If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.
Jack Welch
What’s it all about?
John Kotter is a leading consultant and writer on leadership and organisational change. His books Leading Change (1995) and The Heart of Change (2002), introduced an eight-stage model for managing change. In developing his approach, Kotter studied over 100 companies going through change processes. He found that there were a number of common errors that contributed to change programmes failing:
- Allowing too much complacency
- Failing to engage a core coalition of support
- Underestimating the need for a clear vision of the end result
- Under-communicating the vision
- Permitting obstacles to block the new vision
- Failing to create short-term wins
- Declaring victory too soon
- Neglecting to anchor the changes in the organisation
What’s it for?
The tool is based on a key principle relating to responses and approaches to change. People see, feel and then change as opposed to analyse, think and then change. Kotter argues that to manage change effectively there is a need to change behaviours. This is less likely to happen if the focus is solely on facts, analysis and thinking. It must also take account of feelings and emotions.
It is important to recognise that the two approaches are inter-related. Sometimes analysis moves people to see-feel-change. Sometimes change launched through feelings leads to stronger analysis and clearer thinking.
Using the tool
The tool takes you through Kotter’s eight stages of change. It is something you can review on your own but need to implement as a group. It is most suited to micro-businesses/SMEs and larger organisations. It is suitable for businesses in any sector. Reading through the tool and thinking about its implications may require one to two hours.