People In Charge of Change Have To Have Real Power

John Kotter is a brilliant organizational behaviour theorist at Harvard University. He has managed to capture the process of changing an organization in a way that is both sensible and easy to understand. While changing the way things are done is a difficult task for many, it can be made easier by following a proven model. Kotter’s eight-stage model is worth examining by anyone interested in changing his or her organization.

Here is his model of how the change process works:

A Sense of Urgency: The first step in the change process is to create an awareness that change needs to take place. He recommends that you establish a Sense of Urgency by spending a lot of time examining the market and competitive realities and bringing that information into the organization. By identifying and discussing the threats and opportunities in the market and the organization’s strengths and weaknesses, you can educate the people, particularly the leadership, on the need to respond effectively to changing conditions.

The Guiding Coalition: The next stage is to create a Guiding Coalition, a group of people with enough position power and credibility to lead the change. Often this is the executive team who are in charge of the organization. An often-made mistake is to delegate the change process to someone further down in the organization or to someone with no power or credibility. This is a surefire way to derail the change effort and ensure that it is not successful. Better to stick with the people who have the power to make change happen.
 
Developing a Vision and Strategy: Creating a vision, or mind’s eye picture of what the change will look like at the end of the process is the first and most important task of the Guiding Coalition. This vision is used to structure and direct the change effort. But a vision by itself will not prompt action. What is needed is a plan, often called a strategy, for achieving the vision. For this plan to be effective, the change team must enroll the rest of the organization in the vision.
Communicating the Change Vision: The guiding coalition must model the behaviour expected of employees. If they cannot behave in a way that communicates that change is important then the employees cannot be expected to adopt the new behaviours.
 
Further, to ensure that everyone understands the vision and strategy, the team has to communicate constantly, using every vehicle possible including town hall meetings, newsletters, small group meetings, departmental reviews and even speeches by the CEO encouraging everyone to explore the new behaviours and adopt them as their own.
 
Empowering Broad-based action: It is up to the guiding coalition to help get rid of obstacles in the way of the change, particularly any systems or structures that undermine the effort. Similarly, it is important to encourage everyone to take some risks with their behaviour and develop non-traditional ideas, activities and actions that support the change.
 
Generating short-term wins: People want to see success, particularly in the chaos that ensues during the early stages of change. So, it is wise to plan for visible improvements in performance or “wins” that show that change is actually possible and the effort is succeeding. Visibly recognizing and rewarding people who made the wins possible helps to reinforce the momentum of the effort.
 
Consolidating Gains and Producing more change: At this stage, it is important to use the increased credibility that comes with success to continue to change all the systems, structures and policies that don’t fit the transformation vision. For example, changing people systems to hire, promote and develop people who are ready, willing and able to assist in the transformation process will help move the organization forward towards achievement of the vision. So to will reinvigorating the process with new projects, new themes and new change agents.
Anchoring new approaches in the culture
 
Customer and productivity oriented behaviour with more and better leadership and more effective management will anchor the new behaviours in the culture. Articulating the connections between the new behaviours and the success of the organization reinforces the change.
 
Finally, many people are fearful that the changes, while good, will be undone by a change in leadership. So it is vital to develop a means to ensure that there exists a process to develop leaders who share the vision and who will perpetuate the changes.