Leading Change (1996) by John

Leading Change (1996) by John P. Kotter

Change is scary. Change means deviating from what seemed to work so well before. The word 'change' strikes fear in the heart of every careful and cautious person involved in middle management. Yet change is also a vital and necessary part of modern business life, and ultimately a manager must adapt or die, sink or swim, when cast adrift to the inevitable sea and processes of change. A manager must change, and weather change well. A manger must realize his or her own personal excellence and bring the organization to levels of excellence -- in short, a manager must evolve into a leader.

In his 1996 management classic Leading Change John P. Kotter outlines eight crucial steps in facilitating change acceptance within an organization. First, a manager-turned-leader must fight against the initial resistance by pumping up the adrenaline levels of all members of the organization. Kotter calls this increasing the sense of urgency within the organization. But rather than using fear, the manager should seek to make the reasons for the needed change seem important, immediate, real and relevant to inspire people to want to make the necessary changes.

Second, and flowing from the idea that inspiring a sense of urgency is of the essence, a managerial leader or leaders must create a team or coalition filled with persons of strong emotional, leadership, and skill-based expertise to implement the change. Third, the leader or leaders must build a guiding team for the change possessing the right level of emotional commitment, and the correct mix of skills. A good coalition is not a team all of managers, technical people, or born leaders, but a necessary mix of persons and personalities to achieve the goals. However, to inspire the team, the leaders must create a real sense of vision and there must be some sort of leader on every team.

Fourthly, a clear and concise vision and mission statement is essential, with a step-by-step strategy. This vision must be creative as well as technically astute to truly inspire the persons on the change team and in the organization as a whole. Although a team has been carefully created, communication is essential on every level of the organization, so that persons believe that the organization needs the change, and so that persons are aware of the implications of the change. Communication is also key so persons do not feel out of the loop, which also creates resistance.

Fifthly, in terms of the overall leadership, it is important to empower action or remove the real-life obstacles, and also note the progress and the contributions of the leadership who are embarked upon the change process. As a kind of corollary and sixth principle to the theme of empowerment, creating short-term goals to give constant, foreseeable incentives or carrots for implementing various stages is a more psychologically astute focus than talking about achievements far in the future. This must be delicately balanced with the principle of never letting up. Thus, and seventh, the short-term goals must not become an excuse for refusing to progress -- never take off the pressure to change, and always stress the need to meet future goals that come next. Finally, once the change has been achieved, a person must never "let up," and make the change permanent through reinforcement and also through promoting new change leaders, not simply stressing new change processes. In other words, it's the follow up, silly -- don't just rest on your laurels!

It is evident in these principles that, for Kotter, change is not a numbers-based formula or about choosing the best practices alone. It is also about getting the right people to enforce new changes, and it requires psychological strategies of motivation as well as simply reinforcing the purpose of the change in the long-term. To reinforce the title of his work -- leadership, or wanting to make other persons fulfill a vision is key, rather than mere management, or merely passing on orders to other persons. Many can manage, but few can lead.

Why doesn't change work? Kotter answers this crucial query as well. In a series of negative principles that reinforce his positive principles, Kotter states that one reason changes do not work is that the change process is made too complex in the words or strategy of management -- either there too many practical, but unwieldy steps are included in the process, or even more likely, the manager's vision of change is not articulated in a clear fashion. Secondly, failing to build a successful team or collation of the right people who emotionally 'gel' is another reason for the failure of an organization to change. Thirdly, understanding what is meant by a clear vision can elude many capable but uninspired managers. Can the vision be summed up in a sentence, rather than a weighty tome or press release? Fourthly, and similarly to number three, failing to articulate the vision to all members of the organization is another frequent reason for failure. Fifthly, allowing negative persons and roadblocks to get in the way of forward progress can block change. Sixthly, not planning short-term wins to increase motivation -- and seventhly, declaring victory of long-term goals too soon can both hamper change. And finally, of course, not putting forth that crucial follow-up can result in a failure of the change process.

Almost like a formula, Kotter states that it is necessary to follow the positive elements of the change process in a sequence. Without a sense of urgency, a team or coalition for change will not be able to use all of their skills fully as a collective unit that puts aside individual resistance or agenda. Also, in terms of vision, even a good team will not be inspired to reach its goals with a dry, managerial memo, or worse, email, that informs them brusquely of yet another management decision. This is not to say that Kotter believes that a leader should be long-winded. In fact, vision statements are crucial for every organization, and are a critical part of his sequence. But the vision statement must be meaningful to all members of the organization, leadership and lower-level employees alike, rather than a generic slogan.

The psychological insight of Kotter is also shown in his stress that without short-term realization of small goals, it will be difficult to not lose sight of the ultimate goals of the change. People need to feel as if they are doing a good job, and the more rewards they receive the more likely they will strive to weather the difficult change process. Kotter specifically states that a short-term goal should take place within a year -- a foreseeable eventuality for most persons. These goals should be concrete, and stated preferably in measurable terms. Especially in today's volatile economic climate, five years in the future may seem inconceivable, and also many persons may not even know if they are likely to be at the company at that time. Achieving measurable benchmarks is one way to increase motivation in a quick, satisfying way -- 'see we have already increased sales 30%.' Thus, pressing on with the change to meet the foreseeable and lofty goal of increasing sales 100% seems more feasible.

It should be noted that this does not merely hold true in business organizations -- the frustrations with having few-short-term rewards and a lack of a timetable is perhaps best seen today in the war in Iraq. Witness how quickly the motivation of the American public to fight the war increased after the killing of a well-known terrorist, and also the level of public frustrations that still expressed because there remains no clearly articulated step-by-step program for withdrawing or even implementing a stable and functional Iraqi government.

Kotter's stress upon all eight principles when instituting any change does not mean he believes that only short-term incentives are necessary in business -- he also critiques leaders, especially business leaders, who stress only short-term profits on a quarterly basis. (Again, to refer once again to wartime parallel, one battle victory or capture of an enemy leader increases motivation, but does not justify or provide a vision for winning an entire conflict.) With the value of Kotter's 1996 insights, one can see the folly of simply pleasing immediate investor expectations and seeking a quick fix was the source of the later accounting mismanagement scandals at HeathSouth and Enron, where figures were manipulated to make it seem as if the companies were more solvent than they actually were in reality.