Making Change

Change is as inevitable in business as it is in, well, life itself. Because of this, it only makes sense that books addressing the topic--such as David A. Nadler's Champions of Change: How CEOs and Their Companies Are Mastering The Skills of Radical Change (Jossey-Bass Publishers, $26 cloth)--are currently lining bookshelves. In the fast-paced 1990s, it's almost a given.

What isn't a given, of course, is that any of these books will be any good. This one is--maybe, in part, because the author understands that the difficulty of change should never be underestimated. "Change is inherently messy," Nadler writes. "Despite the best-laid plans . . . things rarely turn out exactly right the first time around."

Although Nadler's own experience is rooted in consulting to the likes of Xerox and AT&T, many of his ideas ring true for entrepreneurs and their employees. "The sad fact is that enormous numbers of companies confronted with the challenge of change have botched it," Nadler cautions. Don't let yours be one of them.

This article was originally published in the July 1998 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Making Change.