How to Change the World

Available in Kindle, A4 and Letter formats.

It is one of the questions I get most often:

How do I deal with my crappy organization? I like my work but I don’t like what our management is doing. How do I deal with it?

Well, that’s easy. You have three options: 

1. Ignore it. Changing organizations is hard work. If you don’t have the stamina to learn how to be a good change agent, then stop complaining about what’s bad. Accept that the organization is what it is, and enjoy the good parts of your work. In that case, you can stop reading here.
2. Quit your job. The only reason there are bad organizations is that people don’t quit their jobs. Do the world a favor and find a better place to work. Help bad organizations out of their misery by not working for them.
3. Learn about change management. Most people are terrible at influencing other people and changing organizations. But, if you’re serious about it, you can learn how to be a more effective change agent.

As my friend Olaf Lewitz said, “It’s take it, leave it, or change it…”

I wrote this booklet for those who choose option 3.

  

Resources

• How to Change the World (PDF, A4)
• How to Change the World (PDF, Letter)
• How to Change the World (Kindle)

Management 3.0 on Social Networks

We have decided to expand the Management 3.0 brand on the major social networks. Anyone who wants to discuss Management 3.0-related stuff, is welcome to do so on LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

There was already a LinkedIn group about Management 3.0, created by Anko Tijman a few months ago. It is now "officially" part of our on-line activities. We will invite readers, students, and trainers to get together there to share their ideas about new management practices.

There is now also a Facebook page about Management 3.0, created by Jurgen Appelo. Some people prefer Facebook over LinkedIn, and therefore we think it's important to reach out to those who use Facebook as their main platform for social interaction.

This automatically meant we also had to have a Google+ page. Although we have yet to see whether or not Google+ will become as popular as Facebook, we did noticed that some Agile & Lean practitioners prefer Google tools to discuss their ideas.

Last but not least, the Twitter tag #management30 is used by some people to converse about Management 3.0 on Twitter. There are no groups on Twitter, just open streams of thought, which makes this network the easiest for some people to get into.

We hope to see your participation and contributions on any of these social networks.

Management 3.0 in Chinese

The Chinese translation of Management 3.0 was officially “launched” last week in Shanghai. The event took place at a regular meeting of the local Agile community. The publisher and event organizers worked together and had a pile of books ready, waiting to be signed by Jurgen. The books sold out in a matter of minutes.

The translators (three students of the university in Beijing) did a great job on the translation. The translation is done in “simplified” Chinese, which is the standard nowadays, according to our sources.

The Chinese version contains a new foreword by Mr. Zhang Ruimin, CEO of Haier, one of the most modern manufacturers in China. You can read a description of Haier’s management 3.0 practices on Jurgen’s blog.

There have been rumors and questions about other translations too, including Russian, French, German, and Portuguese. But we have no knowledge of any other translations actually being in progress, so we cannot confirm anything at this time.