Testimonials

«All of us who have something to say face a difficult situation when thinking about writing it. We can write a “treatise,” where we have to collect the state of the art and there is no possibility of innovating, of adding our own ideas. It will be long and boring, it will quickly become obsolete, it will be useful to some, but no one will read it with pleasure. If we are researchers, we can write a paper with our original contribution. Some will read it without pleasure, a few will understand it. Of these, some may find it useful. This is the kind of thing I am encouraged to write. The most interesting option is that of those who somehow manage, in about a hundred pages, to tell us things that are useful to us, that we read with pleasure and that improve us, making us think. Congratulations!»

Breogán Gonda 

Engineer

Co-founder of GeneXus

Member of the National Academy of Engineering (Uruguay)

«It has been a very pleasant surprise to find this book. Although the subject matter refers to organizations, it contemplates, as it should, the most important variable: the human being. And in the author’s profoundly psychological approach, he quotes great masters of psychology, philosophy, and mysticism. This speaks to the author’s mental and spiritual openness. Therefore, the book’s approach is broad, rich, and nourishing.

There are those who say that in our life there are changes; others say that life is permanent change. Everything alive needs movement; what has become chronic, what is hardened, immovable, rigid, is neurotic (and is close to illness and death). This book shows us that what is healthy is movement; without movement there is no health (neither personal nor institutional). The book, therefore, is a bet on possibility, on development, on plenitude, on meaning.

Thank you, Toni, for this excellent work, which invites us to go through this subject with an intelligent, creative, enthusiastic, and positive look.»

Leonardo Buero

Doctor in Psychology

Psychologist

Specialist in Logotherapy and Existential Analysis

Postgraduate in Counseling

«Effective organizations of the future-present show us great challenges in several areas, with a common denominator: effectively navigating change. Having the ability to reinvent oneself, stay relevant, and continuously deliver value to the customer –even during the most complex global situations– is no longer an added value, but a basic necessity for business survival. Leading Organizational Change in an Agile World presents a compendium of experiences, learnings, and essential recommendations for navigating the path to keeping our organizations relevant.»

Martín Alcalá Rubí

Engineer

Co-founder of Tryolabs

Director of the Uruguayan Chamber of Information Technology (CUTI)

Angel Investor

“Attention is the path to immortality; inattention is the path to death. Those who are attentive do not die; the inattentive are as if they were already dead.” With this epigraph, Antonio begins the last chapter of his book. And, believe me, this is what characterizes this author: paying attention to everything. To his immediate surroundings and those further afield, to the old and the new, to his teachers and friends, to those he most admires but does not know. What’s more, he is always looking for ways to share what he has learned, reevaluated, or discovered. And this is part of his purpose in this world: to pass on what he considers useful for all of us as leaders of our organizations.

In this book, he has sought to innovate in the classic ways of writing a technical text. The result is a hybrid between a technical book —which are always difficult to make interestin— and an essay. Thus, each chapter delivers a set of management tools for this dynamic, changing, uncertain world in an entertaining but rigorous and agile way. And this is relevant because, as Malcolm Gladwell points out in What the Dog Saw, “there are problems that are easier to solve than to manage.” They are never enough, but helping yourself or leveraging good management tools always complements the quality of business leaders and managers.»

Bruno Gili

Accountant

Partner at CPA Ferrere

Member of the Ferrere management committee

«From my double training and experience as an organizational psychologist and as a psychoanalyst, I find that this book arises from the necessary dialogue between different disciplines, becoming a current synthesis that presents itself as agile, but, at the same time, framed in the paradigm of complexity.

As a psychoanalyst, I emphasize the protagonism given to the subject and his process of subjectivation, a necessary condition for him to be able to put libido (life drive energy) into the project that another invites him to embark on. For this to be possible, the subject must be able to make the longing promoted by the leader his own.

In this text I also detect the consideration of what we call “resistances to go through new circuits of our mind.” Let us remember that the neurotic lives on reminiscences, and it is more comfortable to go through the most marked paths over and over again, even if these irremediably lead us to tantric paths.

This book considers the need to generate an internal change in the subject. The analogy that Toni presents with osteocytes illustrates one of the hardest cores to break when working on organizational change. Precisely, the argument “it was always done this way and that made the organization grow” has the strength of proof, but it also has the lethal power to make it succumb if a rudder movement is not triggered in accordance with new situations, and this movement must be fast. Hence the importance of the concept of agility.

But the challenge is not only in leading people, the leader must also review their beliefs, as recommended in this text; deeply rooted beliefs, in a latent register, which often unconsciously divert the leader’s purpose. This is another entrenched core to be extirpated through introspection.

In short, I consider this a must-read book in a market dominated by family-owned businesses.»

Irina Ripoll

Degree in Psychology

Postgraduate in Psychoanalysis

Adjunct Professor at the University Graduate Institute of Psychoanalysis

«Leading Organizational Change in an Agile World is a universally applicable manual. In a clear and forceful way, it explains the shortcomings of both the person who organizes and leads as well as those who are part of their team.

It is curious to find the same tools that we use in the planning of an individual therapy, but expressed in a simple and intelligible way. Many times, we undertake a task trying to adapt the patient to our routine, forgetting that each person, or each client, is different and changes by simply existing. It is in this planning stage that the objective must be established in a concrete way and in which the therapist themselves must recognize the different aspects of themselves (with the dynamic changes that occur in the simple course of life) and those of the person who asks for our help, who also changes over time.

It is a dynamic book in keeping with the current times, of universal application. It would be desirable for education authorities to be familiar with it, to have a truly versatile tool that would allow our beautiful country to take advantage of the challenge of the 21st century without nostalgia. The same applies to those who today must organize the fight against the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19).»

Milton Gagliardi

Psychiatrist and psychotherapist

He was professor in charge of Psychopathology in the School of Psychology, University of the Republic of Uruguay and served in leadership positions at the Vilardebó and Pasteur hospitals