Dean Anderson


Dean Anderson

Dean Anderson is CEO and co-founder of Being First, Inc., a change leadership development and transformational change consulting, training and publishing firm. Mr. Anderson coaches and consults to executives and senior consultants of Fortune 1000 companies, government agencies and large non-profit organizations.

Mr. Anderson is known as a masterful change strategist, insightful speaker and author, and no-nonsense trainer. As a change strategist, he assists clients to design and implement transformational change that simultaneously delivers breakthrough results, increases organizational change capability and change capacity, and establishes a high performing, co-creative organizational culture that unleashes the human potential in the organization. His training specialty is developing leaders and consultants into conscious and competent change leaders who can intelligently lead their organization through the challenges of complex transformational change. Jim Kouzes, best-selling author of The Leadership Challenge, calls Mr. Anderson and his partner, Linda Ackerman Anderson, “the leading authorities on change leadership and organization transformation.”

Dean has co-authored two cutting edge books with Linda Ackerman Anderson, Beyond Change Management: How to Achieve Breakthrough Results through Conscious Change Leadership and The Change Leader’s Roadmap: How to Navigate Your Organization’s Transformation. Both are now in their second editions; first editions were best-sellers in the Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer Organization Practitioner Series. Daryl Conner, leading authority on organizational change, says these books were “written by masters of transformation.” The industry journal, The Organization Development Practitioner, calls the Andersons’ change process methodology that is the basis of their books “the most comprehensive and the most immediately usable of all approaches available.”

Mr. Anderson has co-authored over 50 articles on personal and organizational transformation. His writing provides insight about success and failure factors in organizational change, leadership modeling, change strategy, and change process design, stakeholder engagement and change communications, employee resistance and commitment, corporate culture change, and catalyzing human potential for optimal performance.

Mr. Anderson’s insight into personal transformation and the inner dynamics of high performing people, teams and organizations began at an early age as a national champion swimmer: Dean was the first ten year old boy in the world to ever break a minute in the one hundred yard freestyle, and the first twelve year old to ever break two minutes for the two hundred yard freestyle. On this foundation of elite performance, in 1980 right out of graduate school at Stanford University, Mr. Anderson founded the Optimal Performance Institute (OPI), where he taught high performing executives, world class athletes and performing artists how to manage their internal states of mind to optimize their external performance. His Optimal Performance Training, one of the early innovative self-empowerment and personal change programs delivered in organizations, provides the framework for Being First’s current leading edge Self Mastery Trainings. His original curriculum at OPI produced hundreds of successful executives as well as Olympic champions.

Mr. Anderson is the co-developer of Being First’s renowned change process methodology, The Change Leader’s Roadmap, and is the co-author of Being First’s comprehensive set of organizational change tools. He created Being First’s leadership breakthrough training, Leading Breakthrough Results: Walking the Talk of Change, and is the central developer of The Co-Creating System™ for optimizing personal and organizational results. He was also the central developer of the Co-Creative Partnering and Team Development processes. Mr. Anderson’s current passion is helping senior executives and teams overcome their predilection to command and control so they can become more “co-creative” and lead and build co-creative cultures and organizations.

Mr. Anderson co-authors the industry blog at www.changeleadersnetwork.com/blog, and is currently working on two books, Optimizing: How to Manage Your Mind for Optimal Performance, Fulfillment, and Behavior Change, and Big Win: How to Co-Create an Organization, Team, Relationship, and World that Works.

Mr. Anderson received both his Bachelors and Masters degrees from Stanford University, where he was an All-American swimmer and water polo player.

His hobbies include fly fishing, river rafting, hiking, gardening, pretending he can play the guitar, and drumming. He lives between two wilderness ranches in Southwest Colorado. The most important treasures in his life are his wife, Linda, and his daughter, Terra.

Linda Ackerman Anderson’s Bio

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Endorsements

With this extensively upgraded second edition, Dean Anderson and Linda Ackerman Anderson solidify their status as the leading authorities on change leadership and organizational transformation. This is without question the most comprehensive approach for leaders who are serious about making change a strategic discipline. Beyond Change Management is an intelligent book by two of the most knowledgeable and accomplished masters of their craft, and it’s one that every conscious change leader should adopt as their guide to creating more meaningful organizations.

