Change and the Bottom Line

How do you plan organizational change?

How good are you at managing change?

How do you monitor progress?

How can you identify resistance — and deal with it?

What concepts and techniques are available to help?

These are some of the questions addressed in Alan Warner's latest business novel. He takes the characters already established in his two earlier books — The Bottom Line and Beyond the Bottom Line — and has set them in a new context. Phil Moorley has become CEO of a family firm in the North of England, where his main task is to change its culture so that it can meet the challenges ahead. Once again he enlists the aid of his former mistress Christine Goodhart, now a training consultant.

We follow Phil's attempts to create allies and pacify enemies, and we share with him the pains and the triumphs involved. We learn about some of the methods that can be used to bring about change and we see how they work — or fail — when put to the test.

Change and the Bottom Line is another highly effective case study, given life by the fictional treatment. An added feature is the detailed commentary provided by the author drawing on his personal experience of working closely with change specialists. the result is an entertaining introduction to one of the key areas of management responsibility.

More fiction than fact. And bad fiction as well. Just avoid it.