Are you falling behind your competitors? Are you too slow getting your products to market? Are your overheads too high? These are just some of the challenges that companies face. However, initiating successful change strategies is far from easy. 70% of all change programmes fail. This book shows how you can make sure that when change happens (and it frequently does) your company is ready for it. Shareholders want to see change take effect immediately, as each day's delay can cost them money or lose them market share, while staff are often suspicious of change, wondering what's in it for them. How do you make sure the change you want happens successfully, that it has everyone's support, and how do you make it stick? The only way to walk this tightrope without falling off is to leave behind the old models and adapt a new practice of change management. Michael Jarrett draws on established research, case examples and his own wide consulting experience to illustrate that current models of step change are largely doomed to failure and proposes a new framework that aligns both the internal and external dynamics of change. In a refreshingly clear and practical approach, Changeability points to a new route to successful change which uses a balanced approach taking account of the four key levers of change. First, take the online diagnostic test to benchmark your organisation against others in terms of your ability to change and to assess your relative strengths and weaknesses. Then use the tools, methods and techniques outlined by Jarrett to develop winning change strategies customised for your company. There are four main groups of strategies, depending upon your situation - so choose the one that's right for you and open the door to accelerated and sustainable change.

As Jack Russell, a newly-retired academic Ceramist, attempts to write a novel he learns that his younger sister, Susan, is separating from her husband, Martin, and setting up house with a young painter, Mary. This change greatly surprises him and his wife Jill. They subsequently meet Mary whom they find quite charming. Martin seeks their sympathy. The two themes of writing a novel and dealing with a family problem dominate Jack's life as he and Jill go about their normal life, meeting friends and visiting relatives. Progress with his book is slow. He finds himself continually distracted when he tries to write, unable to avoid thinking instead about various writers, about when he was young, and about the consequences of ageing. Martin is arrested for sexually assaulting young children. He later commits suicide before his trial. In considering this tragic sequence of events Jack sees his failure to understand the breakup of Susan and Martin as typical of much in life: one never knows the full story of anything. There are always gaps. Things are never constant: situations and people's attitudes are forever changing. That is also true of novels. Such reflections result in his feeling optimistic about finishing his novel. Change and Changeability presents a very sympathetic portrait of a warm, modern, ageing man, engagingly uncertain about many things.