ABSTRACT
Ian Johnson writes of his experience as a consultant working for a global consulting firm in the UK on major change programs in large companies. He argues that there is a particular way of thinking that is reflected in the major change projects that clients bring to his firm. This way of thinking is also reflected in the way consultants like him are supposed to work on these projects. The way of thinking is one in which an organization is taken to be a thing with an agency of its own in that it causes people to do what they do in their work, but it is also believed that the leaders of an organization can move it from one state to another through undertaking major transformation projects which follow prescribed steps. Johnson finds that this way of thinking does not resonate with his experience of the messy, unpredictable nature of organizational life. However, what strikes him is that despite such unrealistic thinking, it sometimes happens that the transformation programs he works on do actually seem to achieve change.
