Leading Change

Leading Change.
By: Kotter, John P.,
Harvard Business Review,
Jan 2007, Vol. 85, Issue 1

This article, originally published in the spring of 1995, previewed Kotter's 1996 book Leading Change. It outlines eight critical success factors -- from establishing a sense of extraordinary urgency, to creating short-term wins, to changing the culture ("the way we do things around here" ).

EIGHT STEPS TO TRANSFORMING YOUR ORGANIZATION

1. Establishing a Sense of Urgency

• Examine market and competitive realities


• Identify and discuss crises, potential crises, or major opportunities

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2. Forming a Powerful Guiding Coalition

• Assemble a group with enough power to lead the change effort


• Encourage the group to work together as a team

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3. Creating a Vision

• Create a vision to help direct the change effort


• Develope strategies for achieving that vision

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4. Communicating the Vision

• Use every vehicle possible to communicate the new vision and strategies


• Teach new behaviors by the example of the guiding coalition

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5. Empowering Others to Act on the Vision

• Get rid of obstacles to change


• Change systems or structures that seriously undermine the vision


• Encourage risk taking and nontraditional ideas, activities, and actions

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6. Planning for and Creating Short-Term Wins

• Plan for visible performance improvements


• Create those improvements


• Recognize and reward employees involved in the improvements

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7. Consolidating Improvements and Producing Still More Change

• Use increased credibility to change systems, structures, and policies that don't fit the vision


• Hiring, promoting, and developing employees who can implement the vision


• Reinvigorating the process with new projects, themes, and change agents

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8. Institutionalizing New Approaches

• Articulate the connections between the new behaviors and corporate success


• Develop the means to ensure leadership development and succession

Now retired, John P. Kotter was the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership at Harvard Business School in Boston.