Jossey-Bass How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work: Seven Languages for Transformation

Voici une étape importante de ce que, rétrospectivement, on peut considérer comme un "work in progress". L'étape suivante, concrétisée par le livre "Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization", présente la forme aboutie d'un processus en 4 étapes pour faire émerger les croyances profondes erronées qui empêchent de mettre en place les comportements adaptés qu'une situation impose. Ce dernier livre développe davantage le point faible de celui objet de cette critique : la manière de désactiver ces croyances. Par rapport à "Immunity to change", la lecture de "How the way we talk..." nous conduit sur une voie intéressante que les auteurs, professeurs à Harvard ont abandonnée par la suite, et qui consiste à prendre le langage comme point d'entrée et témoin de l'évolution vers un rapport adaptée à la réalité, cheminement qui peut être individuel ou collectif. Il vaut, de ce point vue, d'être lu, en complément de leur dernier opus. Cette méthodologie aussi élégante que puissante ouvre un chemin de vérité et de liberté, ce qui n'est pas un mince apport. Pour ceux qui s'intéressent à l'apprentissage organisationnel ou à la conduite du changement, ils trouveront dans cette approche une brique qui apporte un complément opérationnel qui leur faisait défaut. L'écriture de ce livre est claire, très accessible et très didactique. On en ressort enrichi et enthousiaste à l'idée qu'il n'y a pas de fatalité à être contraint par nos schémas de pensée erronés.

Very assessable

This book is a jewel of clarity, insight and a step-by-step transformational process. I'm using it, not only in my own organization but with clients in senior roles in their organizations. The steps lead to profound changes in perception and motivation - and that leads to behaviour change. I've experienced it and witnessed. Thanks to Kegan and Lahey for building on their "Immunity to Change" process with this very specific and practical application.

I've read - and loved - Kegan and Lahey's book Immunity to Change and whilst How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work contains the seeds of this approach, I really liked their focus here on shifting the way we communicate. It's about more than the words we speak or even how we listen - rather this approach looks at shifting perspective and changing the way we think first, and how this impacts the impacts we unintentionally and unconsciously leave on others. Much less about style and far more about how we create the space for transformation to occur, what Kegan and Lahey have created in How the Way We Talk can Change the Way We Work is as relevant and insightful to our current world as it was when it was first published 25 years ago in 2001. A keeper for the bookshelf. 5 stars.

One of the chief obstacles we face as executive coaches is the apparent inability and/or unwillingness of our clients to complete the changes to which they have given what appears to be whole-hearted endorsement and commitment. Without these fundamental changes taking place, the enterprise is often stuck in a rut of repetition and entropy. In this well-written and well-thought-out book, the authors present a new way of getting through any necessary change, by introducing the "Seven Languages of Transformation". We learn how the resistance to change is really a fundamental process of our personal "immune" system, and changes in individual behaviors are necessary to overcome this obstacle. The book is laid out in a step-by-step method to achieve these behavioral changes through seven new "languages" that we must learn to speak to ourselves and those we lead and coach. For example, the first new "language" they discuss is learning to take a "complaint" about something going wrong as actually a reflection of a "commitment" to a better way. The person making the complaint is asked to restate the complaint in the terms of the positive commitment that is implied. A negative situation is thus turned into a positive, transformational one that gets things going in the right direction for a change. The positive movement achieved by the application of each new "language" leads to the next mental hurdle, for which the authors provide another new "language" to handle. The book includes many step-by-step worksheets for the reader to use individually or with a partner, to apply the principles to a real-life problem they may be working through. The authors are developmental psychologists working chiefly in academia, so their examples are a little top-heavy with educational situations. The examples are universal and transferable to the business world, however, so this is a minor complaint. The book as a whole is quite free of psycho-babble and mumbo-jumbo, and can bring the reader to an exciting and novel way of changing the way we do business, and changing something fundamental in ourselves. I recommend it most highly. How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work: Seven Languages for Transformation