INTRODUCTION
Change management is defined
as “the ongoing adjustment of the corporate strategies and structures to cope
up with the changing organizational objectives”.
There exists a direct correlation
between managing change and the success of the business.
Prof. Dr. John Kotter studied
the progress of over 100 companies during the change situation.
In 1995, Prof. Dr. John Kotter
introduced 8 steps for leading change in his book called “Leading Change”. It
is an appropriate organizational development tool, providing a three
dimensional linkage between individuals, groups and the organization.
Thus, this model causes change
to become a campaign for the change management.
We are often asked the
question, “What should I do to improve our staff engagement?” Culture change is
a difficult task to achieve for any leader.
Leaders we work with to help transform
their organizational culture are surprised how hard they have to work to see
real improvements. Our previous article in this series dealt with the initial
aspect of organizational change, or unfreezing your organization. Kotter’s
highlighted (1997) eight steps to organizational change to establish these
steps as a guideline for an examination of the process.
EIGHT (8) STEPS FOR LEADING ORGANIZATION CHANGE BY KOTTER
Thirty years of research by
leadership expert Dr. John Kotter has proven that 70% of all major change
efforts in organizations fail. Why do they fail? Because leaders in organizations
often do not take the holistic approach required to see the change through.
However, by following the 8
Step Process outlined by Professor Kotter, leaders can help organizations avoid
failure and become expert at change. By improving their ability to change,
organizations can increase their chances of success, both today and in the
future. Without this ability to adapt continuously, organizations cannot
thrive.
The eight steps include:
1.
Create a sense of urgency.
2.
Create a powerful coalition.
3.
Create a vision.
4.
Communicate the vision.
5.
Empower the people.
6.
Achieve quick victories.
7.
Consolidate the positive changes.
8.
Institutionalize the changes.
Step 1: Increase Urgency
Plan and take a action to
initiate for the required changes; the actions should be motivating and
booming.
·
The state of the organization
should be determined before conducting this phase as:
-
Complacency
-
False urgency
-
True urgency
·
Strategy that should be
adopted are as follows:
-
Explaining and realizing the
benefit of change
-
Creating and developing
opportunities for the users
-
Clear communication and
information procedure
-
Convincing the major support
groups and motivating them
-
Value creating and inspiring
proposal for the change False urgency
Step 2: Building Guiding Teams
Guiding teams must be formed
so that the activities such as developing vision, communication and so on can
be performed.
Effective team must be
constructed and trust should be developed between the team members.
The team as a whole should
reflect enough power so that those left out cannot block progress
In addressing the first two
steps we discussed the importance of leaders recognizing the need for change to
be proactive and ahead of the changing environment instead of reactive.
Once urgency for change is established,
the leader must then have a coalition of supporters for the change. Individuals
with affective commitment, those who deeply believe in the mission of the
organization and who will more readily commit to an organizational change, are
generally the people you want to have in your coalition of supporters. On the
other hand, people with average commitment levels will likely commit only if
they believe their job is at stake.
Understanding the level of
staff commitment will assist in selecting the right people for the coalition of
change who will be able to influence other employees.
Step Three: Creating a Vision
Creating a vision, or
direction, for your organization provides a visual roadmap showing the way to
change. According to Wheatly (2003), senior managers report that nearly 75% of all change processes do not yield the expected
results. Having the right roadmap for change will help an organization end up
where they desire. Without a vision there is a tendency to skip over the
process of transitioning people and jump right to institutionalizing the change
through fiat. A vision is a key ingredient in helping people transition through
the change.
Developing a vision is the
first critical step in addressing many of these issues and in transitioning
people through a change. A vision answers the question of where the organization
is headed, helps people understand why the change is needed then lays the
groundwork for developing individual roles to be performed.
Step Four: Communicating the Vision
Once a vision is
developed, it must be communicated to the employees to mobilize the
organization. According to Nanus (2003) a vision which is poorly communicated or
implemented will fail. According to Werr, Stjernberg, T. and Docherty, P. (1997)
the following are the checklist for effectively communicating the vision of an
organization.
1. Articulate a clear and appealing vision.
2. Explain how the vision can be attained.
3. Act confident and optimistic.
4. Express confidence in followers.
5. Use dramatic, symbolic actions to emphasize key values.
6. Lead by example.
As with many
communication issues, the words used can be less important than the actions
observed of the leaders. You can see from this list that at least half of the
steps are behaviors of the leaders as opposed to words. If the workforce is
already resistant to change, then workers will quickly notice any hesitation or
lack of commitment of the leader and increase their resistance.
Step Five: Empower your People
After creating a plan, people
need to know their part in the plan. This management process is very important
as it starts to assign responsibility which empowers the workers. If assigning
roles is skipped over, then responsibility for achieving the vision will remain
with the leadership and employees may be left powerless to achieve the vision.
Also, assigning roles may
reveal some issues or problems with the general plan which can be worked out
before it becomes a crisis.
Employees may believe
additional work is being dumped on them; the new work may be confusing or seem insurmountable.
A fair division of labor is needed and leadership should take on more than
their share to ensure people do not perceive a lack of commitment from
leadership.
Step 5: Empower your People (Enable Action).
