book covers change friendly leadership

A 5 Minute Overview Of

Change Friendly Leadership

How to Transform Good Intentions into Great Performance

About the Author


Rodger Dean Duncan is the founder of his own consulting practice focusing on leadership and performance improvement. He is a graduate of Purdue University and was formerly a reporter with The Salt Lake Tribune, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram and The Dallas Daily Herald. He was also head of communications for Campbell Soup Company and vice president of a global energy firm. Dr. Duncan has consulted with cabinet officers in two White House administrations as well as the senior leaders of many of the world's best companies spanning more than a dozen industries.

The Main Idea


There's no question making change happen in any organization is hard work. Why is that? When you drill down, you'll find change almost always takes people out of their comfort zones and that produces stress — and it's usually stress that makes people resist rather than the actual change itself. To make change stick, you have to accommodate people's feelings — their heads, their hearts and their aspirations — as you bring about the change that's required.

In simple and direct terms, to make change happen you've got to become a change-friendly leader, irrespective of where you sit on the organizational chart. To be a change-friendly leader, three building blocks are required:

  1. You need to have the right change-friendly mindset built around solid people-centered principles.
  2. You must build a good foundation for change by being think-friendly, talk-friendly, trust-friendly and team-friendly.
  3. You need to apply a simple yet robust process to make real change happen.

Sections in this Books


1. Have the right mindset for change. Change really is a big deal for most people. To make any change initiative you undertake a success, you'll need to work hard to accommodate the heads, hearts, and hopes of your people. Doing this requires that you have the right mindset yourself based on five guiding principles.

2. Build a good foundation for change. To successfully bring about change, you have to focus more on behaviors and relationships and less on titles and stature. The foundation is you need the power of Four Ts: Think-Friendly, Talk-Friendly, Trust-Friendly and Team-Friendly. Together, the Four Ts form a solid foundation for change.

3. Use the right process to bring about change. When change is needed, most people prefer a straightforward path rather than a complex and unwieldy process. Most of the time, simplicity works and can be the real key to making breakthroughs. Effective change really only ever happens when you effectively address the underlying human dynamics of what's involved.

The seven change-friendly steps are:

Want in-depth 30-minute summaries?

In addition to this 5-minute overview, Summaries.Com has a premium 30-minute summary of this book and 1,000+ more, to help you advance your career and business.

Check Out Summaries.com Premium Plans Today!

Want more 5-minute Snapshots?

To get a new 5-minute business book snapshot each week, sign up for the Summaries.com free plan.

Sign Up for the Summaries.com Free Plan

Leadership Collection


If you enjoyed this summary, here is a collection of related business book summaries, to help you get ideas and strategies that will give you an edge over your competition.

These 6 books will deepen your understanding of the principles of leaderships.

Buy Leadership Collection (5 x 30-Min Summaries)
book covers change friendly leadership
Summary published 11/2012
Change Friendly Leadership

How to Transform Good Intentions into Great Performance

by Rodger Dean Duncan

book covers leadershift
Summary published 5/2019
Leadershift

11 Essential Changes Every Leader Must Embrace

by John Maxwell

book covers change the culture change the game
Summary published 5/2011
Change the Culture, Change the Game

The Breakthrough Strategy for Energizing Your Organization and Creating Accountability for Results

by Roger Connors and Tom Smith

book covers leaders eat last
Summary published 2/2014
Leaders Eat Last

Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't

by Simon Sinek

book covers leading change
Summary published in 2000
Leading Change

An Action Plan

by John Kotter

book covers lincoln on leadership
Summary published in 1999
Lincoln on Leadership

Executive Strategies For Tough Times

by Donald T. Phillips

Buy Leadership Collection (5 x 30-Min Summaries)