The Dance of change: the challenges of sustaining momentum in learning organizations

Abstract

The Dance of Change: The Challenges to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations by Peter Senge, Art Kleiner, Charlotte Roberts, Richard Ross, George Roth and Bryan Smith Doubleday, New York, 1999, 596 pages. ISBN 0-385-49322-3, US $35.00. Book Review by Patricia R. Tuecke Why is it so difficult to sustain change? Over the past two decades, organizations have embarked upon change journeys to meet the challenges of increased global competition, new markets, and pace of the technological development. In their attempts to respond quickly to external changes in the environment, most have failed, even after some initial success. Ten years ago, Peter Senge wrote The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization, a seminal book in the field of organizational change and systems theory. In 1994 Senge and five other authors wrote a followup book, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization. This book was filled with practical ways to initiate new ways of thinking in organizations. After its publication, as they met and talked with people, the six authors became increasingly aware of the difficulties people were having in sustaining organizational change. The Dance of Change: The Challenges to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations is the authors' response to these difficulties. A basic premise of this book is that organizations are products of the ways that people in them think and act. Organizational learning results from individuals participating in activities that embody new ways of thinking and acting and relating together, leading to an increasing and enduring organizational capacity for change. The book grew out of conversations at the MIT Center for Organizational Learning among leaders involved in change efforts. They were responding to the question: What forces seemed to propel organizational learning efforts forward or to slow them down? This book is written for those involved in change initiatives, managers, organization executives, directors, consultants, and facilitators, to help them make sense of the organization's response to change. It is written from a systems perspective. In the sense that to facilitate is to make easier,' then understanding the authors' framework, and utilizing their models and suggestions to meet the challenges of change would help facilitate a change effort. Facilitators working with organizations going through profound change will find this book a major resource. Anyone reading it will gain theoretical understanding of the systemic dynamics at work in change initiatives, and surely recognize some of the challenges in their own experiences. The thought provoking questions and exercises can be utilized in many group situations. Like its predecessor, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook, this book is written as a collection of notes from the field. The book is structured around the three major phases of change: 1) initiating change, 2) sustaining momentum, and 3) redesigning or redirecting the organization. The myriad personal stories it contains illustrate what often happens in a system undergoing change, and in meeting challenges of sustaining change inherent in each phase. Perhaps the most compelling aspect of the book is the stories, gleaned from conversations and interviews, relating experiences of change efforts. The stories are written in a first-person style. The leaders openly share their vulnerabilities and the mistakes they made. They relate the excitement, the frustration, the confusion, the surprise, and the satisfaction of their experiences. They tell of their struggle. to understand what was going on, of the organizational resistance they met, the tactics they used, and the creativity catalyzed in meeting the challenges of leading their organizational change efforts. The Dance of Change is the authors' attempt to make sense of change efforts, both the failures and the successes, and to create a framework that holds the dynamics of the change journey. …