I am a big fan of Kotter’s, 8-Step Process for Leading Change. I have seen it applied, and the system works. It should be a must read for anyone who has, or will, experience some sort of (work) change.

This presentation outlines the 8-steps and key points in the process. Full details can be found on the author’s site.

Kotter’s 8-Step Process for Leading Change

1. Establish a Sense of Urgency2. Form a Powerful Guiding Coalition3. Create a Change Vision and Strategic Initiatives4. Communicate the Vision5. Empower Broad-Based Action6. Generate and Celebrate Wins7. Consolidate Gains and Produce More Change8. Anchor New Approaches in the Culture

Source: Leading Change by John P. Kotter

Step 1: Establish a Sense of Urgency

Close to 50% of the companies that fail to make needed change make their mistakes at the very beginning. Leaders may underestimate how hard it is to drive people out of their comfort zones, or simply lack the patience necessary to develop appropriate urgency.

Step 1: Establish a Sense of Urgency

Close to 50% of the companies that fail to make needed change make their mistakes at the very beginning. Leaders may underestimate how hard it is to drive people out of their comfort zones, or simply lack the patience necessary to develop appropriate urgency.

Leaders who understand the importance of a sense of urgency are good at taking the pulse of their company and determining whether the state of the organization is:• Complacency: It's a state where people fail to react to signs

that action must be taken, telling themselves and each other, “everything is fine."

• False urgency: People are busy, working-working-working, but their actions don't result in helping the business succeed in their primary goals.

• True urgency: People are clearly focused on making real progress, every single day.

Step 1: Establish a Sense of Urgency

Key Points:• Help others feel a gut-level determination to move and win,

now.• Have open, honest and convincing dialogue about what's

happening in the industry, and with competitors. • Develop a sense of urgency around the “need” for the

change, and get people talking. When employees are talking about the change, the urgency can build and feed on itself.

You Can Fail or Succeed - Plan For It

Guaranteed to Fail: • The problem in failed change initiatives is rarely that the

case for change is poorly thought out, or not supported with sufficient facts. It’s that - a solid business case that has a theoretically "compelling" rationale only appeals to people's head, and not their heart.

Guaranteed to Succeed:• Leaders who know what they are doing will "aim for the

heart." They will connect to the deepest values of their people and inspire them to greatness.

• They will make the business case come alive with human experience, engage the senses, create messages that are simple and imaginative, and call people to aspire.

Step 2: Build a Powerful Guiding Coalition

No one person, no matter how competent, is capable of single-handedly: developing the right vision, communicating it to vast numbers of people, eliminating all of the key obstacles, generate short term wins, lead and manage dozens of change projects, and anchor new approaches deep in an organization’s culture.

Step 2: Build a Powerful Guiding Coalition

No one person, no matter how competent, is capable of single-handedly: developing the right vision, communicating it to vast numbers of people, eliminating all of the key obstacles, generate short term wins, lead and manage dozens of change projects, and anchor new approaches deep in an organization’s culture.

Key Points:• Bring together a coalition, or team, of influential people

whose power comes from a variety of sources.• Convince people that change is necessary. This often takes

strong leadership and visible support. Managing change isn't enough - you have to lead it.

• Once formed, your "change coalition" must have a significant level of trust, and a shared objective. They will help build and maintain momentum around the change; and the need for it.

Importance of Teams & Decision Making

In a rapidly changing world, complex organizations are forced to make decisions more quickly and with less certainty than they would like, and with greater sacrifice than they would prefer. • Teams of leaders and managers, acting in concert, are the

only effective entities that can make productive decisions under these circumstances.

• The team must develop a level of trust; this is the glue that makes the team function well.

• Team building has to happen quickly. Typically, this occurs in an off-site with carefully facilitated activities that allows for team members to make connections between both hearts and minds.

Step 3: Create a Vision

The vision is part of a larger system that includes strategies, plans and budgets. A good vision may demand sacrifices in order to create a better future for everyone (e.g. employees, stakeholders).

Step 3: Create a Vision

The vision is part of a larger system that includes strategies, plans and budgets. A good vision may demand sacrifices in order to create a better future for everyone (e.g. employees, stakeholders).

Key Points:• The vision must be focused, flexible and easy to

communicate. If it cannot be explained quickly in a way that makes intuitive sense, it becomes useless.

• The vision must be seen as strategically feasible. To be effective, it must take into account the current realities of the enterprise, but also set forth goals that are truly ambitious. Great leaders know how to make these ambitious goals look doable.

STEP 4: Communicate the Vision

Gaining an understanding and commitment to a new direction is never an easy task, especially in complex organizations. Executives will use every effective communication channel possible to broadcast the vision. They turn boring and unread company newsletters into lively articles about the vision. Ritualistic and tedious quarterly meetings are turned into exciting discussions about (the change).

STEP 4: Communicate the Vision

Gaining an understanding and commitment to a new direction is never an easy task, especially in complex organizations. Executives will use every effective communication channel possible to broadcast the vision. They turn boring and unread company newsletters into lively articles about the vision. Ritualistic and tedious quarterly meetings are turned into exciting discussions about (the change).

Key Points:• Your message will have strong competition from other

internal communications, so you need to communicate it frequently, powerfully; and embed it within everything that you do. Refer to it in emails, in meetings, in presentations - the vision should be communicated anywhere and everywhere. 

• “Walk the Talk." What you do is far more important and than what you say. Demonstrate the kind of behavior that you want from others.

STEP 5: Empower Broad-Based Action

If you’ve followed the steps and reached this point in the change process, you've been talking about your vision and building buy-in from all levels of the organization. Hopefully, your staff wants to get busy and achieve the benefits that you've been promoting. But are there processes or structures that are getting in its way? Is anyone resisting the change?

