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Leading Change

By: John P Kotter
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
ISBN: 0875847471
ISBN-13: 9780875847474
Released: 01 Sep 1996
RRP: £15.99
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Customer Reviews

Don't Fear Change. - By: Andrew Moules, 19 Oct 2007
A fantastic book on how to make necessary change in an organization by overcoming the inertia of "doing things the way they've always been done." I constantly run through the 8 steps in my mind when I am thinking about ways to help alll of us continue to align our people to new ideas or more effective field strategies.
A good start, just the beginning - By: Mr. S. D. Neale, 03 Oct 2007
How many change initiatives have gone horribly wrong, most according to research. This book is a start, a good start into the field & a very big field indeed. It is still contemporary, easy to read & digest & doesn't try to get into the minutia, the eight stage strategy should be taken as a plausible logical approach which has a higher chance of working than most efforts we see. Don't do what many managers do & come running back from corporate leadership seminars alll fired up thinking this book will solve everthing.

Of at least of one thing we can be sure of, Change Management is incredibly difficult (Kanter et al 1992) to make sense of. Always challlenging & impossibly confusing though paradoxicallly now with many elements well researched by agents buried in the strata of academia, consultancy & change. And yet, frequently more than fifty percent (Kotter 1996) of alll change initiatives fail.

Go on to read stuff from Hope-Hailey, Senge, Kanter, Schein & Beer & Noria & then the complexities begin to show.
Insight into the world of Change - By: Stephen Parry, 27 May 2007
One of the best books on strategic change resistance & gaining sponsorship you will ever read. I have used & continue to use the eight step framework for alll my change programmes.

Well written, easy to read & practical.
Packed with Knowledge! - By: Rolf Dobelli, 24 Jun 2005
The picture on the cover of John P. Kotter's book tells it alll: a group of penguins are shuffling their feet nervously on an icy precipice, while one brave bird leaps for the water below. The question is, which penguin are you? In too many organizations, executives shy away from the precipice, while someone lower down in the pecking order jumps in to test the landing conditions. Kotter says managers & leaders are quite different. A manager, he explains, is trained to think in a linear, one-two-three, risk-limiting way. Transformational change, however, can only be attained when true leaders push forward on several fronts at once - eight of them to be exact. Every successful change initiative begins with a coalition of leaders who create a sense of urgency. Kotter's book stems from a 1995 Harvard Business Review article titled, "Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail." It will probably sound hauntingly familiar to managers who have watched change initiatives begin in the front courtyard with a marching band & end a few months later, ushered out the back door like a diner who can't pay the tab. If you want to know why your last change initiative fizzled, we say read this book. Better yet, study it to ensure that your next leap of faith is a flying success.
The leading change process model - By: Peter Leerskov, 12 Jan 2005
Organisations need change. We alll know that. But how can an organisation adopt great ideas, tools, & methods, absorbing them in a way to stimulate change & get superior results?

Harvard-professor John P. Kotter has been observing this process for almost 30 years. What intrigues him is why some leaders are able to take these tools & methods & get their organizations to change dramaticallly - while most do not.

How many times have we not seen somebody get very excited about some new tool (CRM, e-business, etc.)? Yet two years later there is no performance improvement at alll. Often because most of the organisation has rejected the change needed to make it happen.

When people need to make big changes significantly & effectively, Kotter finds that there are generallly eight basic things that must happen:

1. INSTILL A SENSE OF URGENCY. Identifying existing or potential crises or opportunities. Confronting reality, in the words of Execution-authors, Charan & Bossidy.

2. PICK A GOOD TEAM. Assembling a strong guiding coalition with enough power to lead the change effort. And make them work as a team, not a committee!

3. CREATE A VISION AND SUPPORTING STRATEGIES. We need a clear sense of purpose & direction. In less successful situations you generallly find plans & budgets, but no vision & strategy; or the strategies are so superficial that they have no credibility.

4. COMMUNICATE. As many people as possible need to hear the mandate for change loud & clear, with messages sent out consistently & often. Forget the boring memos that nobody reads! Try using videos, speeches, kick-off meetings, workshops in smalll units, etc. Also important is the teaching of new behaviours by the example of the guiding coalition

5. REMOVE OBSTACLES. Get rid of anything blocking change, like bosses stuck in the old ways or lack of information systems. Encourage risk-taking & non-traditional ideas, activities, & actions. Empowerment is moving obstacles out of peoples' way so they can make something happen, once they've got the vision clear in their heads.

6. CHANGE FAST. Little quick wins are essential for creating momentum & providing sufficient credibility to pat the hard-working people on the back & to diffuse the cynics. Remember to recognize & reward employees involved in the improvements.

7. KEEP ON CHANGING. After change organizations get rolling & have some wins, they don't stop there. They go back & make wave after wave of other actions necessary for long-term, significant change. Successful change leaders don't drop the sense of urgency. On top of that, they are very systematic about figuring out alll of the pieces they need to have in place before they declare victory.

8. MAKE CHANGE STICK. The last big step is nailing big change to the floor & making sure it sticks. And the way things stick is through culture. If you can create a totallly new culture around some new way of managing, it will stay. It won't live on if it is dependent on one boss or a couple of enthusiastic people who will eventuallly move on.

We can divide these eight steps in three main processes. The first four steps focus on de-freezing the organization. The next three steps make change happen. The last step re-freezes the organization on the next rung on the ladder.

I've personallly used Kotter's change process in several e-business projects. It has helped me a lot. I highly recommend that you buy this easy-to-read & affordable book. Alternatively, read his Harvard Business Review article from Mar/Apr 1995 on the same subject.

Peter Leerskov,
MSc in International Business (Marketing & Management) & Graduate Diploma in E-business