Leandro Herrero
Dr. Leandro Herrero trained as a psychiatrist and spent more than fifteen years in medical practice and academia in Spain before moving to the UK where he joined the pharmaceutical industry. He then spent a further fifteen years in senior management positions with major pharmaceutical companies based both in the UK and the US. He held leadership positions in R&D, New Product development and Marketing, and Pharmacoeconomics. In 2000 he founded The Chalfont Project Ltd, a consulting company of organisational architects, focused on innovation, behavioural change, leadership, and human collaboration. The concept proved very successful and The Chalfont Project Ltd now boasts a broad spectrum of international clients, from Fortune 500 to small start ups. In addition to his three books on Psychiatry and various scientific publications, Dr Herrero has also published several management papers and materials for public use, for example 'The Leader's toolkit' (Scrip 2000). His book 'The Trouble with management' (PJB publications, 2002) was a compilation of articles from Scrip magazine. More recently, his book 'The Leader with Seven Faces' (meetingminds 2006) was the first in a series that now includes "Viral Change: The alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations", (December 2006) and "New Leaders Wanted: Now Hiring - 12 kind of people you must find, seduce, hire and create job" (July 2007) . Dr Herrero is Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute (UK) and Fellow of the Institute of Directors (UK). He has been living in England for the last 20 years. |
Viral Change: The alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organizations
Synopsis: Most of conventional change management programmes fail. One of the reasons is that these conventional approaches are mainly focused on changes in processes and systems, with the assumption that these will lead to change in people s behaviors. However, this assumption is wrong: people often continue to do things like before or, after an initial peak of so-called adoption , initiatives fade. The author states that there is no lasting change unless it is true behavioral change and this is hardly a by-product of new processes . In other words, it is not until people in organizations change behaviors that we can claim that actual change has occurred. The clue is that behavioral change must be moved up, must happen first, not as a result of other changes! This is one of the main theses of this book, which explains how to do it. Equally, most of change management - as preached by many academics and consultants or, in general, by managers of change in many organizations - occurs following an old-fashioned organizational concept: changes are initiated by the top and percolated through the management system (the book calls it the plumbing system ). This results in initiatives or programmes that usually emphasize communication and training and, in general, a more or less rational appeal to people to change. In many cases, however, what people witness is a slow, painful and finally unsuccessful process, which often generates a great deal of cynicism, making the next wave of change even more difficult. And this is often after massive communication and training programmes and colossal consulting budgets. Viral Change provides a completely different framework that is based on recent discoveries across disciplines such as network and behavioral sciences. Unlike conventional methods of change management where cultural change is assumed to be a painful, long-term process from which one shouldn t expect short-term results - viral change is faster, far more effective, potentially more inclusive and certainly long lasting. It resembles more the transmission of an infection (in this case, the virus of success within the organization) than it does the traditional communication snowball. In Viral Change , the author shows how a combination of the right language and frame, a small set of non-negotiable behaviors (all spread by a small number of activists) and the creation of tipping points , creates lasting cultural change in organizations. It also debunks several conventional myths such as: people are resistant to change , one needs to involve everybody or big changes need big initiatives . In Viral Change mode, people talk less about the program and do more in a way that infects other people, creating tipping points where the new behaviors and the new changes become visible and sustainable. The book is written (and will be revealing) for all leaders in any organization, both business and non-profit - and for supporting and business partner functions such as HR, organizational development or change management agents. It brings the language and methods of a socio-behavioral approach developed by the author, poured into a comprehensible, practical and actionable framework called Viral Change. Since change is constantly present in any organization, the book is a companion for all managers and leaders in day-to-day organizational life and not just for those directly embarked upon initiatives labeled change management . It will appeal to any reader who is interested in how organizations are rapidly evolving today and how understanding internal social networks is changing the way we should lead and manage. |