Jack Covert Selects: Change or Die

Change or Die: Overcoming the Five Myths of Change at Work and in Life by Alan Deutschmann, Regan Books, 241 pages, $26.95, Hardcover, January 2007, ISBN 0060886897 (ISBN 13: 9780060886899) A book arrived on my desk this month that I couldn't ignore. The title, Change or Die, and the cover are striking, and the author's name, Alan Deutschmann, rang a bell. It took me a moment, but I remembered the cover story from Fast Company, an article about people's stubbornness toward change. Even with the strongest motivators the odds are nine to one that we'll actually do it. That's 9:1, folks. Given my fondness for stories, I enjoyed the fact that Change or Die is full of real stories that support its case—strong, historical examples of how even the strongest threats don't motivate people to change. Like why people prone to heart disease maintain unhealthy diets, why criminals continue to commit offenses, and why many companies, even when faced with extreme employee dissatisfaction, can't seem to revise their management strategies. Of course, Deutschmann doesn't want readers to just curl up and accept the odds. He comes up with a way to go about changing, using what he deems the three "R