Irresistible Change: A Blueprint for Earning Buy-In and Breakout Success - Hardcover

by Phil Gilbert (Author)

A blueprint for change leaders to learn from one of the largest transformations in corporate history

Irresistible Change: A Blueprint for Earning Buy-In and Breakout Success details one of the largest and most formidable transformations in corporate history: to shift the foundations of work for IBM's nearly 400,000 employees and thousands of interdisciplinary teams across 180 countries and help them become more entrepreneurial, agile, and customer focused. Written by Phil Gilbert, IBM's former General Manager of Design and architect of this ambitious change effort, this book is part narrative and part field guide. Irresistible Change describes how the choices made at IBM affected the Change Program Office's development at each stage of its growth and provides readers with key insights they need to conduct transformational change within their own organizations.

This book includes insights on:

• Getting buy-in for change, the biggest challenge that holds back even the most ambitious change efforts, by making it something exciting rather than inevitable
• Seeing change as a high-stakes "product" deserving of the same resources and rigor as your top-performing business lines
• Recognizing today's newly empowered and often skeptical employees who resist authority and value autonomy and stability

Irresistible Change is an essential roadmap for the next generation of change leaders in organizations of any size.

Front Jacket

IBM'S 21ST CENTURY CULTURE TRANSFORMATION WAS ONE OF THE LARGEST IN HISTORY. IT FUNDAMENTALLY UPDATED THE WORK OF 400,000 IBM EMPLOYEES ACROSS 180 COUNTRIES. BUT THE CHANGE ACHIEVED WAS NEVER MANDATED.

Irresistible Change(TM) tells the remarkable story of how it happened and its lessons that leaders of any size organization can apply. It cracks the code for getting buy-in for change, the biggest challenge that holds back even the most ambitious change efforts.

At a time when today's employees value autonomy and stability, change must be earned instead of enforced. Phil Gilbert knows this firsthand. To overcome skepticism, doubts and reluctance, he had to reinvent how to achieve change. He had to make change irresistible.

That's what this book is about--earning change adoption instead of enforcing it--a proven but innovative approach that leaders can learn and apply to transform any workplace in any sector. As the pace of change increases and as employees become more empowered than ever before, Irresistible Change will become the trusted roadmap for the next generation of change leaders.

Back Jacket

"Phil Gilbert helped redefine how we thought about change at IBM--treating change like a product people chose to adopt, rather than a mandate to follow. Irresistible Change distills that approach into a powerful, practical playbook."
GINNI ROMETTY Former Chairman, President, and CEO of IBM, and bestselling author of Good Power

"When embarking on a technology-related change at scale, it seems natural to get focused on the tech when success is actually about the people. They need an appetite and path to change the way they think and work. Phil's change-as-a-product mindset, experience and stories can help anyone build a more effective approach to transformation, one that results in real, practical outcomes."
DOUG MCMILLON President and CEO, Walmart

"Irresistible Change is Phil Gilbert's brilliantly insightful account of his time leading and driving IBM's move towards a new way of operating--nothing less than turning a battleship against headwinds and currents. His success was not serendipitous, but instead the product of thoughtful planning, careful communication, and relentless pursuit of doing what works. Less complicated than difficult, change demands deft, committed leadership, and a deep understanding of both the challenge and criticality of adapting."
STAN MCCHRYSTAL General, U.S. Army (Retired), Founder and Chairman/CEO of McChrystal Group, and bestselling author of Team of Teams

"This is simultaneously the most radical and most pragmatic story of transformation you will come across anywhere. It would appear ridiculously ambitious to attempt to change the culture of a company the size of IBM and yet Phil Gilbert helps us truly understand what it takes to drive large scale cultural change through design thinking. Anyone with similar ambition should take careful notes."
TIM BROWN Chair Emeritus of IDEO, and bestselling author of Change By Design

"The transformation of IBM into a design thinking organization is probably the most amazing corporate transformation in the history of American business. When Phil Gilbert came to Stanford I told him it was impossible--and I was dead wrong. Read this book to understand how he did it, and how you can make change irresistible."
BILL BURNETT Executive Director of the Life Design Lab, Stanford University, and bestselling author of Designing Your LIfe

"In Irresistible Change, Phil Gilbert shares bold, carefully uncomfortable moves--like flying stakeholders in on a Sunday and banning laptops on Monday--to surface hidden resistance early. By designing for discomfort, he transforms skepticism into belief and makes lasting change truly irresistible."
JOHN MAEDA VP of Artificial Intelligence and Design, Microsoft Corporation, and bestselling author of The Laws of Simplicity

Author Biography

PHIL GILBERT is best known for leading IBM's transformation as their General Manager of Design. After selling his third startup to IBM in 2010, Phil was asked by IBM in 2012 to use design thinking, coupled with agile, to update how IBM's teams worked. The transformation became the subject of a Harvard Business School case study, the documentary film The Loop and feature articles in the New York Times and Fortune magazine.

Phil's 45-year career spans startups, large corporations, and board memberships, where he has led organizations ranging from solo ventures to those with 400,000 employees.

In 2018, Phil was inducted into the New York Foundation for the Arts' Hall of Fame. In 2019, the State of Oklahoma (Phil's native state) named him an Oklahoma Creativity Ambassador for his achievements in the world of creative thinking and innovation.

Phil retired from full-time operational responsibilities at IBM in 2022 in order to focus on helping the next generation of entrepreneurs, business, and military leaders understand how to impact culture at scale, to improve innovation and team performance. Phil lives in Austin, Texas.