Leading change in organizations

Leading Change

There are a number of diverse aspects of John Kotter's seminal treatise on leadership, Leading Change. Subsequently, much of the publicity and academic scholarship involving this work of literature have revolved around the eight stages of creating fundamental, lasting changes within an organization. Although Kotter is significantly (and deservingly) renowned within the business world for the creation and configuration of these steps, it would be misleading to regard Leading Change as a mere blueprint for producing change in an organization. The scope of Kotter's work actually exceeds the mere means to organizational transformation, and deals with larger issues of the evolution of management and the accordant role that businesses must play to engender what is an inexorable process that must come about. The strength of Kotter's manuscript, then, is in providing the context and the background information responsible for the facilitation of this process, at the heart of which lies the contrast between conventional methods of management and those pertaining to the 21st century -- which ultimately allows for fostering of leadership.

To that end, the author has dedicated a substantial portion of his manuscript to enumerating the numerous inherent problems that arose with conventional management techniques and strategies, particularly those that presented themselves over and over again towards the close of the 20th century (Leading Change was initially published in 1996). Yet Kotter merely does so to underscore the need for the pronounced change in management strategy that is the very thesis of this work and which unequivocally advocates the production of leadership. The incisiveness of his analysis on this issue is one of the many boons of Leading Change. Contemporary principles of management were preoccupied with maintaining status quo, preserving tradition and essentially doing whatever was needed to maintain an organization's path, revenues, and way of doing business. This form of management was supplanted by, or rather evolved into, the millennium management techniques which were not focused on preservation and looking back but on going forward and transformation. The multitude of varying political environments, and innovations in technology, coupled with the tenuous economic climate of the past several years has demanded nothing less of management, if it dedicated to surviving the fluctuating marketplace.

Not surprisingly, the principle focus of Kotter's manuscript reflects the fact that the ultimate expression of the new techniques of management to dominate the 21st century and the final years of the 20th century is to actually foster leadership within an organization. The distinction between leaders and followers has gotten significantly narrower, while the author professes that it behooves organizations to cultivate leadership at virtually all levels to help guide their projected growth. In this respect, Kotter's work is somewhat idealistic and perhaps even a tad bit naive, as he nearly digresses into expressions of an egalitarianism within companies that would nearly rival anything conceived of by Sir Thomas More. However, the point of denoting the values of parity expressed within this part of the manuscript are well taken -- if not perhaps actualized in the daily existence of contemporary companies -- and serve as a goal to strive towards in terms of the results of the new management techniques and their emphasis on leadership that Leading Change presents.

When it comes to denoting the explicit reasons for the transformation in management techniques and organizational focus that Kotter advocates, however, his examples are far from idealistic and all too convincingly real. The fallout of organizations mired in the antiquated way of management has been evinced in numerous instances, as a plethora of examples of downsizing, micromanagement and lack of synergies in acquisitions attests to. Yet the depiction of these problems merely serves as the impetus for Kotter's techniques for emphasizing the need for organizational change. Even better is the fact that the author reveals these traditional downfalls of outdated methods of management to demonstrate the principle that is at the core of his penchant for urging organizational transformation. What the author is actually in favor of is not simply change for the sake of change, but rather changing the culture and the way that a company runs itself to better adapt to the more tenuous, slippery political, social and economic climate of the 21st century. The mutability of a change in a company's culture is the central precept that is found within Leading Changes. Accordantly, the author has outlined eight conventional problems that befall companies who are too rigid and fail to take advantage of change -- as well as elucidated eight methods for embracing a change in company culture that thrives on leadership and eschews the means of conventional management.

Kotter's work should be applauded for the fact that the author spends the vast majority of it underscoring just how companies can go from static organizations to fluid ones whose primary strength is an adaptability to work within different markets in different means. He does so in an eight step increment that is nearly uniformly distributed in terms of the attention the author pays to each step. What may strike some readers as particularly curious, however, is some of the diction that accompanies the tending to the first step, which is the establishment of a sense of urgency. The author actually advocates the creation of a crisis in order to disrupt the traditional complacency and sense of victory that characterizes most organizations. Although doing creates the sense of immediacy that Kotter believes is necessary to galvanize an organization into action, the reader cannot help but wonder as to the moral plausibility of merely creating some emergency to spur an organization into change. It seems that if the foundation of an organization's transformation was based upon a fallacy, that such a transformation itself would inevitably be faulty. However, this is merely a minor point, particularly when compared to the other eight steps outlined by the author to implement a switch from conventional to millennium management that embraces change and leadership.