Kotter's 8-Step Change Model Flashcards
What is Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model
- Establishing a sense of urgency
- Creating a guiding coalition
- Creating a vision
- Communicating the vision by a factor of 10
- Removing obstacles to the new vision or empowering action
- Generate Short-Term Wins
- Build on the change
- Anchoring the change in the corporations culture
Establishing a sense of urgency definition
Inspire people to act – with passion and purpose – to achieve a bold, aspirational opportunity. Build momentum that excites people to pursue a compelling (and clear) vision of the future… together.
How to create urgency?
*Examine market & competitive realities
*Identify crises, potential crises, & opportunities
*Eliminate examples of excess
*Set goals & targets that may be unrealistically high
*Send data on under-performance to all employees
*Force some interaction with unsatisfied customers, suppliers, & shareholders
*Use consultants to give additional feedback
Complacency can slow you down!
How to raise the urgency level?
*Create a crisis by exposing managers to weaknesses and under-performance
*Eliminate any examples of ‘excess’
*Set stretch targets that require different ways of working
*Increase messaging re performance vs competition
*Have more honest conversations about company problems
*Bombard people with information on future opportunities & rewards
Creating a guiding coalition definition
A volunteer network needs a coalition of committed people – born of its own ranks – to guide it, coordinate it, and communicate its activities.
Major change is impossible unless the head of the organization is an active supporter
Building an effective coalition – sequence
- Find the right people:
Strong position power, broad expertise, & high credibility
Leadership AND management skills - Create trust
Carefully plan off-site events to build the team
Encourage lots of dialogue and team activities - Develop a common goal
Sensible to the head
Appealing to the heart
Issues with the coalition
- The isolated CEO
Possible to lead change with a powerful CEO but it will not be sustainable - Low-credibility committee
Usually change efforts are assigned to CHRO, SVP strategy, Chief Transformation Officer - Also need a group that has credibility and influence to provide strong leadership
Creating a vision definition
Clarify how the future will be different from the past and get buy-in for how you can make that future a reality through initiatives linked directly to the vision.
Communicating the vision by a factor of 10 definition
Large-scale change can only occur when massive numbers of people rally around a common opportunity. At an individual level, they must want to actively contribute. Collectively, they must be unified in the pursuit of achieving the goal together.
Effective communication of the vision
- Simplicity
- Metaphors, analogies, examples (i.e., verbal pictures)
- Multiple forums (big/small meetings, email, blogs, memos)
- Repetition
- Lead by example (esp. senior leaders)
- Explain inconsistencies (e.g., layoffs and private jets, cost cutting and executive perks)
- Two-way communication
Communicating the Change Vision failures
- A great vision can serve a useful purpose even if it is understood by just a few key people
Understanding of goals and directions
Challenge is often under-communication by managers - Two cases of failure to communicate
Pushing too much information through the channels
Heard it but not remembered because of too much information presented - Vision has been communicated, but done poorly
Does not communicate a sense of urgency
Removing obstacles to the new vision or empowering action definition
Remove the obstacles that slow things down or create roadblocks to progress. Clear the way for people to innovate, work more nimbly across silos, and generate impact quickly.
What are the Obstacles to empowerment
- Formal structures that make it difficult to act (e.g., structural silos, middle management ‘cholesterol’)
- Bosses discourage behaviors that are in line with the new vision
- Lack of needed skills undermines desired actions (esp. social vs technical skills)
- New behaviors, skills, & attitudes are always required
- Significant resources are usually required
- People and systems make it difficult to act
What are Short term wins
Wins are the molecules of results. They must be recognized, collected, and communicated – early and often – to track progress and energize volunteers to persist.
Characteristics of short-term wins
*It’s visible: large numbers of people can see for themselves whether the result is real or just hype
*It’s unambiguous; there can be little argument over the nature of the wins
*It’s clearly related to the change effort
*NOTE: small and large organizations take shorter or longer to register wins (6-18 months)
