Integrative Heart of Change of Paper

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to review the book “The Heart of Change” and also tie the themes and statements in the book with the information presented in the textbook, “Organizational Behavior and Management”. The book entitled “The Heart of Change: Real-life Stories of How People Change their Organizations”, written by John P. Kotter, in cooperation with Dan S. Cohen, has the intention of presenting narrations from people. The people who serve as the respondents for the interviews or from whom the experiences are taken are those that belong to organizations who have implemented changes and are successful in it (Kotter Cohen xiii). Kotter and Cohen (2002) concur that “People change what they do less because they are given analysis that shifts their thinking than because they are shown a truth that influences their feelings” (p. 1). “Any organization in any industry can become a learning system that can thrive on change. Setting aside old ways of thinking and minimizing the resistance to change can become a habit, especially in organizations that try to fit the learning model” (Organizational Behavior and Management, 524).

Organizations undergo continuous rapid change, and “effective managers must view managing change as an integral responsibility rather than as a peripheral one“ (Organizational Behavior and Management, 513). Throughout the entirety of “The Heart of Change“, discussions are made in proving that the see-feel-change method proves to be more successful for the organizations and the people implementing change. The experiences from the people interviewed shows that the enormous tasks of changing and making bigger leaps than the rest can be easily accomplished through eight stages. Each stage acknowledges a key principle identified by Kotter relating to people's response and approach to change, and in which people see, feel and then change. Employees accept change within an organization once they feel these changes have been...