Editorial Review:
In this empowering book, Robert E. Quinn, author of the highly successful and influential Deep Change, gives readers the courage to use personal transformation to positively impact their home life, work life, and communities -- to be what he refers to as "inner-directed and outer-focused." We are all potential change agents, but most of us are trapped by belief that we as individuals cannot make a difference. Informed by the teachings of Jesus, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. -- three of the most successful change agents ever -- Quinn outlines eight steps each of us can take to move ourselves and others to the highest levels of excellence. Following his advice, each of us can access and apply the power that lies within us in ways that will change our world for the better.
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Customer Reviews
Average Customer Rating: 
My first and only review at Amazon - The Highest Recommendation 2006-12-22
This, more than any book, has had a profound influence on my life. Quinn helps us understand why our lives are so frustrating. The basic notion is that we are hypocrites. We believe or think one thing but we act differently. This integrity gap is what causes us to continue to accept the ordinary, or transactional, world as it is. He challenges us to reduce our integrity gap, and thus transform ourselves from ordinary to extraordinary human beings.
Quinn uses three historical figures to illustrate the power of transformation - Gandhi, Christ, and King, Jr. He also gives examples from his personal life and from his work as an organizational consultant of moving from the transactional to the transformational world. If you are willing to do the work Quinn challenges us to do, you will find yourself much more in tune with your highest ideals. By transforming yourself, Quinn argues, you can change (or transform) the world around you - your family, office, organization, and ultimately, the larger world.
Please read this book. Give it to friends and family. We (and they) are all hypocrites. Let us close our integrity gaps together.
top notch 2005-09-04
If you want to be effective at influencing others, study this book. This is one of my favorites. It also has many lots of valuable references and a great bibliography.
Change the World by Changing Yourself 2005-05-26
Bob Quinn is definitely one of the most profound writers on change in this era. But his work is not for the faint of heart because he challenges each of us to start change initiatives in the place we'd least like to go -- inside ourselves. I found this an incredibly powerful book. I've used sections of it with my "change management" classes for several years and I know it has a tremendous impact on students, who like most managers have grown up unconsciously believing that change always needs to start with the other guy. If you want a simple formula for change, don't buy this book. Although it is full of practical, actionable ideas, "Change the World" addresses change at a profound level that asks readers to reflect seriously on what they stand for. It's a very difficult but rewarding assignment.
real change 2001-01-06
"Typically a top management team goes off for three days," writes the author Quinn. "They hole up in a room with lots of flip charts and go to work." Then he says that when they're through they typically write words on small cards and pass them out to employees. Sadly, he observes these cards are "ignored and things go on as before." The premise underlying this book is that Quinn would have us care enough to change this way of thinking. The key, he says, is to stop doing things out of self-interest and start identifying and going after the shared goals of the group. He does a nice job of working good examples into his text. He also points out how risky it is to be a true leader since it involves overcoming a fear of failure when trying something new. He also does a nice job of making clear that hierarchy in itself is not a bad thing; it's only bad when they're perceived as mechanisms that result in getting nothing done. "Hierarchies become frozen bureaucracies due to the failure of human courage." He makes a compelling case for why it's crucial to skip the hollow words and dare to lead toward change. Only then can organizations hope for real change.
Look Within: That's Where Change Management Begins 2000-11-24
Hopefully, you have already read some (if not all) of Quinn's earlier books, especially Deep Change which serves as an excellent introduction to this one. In the Preface, he explains that this book "is about changing the world. It is about coming to a deep understanding of human beings and human relationships." He then adds, "The book focuses on vision, unconditional confidence, and profound impact. It is about the mastery of human influence, transformational power, and the capacity to accomplish extraordinary things. It argues that everyone of us is a change agent." It is important to add, that Quinn advocates "deep change" as opposed to "incremental change." Moreover, no organization can achieve deep change unless and until those within that organization achieve deep change. So as I understand it, each of us must assume full authority as well as responsibility for (and have control of) our personal development. "There is a language of transformation. Yet most of us are cut off from that language. All our lives we have been explicitly taught to see human influence as an exercise in domination." Even the most sensitive among us is shaped by this paradigm or worldview. But this outlook prevents us from seeing more deeply into the actual workings of human systems. This book demonstrates an alternative system."Quinn recalls the remark by Oliver Wendell Holmes that he placed little value in simplicity that lay on this side of complexity but a great deal of value on simplicity that lay on the other side. The framework within which Quinn presents his material comes from the "seed thoughts" of people who have mastered "the language of transformation." By "seed thoughts" Quinn means some of the "core notions that masters of transformation hold in common, the simplicity they send us from the other side of complexity." Specifically, Jesus, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Quinn focuses on eight (8) "seed thoughts" (eg Envision the Productive Community, First Look Within, Embrace the Hypocritical Self), providing brief quotations from each of the three "masters of transformation" which he correlates with each of the eight "seed thoughts." His objective is to explain how Advanced Change Theory (ACT) can enable individuals to achieve deep change in their own lives and then within their organizations. The title of this book (Change the World) may be somewhat misleading. I wholeheartedly agree with Quinn that "ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary results", both individually and as members of a group. I also agree that Jesus, Gandhi, and King were "masters of transformation" within their respective spheres of influence as were Carnegie, Edison, Ford, Morgan, and Rockefeller within their own. Quinn's basic idea is sound. He and I may differ only when defining terms such as "change" and "world." I urge you to read this book, to consider very carefully what ACT offers to you (personally) and to your organization, and then to select whatever is most appropriate. Quinn provides an eloquent and convincing argument in support of his concept of deep change; better yet, he suggests all manner of strategies and tactics to achieve and sustain it; even better yet, almost anyone who reads this book already has the resources required. If you need help to organize and allocate those resources, and truly powerful encouragement to support your efforts in process, look no further.
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