"Leading Change" by John Kotter offers an eight-step process for managing change and has become the foundation for organizations around the world. By outlining the process every organization must go through to achieve its goals, and identifying where derailment happens, Kotter provides practical advice that leaders can benefit from.
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Change is inevitable; and the rate of change will continue to increase in our diverse global economy. Leading successful change requires developing urgency, gathering the right team, creating an effective vision, and over-communicating that vision.
The amount of change that organizations experience continues to increase. As a result companies will continue to be pushed to reduce costs, improve product quality, and find new opportunities for growth.
More often than not, improvements are meager and the downsides are endless:
Wasted resources
Frustration
Burned-out employees
and more...
Smart leaders fail to create a sense of urgency because they (a) don’t recognize how their actions affect the status quo, and (b) they overestimate how much they can force big changes.
Not only is buy-in from leadership required to create lasting change, but the acceptance of a plethora of individuals and teams are also essential.
Without vision, transformational projects will turn into a disjointed culmination of projects and stress. Vision helps align and direct actions across large groups of people.
People won’t make sacrifices to help achieve major change without understanding the vision and the potential benefits they will gain as a result of their sacrifices. When management behaves in a way that contradicts the vision, employees will see this as hypocritical and demotivating.
Supervisors who don’t adapt to change will often make demands that are incompatible with the vision. In other cases, organization structure and over-specialized jobs can make employees feel obstacles that aren’t really there.
Because large changes take time, companies need to develop achievable short-term goals in order to motivate and maintain momentum.
While celebrating a win is fine, any suggestion that the job is mostly done is generally a terrible mistake.
Until new behaviors are rooted in social norms and shared values, they are always subject to degradation as soon as the pressure associated with a change effort are removed.
Today, with a globalized economy, change is necessary for companies to stay ahead of competition and survive.
Other forces driving change:
Technological advancement
International economic integration
Maturation of markets in developed countries
More countries linked to capitalist systems
No highly visible crisis or threats
Too many visible resources
Low overall performance standards
Organizational structures that focus employees on narrow functional goals
Internal measurement systems that focus on the wrong performance indexes
A lack of sufficient performance feedback from external resources
A kill-the-messenger-of-bad-news, low candor, low-confrontational culture
Human nature, with its capacity for denial, especially if people are already busy or stressed
Too much “happy talk” from senior management
Insist that people talk regularly to unsatisfied customers, suppliers, and shareholders
Set goals that can’t be reached if things remain “business as usual”
Speak more openly about company problems
Allow errors to blow up, rather than correcting them at the last minute
Creating an artificial crisis to remove complacency is a better alternative than waiting for a real crisis to occur. Major change is often thought to be impossible without significant loses being felt.
Urgency needs to be genuinely felt by all people in an organization for major change to occur. This can be difficult to create when things are seemingly running smoothly, so it's up to leaders to create friction and jumpstart change.
Building a team with the right composition, level of trust, and shared objective is essential for sustaining major change; it takes more than one or two passionate leaders.
Position of Power - having enough managers on board will prevent resistance from others
Expertise - including relevant expertise to the problem at hand will help inform decisions
Credibility - a collection of good reputations will ensure that suggestions are taken seriously
Leadership - respected leaders are needed to drive the change process
Authoritarian decree and micromanagement are often how leaders approach communicating change. Creating a vision motivates, rather than enforces, people to take action. Vision is also an efficient way to communicate a goal to a variety of different departments and people.
An effective vision is:
Imaginable - What will the future look like?
Desirable - Why do people want this?
Feasible - Is this realistic?
Focused - Is it clear?
Flexible - Can it adapt to changing conditions?
Communicable - Can it be easily explained?
Analogies - paint a picture for people to remember
Multiple forums - don’t rely on one method for communicating vision
Repetition - verge on the side of over-communication
Lead by example - leaders can’t contradict the vision
Encourage discussion - talking about the ideas will help them sink in
Celebrating small successes and milestones along the way helps provide evidence that sacrifices are worth it. This rewards people who are pushing the change by giving them an opportunity to be recognized along the way.
Additionally, generating short-term wins:
With rapid technological changes, more specific customer requirements, and more globalization, the ability to navigate and create lasting change will put companies miles ahead of the competition. Employees, managers, and leaders will need to become lifelong learners and be more accepting of new ideas and rapid changes.