Transform by Reading: Organizational Transformation
Continuous development and learning is the essential for successful agile coaches. These are some of the books our coaches recommend covering different aspects of organisational transformation.
Anselm L. Strauss: Continual Permutations of Action
Presented by Beate Kasper
When working in organisations with a long history, structures often appear as something rigid and unchangeable. Both for one’s own attitude and for coaching, I find it important to keep in mind that these are “negotiated orders” — even structures that seem like laws (or actually are laws) only exist because they are (inter)actively maintained and reproduced on a daily basis. And are thus fundamentally changeable.
Linda Rising: More Fearless Change
Presented by Moritz Winterberg
Linda Rising is a great personality who always inspires me. If you ever get the chance to see her live on stage you will be energized by her broad experience and the stories she can tell.
The book is not necessarily one to be consumed in one go, it contains many useful tips on the subject of change in a well-structured way.
The main part contains around 60 little helpful and actionable pattern chapters from „Accentuate the Positive“ over „Go-To Person“ to „Test the waters“.
The foreword states: „If you see a need or an opportunity to improve the long the long-term health of your organization, and you want to see your idea through, and you are willing to work at it, I believe that More Fearless Change, as a coaching guide, can provide the key.“
Bernd Oesterreich/Claudia Schröter: Das kollegial geführte Unternehmen. Ideen und Praktiken für die agile Organisation von morgen
Presented by Gina Röge
Instead of hierarchy, network structures are not only becoming increasingly important, but essential in organizational development.
The book contains a foray through alternative leadership models and organizational models that have an inspiring effect and from which one can get inspiration.
Well suited for those interested who do not know ‘agility’ yet, but want to get acquainted with more modern organizational concepts and guiding principles.
Initially the reader may get irritated by the unusual layout and the absence of a strict structure. It is advisable to regards the book as a source for inspiration. It is suited for browsing rather than traditional linear reading.
(This book is available in German.)
Jürgen Hoffmann, Stefan Roock : Agile Unternehmen: Veränderungsprozesse gestalten, agile Prinzipien verankern, Selbstorganisation und neue Führungsstile etablieren
Presented by Andreas Kolmer
The book gives a very good overview of the basic ideas of agile working and, building on this, of the advantages of agile organisation for companies.
It consists of five chapters. The first chapter gives a general introduction. The second chapter defines the core of agile working: the focus on the customer. The radical focus on creating value for the customer and thus inspiring the customer sounds simple, but in my experience it is often neglected and is therefore a central building block in transformation projects.
The third chapter deals with value creation as a team task and describes how agile teams work. It is rather short, and thus only gives a brief introduction to the topic. Here, books like “Leading Teams” by Hackman offer much more substance.
The fourth chapter describes the organisation. Here, decentralised organisational and decision-making structures are described, and possible roles for leaders are outlined. With the help of case studies, this chapter also becomes concrete. Thus, these approaches cannot simply be dismissed as something that only works on paper. Instead, this chapter shows approaches that often made me think: Aha, so that’s how it works.
The fifth chapter describes organisational development, i.e. the question of how an existing company can achieve the structures described in the previous chapters. This chapter in particular helps me in my daily work as an agile coach.
Conclusion: Very good book, especially as an overview and introduction to the different topics.
(This book is available in German.)
