Joel Pett had a great cartoon in USA Today. People are at a counter in a diner talking about the presidential primaries in the US. One guy says, "I'm still undecided.. . .I'm waiting for the right irrelevant sound bite, out-of-context quote, or overblown distraction."

Every leader (and consultant) ought to post that cartoon where we can see it every day. (Ive got it on my desk.) It's a good reminder that in the midst of change people are looking for that "out-of-context quote" that can let them know that this change is really bad. It doesn't take much to turn people against a major change.

In the last newsletter I asked for your recommendations for a book I could use in an MBA course I am designing on organizational change. . . .I expected to get a few titles. You know, the usual suspects. But, I was surprised to get such a long list of recommended books - and many of those were new to me. . . . And very few of the titles got more than one mention. . . . A couple of titles were sent in by the author's themselves. I put those books in the list because I like those books. . . One of my books was mentioned as well, but since I asked to not be included in the list, I won't include it here.

Some of you asked to see what people are recommending. Here's that list. And thank you so much.

Strategic Organizational Change, Auster, Wylie and Valente, Gung Ho!, Blanchard, Transitions, Bridges Managing Transitions, Bridges The Way of Transition, Bridges The Change Cycle, Brock and Salerno First Break All the Rules, Buckingham and Coffman Making Sense of Change Management, Cameron and Green The Courageous Follower, Chaleff Heart of Change Field Guide, Cohen (based on Kotter and Cohen's earlier book) Managing at the Speed of Change, Conner (new edition) (2 mentions) Organization Development and Change, Cummings and Worley The Handbook on Organization Development, Cummings Shifting Sands, Donahue The Change Monster, Duck Ten Tasks of Change, Evans The Six Secrets of Change, Fullan The Breakthrough Imperative, Gottfredson and Schaubert Social Intelligence, Goleman The Influencer, Patterson, Grenny, Maxfield, and McMillan Thin Book of AI (appreciate Inquiry), Hammond The Change Handbook, Holman, Devane, and Cady Real Time Strategic Change, Jacobs Getting Your Organization to Change, Jaffee and Scott (2 mentions) Who Moved My Cheese, Johnson Leading Change, Kotter (6 mentioned this book) The Heart of Change, Kotter and Cohen (2 mentions) The Leadership Challenge, Kouzes and Posner Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers, Kriegel and Brandt Communicating Change, Larkin Fish!, Lundin, Paul, and Christensen Intentional Revolutions, Nevis Surfing the Edge of Chaos, Pascale, Milleman, and Gioja Deep Change, Quinn What Great Leaders Do!, Secretan The Fifth Discipline, Senge Wake Me Up When the Data Is Over, Silverman Aftershock, Woodward and Bucholz

That's all for now. I've got a lot of reading to do.

Sincerely,