Discuss Kotter’s Eight Steps for Leading Organizational Change

Discuss Kotter’s Eight Steps for Leading Organizational Change.

I am interested in learning about how organizations can take positive steps to transform their work environment by tackling this transformation using Kotter’s Eight Step Plan. I was looking for different articles online to use as sources and to give examples of the steps and the first listing was his website called Kotter International, I really like when I can see an example rather than just a list like our book sometimes provides.

Step 1- Establish a sense of urgency: According to Kotter’s website 50% companies skip this step and they will start to make mistakes right in the beginning (Kotter, 2012). So can you image coming up with a big plan and then wondering where you went wrong because your company forgot or overlooked the fact that people are stuck in their ways and that making a big change involves creating excitement over the fact that people will need to step out of their comfort zones (Kotter, 2012). Kotter also comments on the fact that the approach that is most likely to fail is the purely intellectual one because of the fact that it is, “All head and no heart” (Kotter, 2012). I like the way he thinks because most people when talking about business organizations do not say, “Aim for the heart,” but right there on his website it explains that this is fundamental connecting with people on this level feels amazing but I have never experienced it in a work environment (Kotter, 2012).

Step 2- Create a guiding coalition: This should consist of both managers and leaders who work well together as a team and power position, expertise, credibility, and strong leadership capabilities are what will build a strong coalition (Kotter, 2012).

Step 3- Developing a change vision: It is important to clarify how the future will be different from the past, it may involve details and more detailed decisions which motivates people to take steps in the right direction even though it may be painful (Kotter, 2012). A vision message helps to motivate people to make changes very quickly and six keys to helping in that process are is it imaginable, desirable, and feasible, focused, flexible and easily communicated so changes can me made right away (Kotter, 2012)? This method that he talks about allows managers to be aware that change takes time based on past experience, trust levels, interest in job there are many factors that will allow a person to respond quicker than others to this new process.

Step 4-Commuincating the vision buy- It is important and if the company wants to make changes they must come up with a vision that their workers can believe in. The vision statement should be simple; something that is catchy and leaders must show the employees that what they say is what they are doing. When people get a memo with a new mission statement, how many people go yeah right, like that is really going to happen? The company is going to have to be pretty proactive in order to make a transformation that last, has anybody experienced something like this at their work?

Step 5- Empowering people and removing barriers the four ways to look at this aspect is to see what needs to be changed on all basic levels such as structure, skills, system and supervisors (Kotter, 2012).  We have all had supervisors that have been labeled trouble and that word usually comes from them earning it through their actions, ideas or thoughts that they have expressed at one time or another and people around them felt the negative air around them so “trouble” stuck. Kotter believes that these managers have dozens of interrelated habits that inhibits change in their management style and he suggests that others be aware of this to speak to this person on a human level that will not undermine the whole effort or this person’s authority (Kotter, 2012).

Step 6- Creating short term wins: The wins must be related to the change, should happen within 8 to 18 months, feedback that boosts morale is needed and short-term wins have a way of building momentum that turns neutral people into supporters, and reluctant supporters into active helpers (Kotter, 2012).

Step 7- Never letting up: Means looking at the long-term goals, adding more projects and bringing in new people to help create the change, empowering employees on projects, keeping a sense of high urgency feeling and showing that the new way is working will help enforce the changes that are happening within the company (Kotter, 2012).

Step 8- Make it stick: Cultural change will become the norm and it will come first and not last, must prove that the new way is better than the old, success must be documented and communicated and offering promotions and rewards will help people who have really done a great job with accepting and implementing the change (Kotter, 2012).

To me this process of change will weed out the bad managers the closed minded people because when the organization is going through a period of drastic changes people are let go who do not fit into this new mind set. When I was younger one of my managers told me, “Managers are always the first to go,” and that is because when changes are being made the people who are in charge must be on the same page with the company’s new program. I think of examples when there had been mergers or stores that have closed that I worked for when I was younger corporate was always changing and trying to implement new ideas and sometimes those idea lead to burning out good managers in the process. In those cases transformational leadership was probably something nobody heard of because it was 15 years ago that I worked in retail and there may have been a handful of managers that were brave enough to have speak of important ways to make changes but most of those efforts were on an individual or department level not organization wide. Transformational leaders can produce significant organizational change and results because this form of leadership fosters higher level of trust, commitment and loyalty from followers than does transactional leadership (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2009 p 358).

Does anybody work for an organization who promotes transformational ideas and leaders? Working for a company with values such as this sounds great but how does one go about finding a place to work in this economy like this?

Kinicki, A., & Kreitner, R.  (2009). Organizational Behavior: Key Concepts, Skills &

            Best Practices (customized 4th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin

Kotter, J. (2012, January 11). [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.kotterinternational.com/kotterprinciples/changesteps