Leading Transformational Change
Leading Transformational Change
Read "Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail"
Harvard Business Review
John P. Kotter
May–June 1995
Overview: Stages, Actions and Pitfalls
Establish a Sense of Urgency
Actions Needed
- Examine landscape for potential crises and untapped opportunities.
- Convince at least 75% of your stakeholders that the status quo is more dangerous than the unknown.
Pitfalls
- Underestimating the difficulty of driving people from their comfort zones.
- Becoming paralyzed by risks.
Form a Powerful Guiding Coalition
Actions Needed
- Assemble a group with shared commitment and enough power to lead the change effort.
- Encourage them to work as a team outside the normal hierarchy.
Pitfalls
- No prior experience in teamwork at the top.
- Relegating team leadership to only those formally identified as “leaders”
Create a Vision
(with specific strategies)
Actions Needed
- Create a vision to direct the change effort.
- Develop strategies for realizing that vision.
Pitfalls
- Presenting a vision that’s too complicated or vague to be communicated in five minutes.
Communicate the Vision
Actions Needed
- Use every vehicle possible to communicate the new vision and strategies for achieving it.
- Teach new behaviors by the example of the guiding coalition.
Pitfalls
- Under Communicating the vision
- Behaving in ways antithetical to the vision.
Empower Others to Act on the Vision
Actions Needed
- Remove or alter systems or structures undermining the vision.
- Encourage risk taking and nontraditional ideas, activities, and actions.
Pitfalls
- Failing to remove powerful individuals who resist the change effort.
Plan For and Create Short-Term Wins
Actions Needed
- Define and engineer visible performance improvements.
- Encourage risk taking and nontraditional ideas, activities, and actions.
Pitfalls
- Leaving short-term successes up to chance
- Failing to score successes early enough (12-24 months into change effort)
Consolidate Improvements and Produce More Change
Actions Needed
- Use increased credibility from early wins to change systems, structures, and policies undermining the vision.
- Develop stakeholders who can implement the vision.
- Reinvigorate the change process with new projects and change agents.
Pitfalls
- Declaring victory too soon- with the first performance improvement
- Allowing resistors to convince “troops” that the war has been won
Institutionalize New Approaches
Actions Needed
- Articulate connections between new behaviors and success.
- Create leadership development and succession plans consistent with the new approach.
Pitfalls
- Not creating new social norms and shared values consistent with changes
- Putting people into leadership positions who don’t personify the new approach.
