Change Management Excellence: Using the Four Intelligences for Successful Organizational Change

Citation

Austin, A. (2007), "Change Management Excellence: Using the Four Intelligences for Successful Organizational Change", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 28 No. 3, pp. 291-292. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437730710739701

This book falls in the genre started by Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence in 1995, and gets my vote as a valuable addition especially for change management professionals but is accessible to others also. As the introduction says, change is no longer driven by the executive at the top. Change happens throughout the organization. It is a constant requiring ever expanding numbers of sophisticated tools to be successful, and also calling for both informed change managers for the day‐to‐day focus and change leaders with their longer‐term views.

Here, “emotional” or EQ is just one of the four intelligences covered. The other three are spiritual (SQ), business (BQ) and political (PQ). The focus is using multiple intelligences to be more effective as change agents and change leaders in organizational change efforts of varying magnitudes and complexities.

The book is arranged in 25 chapters. The basic repeating organization (with variations as needed) of the chapters is to concentrate on one area of intelligence at a time. In doing so, the authors give an introduction to that intelligence; describe ways to develop more acute skills in the intelligence; present tools to assist in diagnosing and operating within that intelligence and then finish by applying an increased aptitude in that intelligence to better manage change – not that we ever get it under control except in the simplest of cases. The book closes with chapters wherein taking a positive stance on change, socially responsible change and gearing up for change are surveyed.

Probably the most immediately useful elements of this book are the preponderance of tools. There are self and organizational assessments and practical activities for increasing individual, group and organizational knowledge, capability and capacity. Also valuable is the definition and description of many models useful in conceptualizing and enacting change. I found that I could skip over the models I knew and used, but was grateful for descriptions and examples of those I had heard of but where I did not have strong knowledge. These models and tools draw upon the multiple wisdoms of John Kotter, Charles Handy, Kurt Lewin, Abraham Maslow, Edgar Schein, Peter Senge and many others.

Saying that the large number of tools, assessments and activities are immediately useful is misleading in that some people may jump to assessing oneself and their organizations; or worse yet, intervening without examining the larger overriding needs and uses for these intelligences and the interactions between them. As always the basic needs analysis of the organization must be done first before applying remedies.

Throughout the book are examples and descriptions of teams, organizations and companies using the intelligences to assess and improve the effectiveness of their operations and change efforts. The organizational examples described in the book are drawn mostly from recognized giants such as British Airways, the New York Police Department, Cigna UK, Nordstrom's stores in the US, and Barclays Bank, and go a long way in bringing the concepts to life.

For me, besides the tempting tools, the other flaw of this book is the scarcity of examples and portrayals integrating the four intelligences. Rare is the change management endeavor that does not involve multiple intelligences or frames through which to evaluate the complexities of the change. Practitioners will need to devise ways to weave these approaches together to form a cohesive whole. But is not that what we have been doing all along?

Overall is this a strong addition to any collection on organizational change. My recommendation is twofold: to read the examples and the conceptual foundations of any tool or model unfamiliar to you so as to understand the expected outcomes; and to interweave the findings from examining the individual intelligences to gain a complete picture of your organization.