Friday 17 October 2003

Change Activist: Make Big Things Happen Fast

I've just finished reading Change Activist: Make Big Things Happen Fast by Carmel McConnell. I first ran across it in the Microsoft library and thought it looked interesting so I bought it for my holiday reading.

cover It's quite hard to describe the book. It's essentially a pep talk to get you to be your own change activist working within the corporate environment and aligning your passion, principles and purpose. It's written in a very conversational, email style of partial sentences which is a bit disconcerting. I didn't find the book particularly well structured but the narrative is easy to digest and humorous.

Two key quotes from the book:



"The change activist is a hybrid, capable of business success, able to understand and steer their career by action on personal values. Lives Activist Rule 1: to thine own self be true. Insists on working with a sense of social contribution as a way of finding their true path."

"The change activist integrates hitting the strengthened bottom line into the job descriptions, team goal and finally into company objectives. Really. That way we can all help world trade solve humanities problems. Without risking lower profit."


The most interesting ideas I got from the book were:



  1. That maybe there should be some optimism that corporations could evolve to offer more; the so-called triple bottom line of profits, environment and social contributions. Ethical branding could be more than just a marketing ploy. Maybe. I'd certainly like to work for a company like that.
  2. The section on trust was very interesting. Trust as a form of social capital. Trust being critical for change and quick actions. It would be interesting to look at social structures and processes in terms of trust. How is trust created? Maybe the pub is the key institution for trust creation! Something to mull over. 

A good read if you want a pep talk on a way to approach your career. You might want to check out the other books by Your Momentum.

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