After creating a plan, people
need to know their part in the plan. This management process is very important
as it starts to assign responsibility which empowers the over, then
responsibility for achieving the vision will remain with the leadership and
employees may be left powerless to achieve the vision.
Also, assigning roles may
reveal some issues or problems with the general plan which can be worked out
before it becomes a crisis.
Employees may believe
additional work is being dumped on them; the new work may be confusing or seem
insurmountable. A fair division of labor is needed and leadership should take
on more than their share to ensure people do not perceive a lack of commitment
from leadership.
In developing the detailed
plan for organizational change, there are four general roles people can play
according to Clawson
(2007). These four organizational roles in change include:
1) Change leader - initiates
the change process
2) Change agent - senior staff
or a consultant who causes change to begin
3) Change manager – manages
the day to day change needed
4) Change model - an employee
who exemplified the change effort
Step 6 Generate Short-Term Wins
A short-term win can be defined as an effective organizational improvement that can be achieved within 6 to 18 months
A short term win must follow the following criteria:
- Its success must be unambiguous
- It should be visible throughout the organization
- It should be related with change effort.
Short-term wins are necessary to prevent the loss of momentum and to keep the organization engaged in the change activities.
Strategies in order to create short-term wins are as follows:
- Implement only small changes whose result can be obtained quickly.
- Select cost effective targets that can be easily obtained
- Analyze targets to avoid failure – use pros and cons to determine early target success.
- Recognize the people who help to meet the targets through the rewards.
Consistently produce, track, evaluate and celebrate volumes of small and large accomplishments – and correlate them to results.
Step 7 Sustain Acceleration (Do not let up)
The senior leadership must keep the urgency level high to effect the change using the organizational power and the lower level managers must work with the guiding coalition to identify and remove the unnecessary dependencies and bring the change project to the position as it is expected.
Strategies to build the change in the organization are:
After successful implementation of the change in the organization, analyze what worked and what did not.
Develop new goals to maintain and continue the change growth in the organization.
Use increasing credibility to change systems, structures and policies that don’t align with the vision; hire, promote and develop employees who can implement the vision; reinvigorate the process with new projects, themes and volunteers.
Step 8: Make it Stick (Institute Change)
Senior leadership must work with the guiding coalition
and other manager on the following:
-
Identifying the norms and values
that support the changes.
-
Ensuring selection, promotion and
succession processes according to the new norms and values of the organization.
-
Modify the reward system aligned
with the new norms and values of organization.
-
Provide training and development
activities to fulfil the skills and competencies associated with the changes.
-
Modify and eliminate organizational
processes and procedures that does not support the changes.
Strategies to stick the changes in organization are:
-
Conduct a discussion program with
the employees about the progress timely.
-
Explain the importance of change
ideals and values when hiring the people and conducting the trainings.
-
Develop new policies and processes
that reinforce the value of change.
BENEFITS
OF USING THE KOTTER’S EIGHT STEPS FOR LEADING ORGANIZATION CHANGE
-
Steps by step model, which is easy
to follow
-
Focuses on the change itself, but
rather the acceptance and preparedness for the change, which makes the changes
easier for the transition in the organizational culture
-
Act as an organizational
development tool by providing three-dimensional linkage between individual,
employees, team and the organization.
-
Provides a platform to reveal the
importance of the stakeholder, leadership, employees in the organizational
level.
-
Deals with cultural changes, thus
helping large and small organization to perform well in new environment.
LIMITATION
OF THE KOTTER’S APPROACH TO LEADING ORGANIZATION CHANGE
1.
A rigid approach: Kotter argues
that the steps should be followed in sequence. But in practical, the steps may
be combined or somehow reviewed for the fluency in the change project.
2.
Some steps are not relevant: The
linearity of the model can lead to wrong assumptions. There might be
transformations that does not require nor able to go through certain steps.
3.
Dealing with difficulties during
change management: Organization may undergo through several difficulties while
implementing the change.
4.
The model is not detailed enough to
guide in every scenarios.
Summary of John Kotter's 8
step process of organization change
Steps
|
Transformation Suggestions
|
1. Increase urgency
|
|
2. Build the Guiding Team
|
|
3. Get the Vision Right
|
|
4. Communicate for Buy-in
|
|
5. Empowering Action
|
|
6. Create short term wins
|
|
7. Do Not Let Up
|
|
8. Make Change Stick
|
|
Bridges, W., (2003) Business Leadership. San Francisco. Jossey-Bass Reader.
Clawson, J.G. (2007) Level Three Leadership: Getting Below the Surface.
Third Edition.
Kotter, J. 1995. Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail. Harvard
Business Review, 73 (2): 59–67. Rego, A. and Pina e
Bernerth J. B. (2007) Factors Influencing Organizational Change
Efforts: An Integrative Investigation of Change Content, Context, Process and
Individual Difference. Journal of O r g a n i z a t i o n a l C h a n g e Management.
20 (6) p761-773. Retrieved June 20, 2009, from EBSCOhost database.
Leading the change process “Kotter’s 8 step change model presented by
Ujjwa; Kumar Joshi retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/ujjwaljoshi
1990/kotters-8-step-change-model-22544430
http://www.kotterinternational.com/the-8-step-process-for-leading-change/
No comments:
Post a Comment