Purpose-Driven Innovation: Lessons from Managing Change in the United Nations

Purpose-Driven Innovation takes readers inside the UN Lab for Organizational Change and Knowledge (UNLOCK) to discover a new theory of change management, developed to help managers navigate accelerating, global, societal challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Using real UN cases, arranged according to the UN change framework, the authors show how this new theory works in the real world, overcoming bureaucratic obstacles and the challenges of the digital era.

This is the first book to set out how change management models work in practice in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is an essential primer for all organizations, small and large, public or private, within and outside of the United Nations, working to help achieve the SDGs through organizational change in the wake of crisis.

Jens P. Flanding trained as an economist at Royal Holloway College and McGill University and earned his doctorate from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Jens is faculty for designing and managing organizational change at the United Nations System Staff College and a member of the Change Management Peer Network of the UN Laboratory for Organizational Change and Knowledge (UNLOCK). He has led strategic change initiatives for Deloitte Consulting clients, UNHCR, UN Environment, and PAHO/WHO. Jens authored, with Genevieve and Sheila Cox, award-winning The Technology Takers: Leading Change in the Digital Era (Emerald Publishing, 2019).

Genevieve M. Grabman is an attorney with a Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center, a Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University, and a bachelor’s in political science from the University of North Carolina. Genevieve is a District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities Fellow and member of the UNLOCK Peer Network. She has led policy reforms at UNHCR and PAHO/WHO and began her career at UNICEF as a Peace Corps Volunteer. She authored Challenging Pregnancy: A Journey through the Politics and Science of Healthcare in America (University of Iowa Press, 2022) and, with Jens, The Technology Takers: Leading Change in the Digital Era.