Jim Kouzes
Coauthor of the bestselling The Leadership Challenge and The Truth About Leadership


Read this great book by Dean Anderson and Linda Ackerman Anderson and learn how to use their multi-dimensional approach to lead transformation masterfully and consciously!

Marshall Goldsmith
World-renowned executive coach
Author of the New York Times best-sellers, MOJO and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There


An important move toward a more integral business consulting approach, very much recommended for those interested in the topic and ways to actually apply it. 

Ken Wilber
Author, The Integral Vision, A Brief History of Everything, and over a dozen other best-sellers


Dean and Linda are core to the field of conscious change leadership, and continue to stretch and push its boundaries in this rich and deep compendium. This is a must read from two consummate thought leaders who have devoted their careers to developing highly successful change leaders. Read it and immediately improve your change leadership or consulting success.

Bev Kaye
CEO, Career Systems International
Author of Love 'em or Lose 'em: Getting Good People to Stay


This book is about mastery of leading the transformational change process written by masters of the craft.  For corporate leaders and consultants who consider themselves committed students of the process of organizational change.

Daryl Conner
Chairman, Conner Partners
Author of Managing at the Speed of Change and Leading at the Edge of Chaos


Beyond Change Management is a timely how-to guide for leading change in the 21st century. It provides both a conceptual roadmap, and practical tools and techniques for successfully transforming organizations.

Noel Tichy
Professor, University of Michigan
Co-author with Warren Bennis of JUDGMENT: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls


Once again, Dean and Linda have nailed it! Beyond Change Management is an extraordinary book examining the shifts in change management that have occurred over the years. This book offers real, practical solutions for change practitioners to become extraordinary conscious change leaders.

Darlene Meister
Director, Unified Change Management
United States House of Representatives


Powerful business solutions to the current chaos facing many organizations today. Dean Anderson and Linda Ackerman Anderson get to the heart of change, the human touch, by using timeless techniques and tools.
Ken Blanchard
Co-Author of The One Minute Manager and Leading at a Higher Level


Having applied this methodology for two years to manage change inside Microsoft, it has been instrumental in our ability to land change effectively, engage employees and deliver results quickly. The Change Leader’s Roadmap allows us to lead change with precision and minimal outside consulting, while at the same time growing change leadership capability internally. This is the most complete change methodology we have found anywhere.

Pete Fox
General Manager, Corporate Accounts
Microsoft US


This newest edition of The Change of Leader’s Roadmap is an invaluable, comprehensive and practical guide for envisioning an organization’s desired future, designing the structures and practices necessary to make it happen, and implementing them effectively. The book describes the change process in nine distinct phases and outlines the activities and tasks that need to occur in each phase. It provides change leaders with an essential map for successfully traversing the complex and uncertain terrain of transformational change.   

Thomas G. Cummings
Professor and Chair, Department of Management & Organization
Marshall School of Business
University of Southern California


This is the next best thing to having Dean, Linda and the Being First team riding alongside your complex change initiative. The Change Leader’s Roadmap breeds confidence in senior executive “Champions” to guide not just a successful transformational change, but most importantly, to develop the mission critical organizational CULTURE that will ensure unparalleled return on investment. Nothing I have seen in my 32 years of leading change comes close.

Jeff Mulligan
Former CEO, Common Wealth Credit Union
Mayor, City of Lloydminster


After implementing more than 2000 business strategy and operational excellence initiatives, we set out to find the best change methodology and toolbox in the world. The methodology this book describes is it! Study it thoroughly, because the thinking, process approach and pragmatic tools really work!

Thomas Fischer
Director COO
Valcon Management Consultants A/S
Copenhagen


A practical, step-by-step guide for change leaders, managers and consultants. The book provides conceptually grounded, real world, time tested tools and guidance that will prove invaluable to those faced with navigating the challenges of leading organizational change in today's turbulent times.

Robert J. Marshak, Ph.D.
Senior Scholar in Residence
MSOD Program, American University
Organizational Change Consultant