STEP 5: Empower Broad-Based Action

If you’ve followed the steps and reached this point in the change process, you've been talking about your vision and building buy-in from all levels of the organization. Hopefully, your staff wants to get busy and achieve the benefits that you've been promoting. But are there processes or structures that are getting in its way? Is anyone resisting the change?

Actions:• Put in place the structure for change, and continually check

for barriers to it.• Remove obstacles. This can empower the people you need

to execute your vision, and help the change move forward.

Potential Barriers

• Many times the internal structures of companies are at odds with the change vision. An organization that claims to want to be customer focused finds its structures are fragmented. Companies that claim to want to increase productivity and become a low-cost producer have huge staff groups that constantly initiate costly procedures and programs. The list is endless.

• Some employees or managers may inhibit change. They may not actively undermine the effort, but they are simply not “wired” to go along with what the change requires. Often enthusiastic change agents refuse to confront these people. While that approach can work in the early stages of a change initiative, by this step (#5) it becomes a real problem.

STEP 6: Generate and Celebrate Wins

Nothing motivates more than success. Give your company a taste of victory early in the change process. Within a short time frame (this could be a month or a year, depending on the type of change), you'll want to have some "quick wins" that your staff can see. Without this, critics and negative thinkers might hurt your progress.

STEP 6: Generate and Celebrate Wins

Nothing motivates more than success. Give your company a taste of victory early in the change process. Within a short time frame (this could be a month or a year, depending on the type of change), you'll want to have some "quick wins" that your staff can see. Without this, critics and negative thinkers might hurt your progress.

Create short-term targets - not just one long-term goal. You want each smaller target to be achievable, with little room for failure. Your change team may have to work very hard to come up with these targets, but each "win" that you produce can further motivate the entire staff.

STEP 6: Generate and Celebrate Wins

Wins:• Provide evidence that the sacrifices that people are making

are paying off.  This increases the sense of optimism of those who are making the effort to change.

• Serve to reward the change agents by providing positive feedback that boosts morale and motivation.

• Build momentum; and wins can turn neutral people into supporters, and reluctant supporters into active helpers.

• Wins can undermine the credibility of cynics and self-serving resistors. Clear improvements in performance make it difficult for people to block the needed change. Likewise, wins will garner critical support from those higher than the folks leading the change (bosses, board, and shareholders).

STEP 7: Consolidate Gains & Produce More Change

Kotter argues that many change projects fail because victory is declared too early. Real change runs deep. Quick wins are only the beginning of what needs to be done to achieve long-term change.

STEP 7: Consolidate Gains & Produce More Change

Kotter argues that many change projects fail because victory is declared too early. Real change runs deep. Quick wins are only the beginning of what needs to be done to achieve long-term change.

Leadership is invaluable in surviving this step (#7).  Instead of declaring victory and moving on, these transformational leaders will launch more and more projects to drive the change deeper into the organization. They will also take the time to ensure that all the new practices are firmly grounded in the organization’s culture. Managers, by their nature, think in shorter timeframes.  It is up to leaders to steer the course for the long-term. Without sufficient and consistent leadership, the change will stall, and succeeding in a rapidly changing world becomes highly problematic.

STEP 7: Consolidate Gains & Produce More Change

In a successful change initiative, this is what you’ll begin to see:• More projects being added• Additional people being brought in to help with the changes• Senior leadership focused on giving clarity to an aligned

vision and shared purpose• Employees empowered at all levels to lead projects• Reduced interdependencies between areas• Constant effort to keep urgency high• Consistent show of proof that the new way is working

STEP 8: Anchor New Approaches in the Culture

Finally, to make any change stick, it should become part of the core of your organization. Your corporate culture often determines what gets done, so the values behind your vision must show in day-to-day work.

STEP 8: Anchor New Approaches in the Culture

Finally, to make any change stick, it should become part of the core of your organization. Your corporate culture often determines what gets done, so the values behind your vision must show in day-to-day work.

New practices must grow deep roots in order to remain firmly planted in the culture. Culture is composed of norms of behavior and shared values. These social forces are incredibly strong. Every individual that joins an organization is indoctrinated into its culture, generally without even realizing it. Its inertia is maintained by the collective group of employees over years and years.

Changes - whether consistent or inconsistent with the old culture - are difficult to ingrain. 

STEP 8: Anchor New Approaches in the Culture

Key Points:• Make continuous efforts to ensure that the change is seen

in every aspect of your organization. This will help give it a solid place in your organization's culture.

• It's also important that your company's leaders continue to support the change. This includes existing staff and new leaders who are brought in. If you lose the support of these people, you might end up back where you started.

General Rules About Cultural Change

• Cultural change comes last, not first. You must be able to prove that the new way is superior to the old.

• Success must be visible and well communicated.• You will lose some people in the process.• You must reinforce new norms and values with incentives

and rewards - including promotions.• Reinforce the culture with every new employee.

Tradition is a powerful force. To embed change, you must create a strong, new organizational culture. The Change Coalition alone cannot root change in place - no matter how influential they are. It takes the majority of the organization truly embracing the new culture for there to be sustainable change.

Source: Leading Change by John P. Kotter

About Me

Even if I’m not directly involved in, or impacted by a change, I like to observe the change “process.”

I have been a(n):• Change Lead/Agent/Champion/Coach,• Member of a Change Coalition,• Impacted End User, and• Stakeholder

I have played all of these roles, while working on a single change initiative. As a Certified Change Lead, change is part of my job - it’s part of life.

www.jazzbi.comwww.jazzbi.wordpress.com

Author: John P. KotterLeading Change, With a New Preface by the

Author - November 6, 2012Website