a delivery strategy that fosters stakeholder buy-in; and 4) evaluate impact. In addition to providing diagnostic frameworks for managing change, it offers a conceptual overview of both foundational and contemporary change management theory. Managers, instructors, and students of change management should find this note especially useful for discussing the core tenets of designing and implementing a change initiative.