Organizational Culture Change: Unleashing your Organization's Potential in Circles of 10 Paperback – December 14, 2012

Organizational Culture Change: Unleashing your Organization's Potential in Circles of 10 is a worthwhile contribution to this vitally-important subject. I work in NY as a management consultant and use the Competing Values Framework with my clients. I've found this book to be a one-of-a-kind reference tool and I can easily see how useful such a guidebook can be to business leaders, too. After all, Corporate culture is the only sustainable business advantage available today.Marcella Bremer's new book demystifies the process of changing culture by first helping readers understand how to determine the kind of culture you have - with a 15 minute assessment tool. Then, she offers specific steps to determine the kind of culture that will be necessary in the future for the organization to be successful. What I particularly liked is how the author drew upon her own consulting experiences. For example, she offers corporate culture profiles of the various industries in which she's worked, including banking, healthcare, high schools, engineering, IT consulting and maintenance, and more. This is interesting because the culture of an organization must match the expectations of its customers. For example, if a hospital's culture doesn't reflect consistency, stability, reliability, and attention to the rules, patients will not have the confidence, comfort, and trust to go there. If a bank does not pay attention to building long-term, trusting relationships and only cares about its transactions, sales revenue, and profits, then customers might look for another bank.Leaders in organizations will find this book helpful because it guides them through each step of the process, and provides time-tested practices to get employees involved and participating in the change process in a fun, meaningful way. She even offers an outline for conducting a workshop.Culture change has always been a topic like psychology - people know of it and respect it, but often feel it's too risky to fix themselves. With this new book, Bremer gives us a practical guide, like a cook book, for successfully creating the exact culture an organization needs to be as successful as it can be. I highly recommend this book!Organizational Culture Change: Unleashing your Organization's Potential in Circles of 10

There are a mass of books out there on Organizational Change but not many are this practical. I have always been a fan of Rosabeth Moss Kanter who has some excellent books on Change Management but for me there has always been a gap between great theories and practical application. Most HR Departments seem to be led more by Corporate Lawyers rather than people focused on development so it is left to the line managers to try and change an organization from within. This is an excellent book to give departmental managers tools to effect change without a corporate mandate if they so desired. Even better if it is mandated from the top but as has been seen on so many occasions just because the man at the top says it will happen does not mean the troops on the ground see it happen. Really enjoyed this approach.

A very thorough and at the same time very practical guide to organizational culture change. The basic tool Marcella Bremer uses as a starting point for change is the Organizational Cultural Assessment Instrument (OCAI) developed and extensively tested by management professors Cameron and Quin. Bremer and her husband Marcel Lamers both have years of experience working as consultants in the field of culture change. They were licensed by Cameron and Quin to use the OCAI-tool which they first used in the Netherlands and later also abroad. Workshops with clients and their experience with OCAI resulted in this practical book. The authors want to keep change small, personal and focused on specific behaviors in change circles, small groups of about ten coworkers. Thus they incorporated the ideas of Leandro Herrero, an in England based consultant who developed the idea of viral change. Small groups of people live the intended behavioral change and spread it like a virus through the entire organization. Herrero published about his concept in Viral Change and in Homo Imitans. Organizational Culture Change is not written to be read but to be practised. It provides the reader with a tool to start the change process, examples of results and all the steps necessary to reach sustainable change. Despite it's working character, it is a great read.

An easy to read, pragmatic book with best practices, business cases and an interesting overview of culture profiles from industry groups all over the world from the OCAI online database. This book focuses on the power of human behaviors in the workplace - a viewpoint that goes easily unnoticed in our (too) busy days at work. Even when you're not a change consultant or manager, it may help gain awareness to notice the behaviors that make the difference. In my opinion this book can be used for many fields of work, including health care.Jacob J. Ennema, M.D., Ph.D.,Ennema Medical Consultancy,The Netherlands

Marcella has done a great job making the taunting task of organizational culture change manageable and transparent to all. Using the Circles of 10, she outlines various steps of an organizaitons cultural change process using language that is easy to understand. The real treat with this book is that she includes examples throughtout. No matter where you are in your own organization with regards to cultural change, you will find something new and beneficaial to assist you in effectively changing your organizationals culture.

Marcella Bremer has written an excellent book that covers all perspectives of Organizational Change.If you are serious about guiding an organization in a new direction, then you need to read this book.Marcella's writing style is a joy to read, and the content and topic are applicable to any organization.Read it, and apply what you have read.