HIGHLIGHT OF THE EIGHT (8) STEPS FOR LEADING ORGANIZATION CHANGE BY KOTTER

INTRODUCTION TO CHANGE MANAGEMENT  

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	Examine market and competitive realities Identify and discuss crisis, potential crisis, or major opportunities Provide evidence from outside the organization that change is necessary
2. Build the Guiding Team	Assemble a group with enough power to lead the change effort Attract key change leaders by showing enthusiasm and commitment Encourage the group to work together as a team
3. Get the Vision Right	Create a vision to help direct the change effort Develop strategies for achieving that vision
4. Communicate for Buy-in	Build alignment and engagement through stories Use every vehicle possible to communicate the new vision and strategies Keep communication simple and heartfelt Teach new behaviors by the example of the guiding coalition
5. Empowering Action	Remove obstacles to the change Change systems and / or structures that work against the vision
6. Create short term wins	Plan for and achieve visible performance improvements Recognize and reward those involved in bringing the improvements to life
7. Do Not Let Up	Plan for and create visible performance improvements Recognize and reward personnel involved in the improvements Reinforce the behaviours shown that led to the improvements
8. Make Change Stick	Articulate the connections between the new behaviors and corporate success

 

REFERENCES

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