The Change Agent’s Field Guide

While there are many books specific to change management or continuous improvement, there are few, if any, books that address the intersections between change management and continuous improvement. After 30+ years as a change agent implementing lean and process improvement, the author’s hypothesis on why continuous improvement efforts “stick” sometimes and other times not is that many leaders of these efforts fail to understand the importance of change management and the critical intersections between people and process improvement. He provides a blueprint or roadmap for leaders of continuous improvement (aka ‘change agents’) efforts on how to anticipate, manage, and measure change while engaging in continuous improvement. Managing these critical intersections is key to successful outcomes for both planned and unplanned change initiatives. This book helps anyone involved in leading continuous improvement within an organization better understand when to apply change management techniques necessary to achieve successful outcomes. Many continuous improvement efforts fail because those leading changes do not recognize when to pause and evaluate critical intersections needing change management tools. This book provides clear guidance on when to pause, what to do, and how to navigate these intersections successfully. In addition, this book provides a primer for those leading change on the foundations of change management and continuous improvement, an area often missed in their formal education. The reader learns how to plan change, manage people through change, measure change, and sustain change – all important aspects of being an effective change agent.