Homo Imitans

Behaviours change culture, not the other way around. The spread of behaviours is the real source of social change. Behavioural imitation explains how social change happens, how epidemics of ideas are formed, how social fashions appear and how company cultures shape and reshape themselves. The spread of behaviours is also viral in nature. In his pioneering book, “Viral Change™”, Leandro Herrero addressed how a relatively small number of highly connected individuals could orchestrate change in an organisation through a small set of non-negotiable behaviours. In his new book, the author now addresses Viral Change™ in action, showing that the more primal ‘Homo Imitans’ is still a powerful force. Understanding how social, behavioural infection works is the basis for the orchestration of any ‘epidemic of success’, be it a successful change inside a firm or a counter-social epidemic to tackle negative socio-macro phenomena. Academia, business consulting and business literature have long differentiated themselves from the macro-social reality. For many years, and still today, it feels as if ‘the nine-to-five’ business life has little to do with ‘the external world’ of social changes. ‘Homo Imitans’ bridges these two artificially separated worlds by explaining how Viral Change™ mechanisms work everywhere: in the spread of violence in streets (and also in how to reverse it), in employee engagement inside the organisation, in the adoption of new behaviours and new company culture – and in how it can go wrong. ‘Homo Imitans’ will appeal to anybody interested in social change, with particular emphasis on how Viral Change™ works inside an organisation. As such, this is a key practitioner’s book for any manager and leader of any organisation, written by the creator of Viral Change™ in the same successful style as his previous books.