23. September 2009 13:44
Posted by SamSari
When John Paul Kotter, a professor at Harvard Business School, wrote Leading Change in 1996, he had no idea that it was destined to be an international bestseller, or that many would soon be referring to this work as the change “bible”.
For those of us that deal with organizational change on a daily basis, Kotter’s work has proved inspirational. Drawing on his long career in the business world, Kotter presents a simple, eight step approach to creating succesful change in a large organization.
The first and perhaps most important of these steps is to Establish a sense of urgency. This step involves raising awareness among the workforce about those factors that are preventing your organization from making much needed changes, and getting people energized to begin acting to make them happen. This can be at tricky step, people often tend to confuse a sense of urgency with a sense of emergency. The last thing you want to do as you kick off your change program is to make dire predictions or create a sense of panic. Chances are, your workforce is already aware of the changes that need to be made, this step gives these people a voice and helps them encourage others in their teams to get on board with new ideas and new approaches.
At SamSari, we work to create a sense of urgency in our change programs by examining a set of what we like to call ‘realities’ within the organization. These ‘realities’ can reflect external forces such as market and consumer demands as well as internal situations, like employee engagement, leadership and change readiness. This helps us identify key trigger areas where a sense of urgency can be applied for maximum affect. This might for example mean identifying a communication gap between critical business areas, and getting everyone involved in those areas to really understand, on a personal level, what the gap is costing them. This is where real urgency begins. It is the individuals who ‘get it’ that will be there for you when it’s time for step two: creating a guiding coalition.
Another part of the eight step process that caught our attention is the importance of a well communicated vision. Many leaders have a crystal clear vision about what they want to achieve, and use it to build a powerful new strategy for the company. They then might ask, “Why is communicating my vision so important? Haven’t I done that by unrolling the new company strategy?”. For those who have created a strategy, the vision is already understood. But for the rest of the organization, the journey begins only when the vision is properly communicated. We know that people make changes when they are emotionally committed to do so. A compelling vision appeals to emotions, and should be presented in a way that wins the hearts and minds of everyone who is going to drive your transformation.
In future issues, we’ll explore the later stages of change centered on creating short term wins, consolidating and building on gains, and institutionalizing those changes for the future. Until then, we ask you to think about what is happening within your own organization. Which step are you on?
Do you want to download this month's newsletter as a PDF? Click here!
