5.2 John Kotter on Change

John Kotter's highly regarded books 'Leading Change' (1995) and the follow-up 'The Heart Of Change' (2002) describe a popular model for understanding and managing change. Based on observation and research with business leaders, Kotter identifies an eight-step change process. Each stage identifies a key principle relating to how people respond to change.

1. Create Urgency
2. Form a guiding coalition
3. Develop a vision and strategy
4. Communicating the vision
5. Enabling action and removal of obstacles
6. Generating short-term wins
7. Hold the gains and build on change
8. Anchor changes in the culture

For more detail on each of the steps see Kotter’s 8 Step Model of Change.

This 4 minute video has the key points from Kotter's book A Sense of Urgency

More recently Kotter has emphasised the difference between change management and change leadership. This very short 2 minute video explains the distinction:

He is also advocating the need for greater creativity and entrepreneurship to deal with a fast changing world and complex challenges.

The original 8 Step Model still has relevance, especially in the context of single large changes that are driven from the top of the organisation. It presents change as a linear process when, in reality today, it can be more complex than that.

Reflection

Looking back to the changes you thought about in the previous Introduction section:

Map the positive and negative aspects against Kotter’s 8 steps.

For each step, write down the things that could have been done to make the change process more successful.

You can use the Stepping Into Leadership Course Workbook to record your thoughts.

Continue the course with: 5.3 Personal reactions to change