Sunday, April 19, 2015

Change Management

Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any ConditionsOur Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions by John P. Kotter

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I've been reading quite a bit on change management again lately, and I still keep coming back to John Kotter.  Maybe it's the simple eight-step process, and maybe it's just the characters in the fable.  (Haven't we all met people we would nick name "No-No?")   Maybe I just like his writing style.  Either way, though I've reviewed Our Iceberg is Melting and Leading Change before, both are worth another go.  In the next few weeks I'll post reviews and summaries of three more books by Kotter, but for today let's look again at the eight steps and remember - we can't blow past any of these if we want our effort to succeed.  

1.     Establishing a Sense of Urgency
§       Examining the market and competitive realities
§       Identifying and discussing crises, potential crises, or major opportunities

2.     Creating a Guiding Coalition
§       Putting together a group with enough power to lead the change
§       Getting the group to work together like a team

3.     Developing a Vision and Strategy
§       Creating a vision to help direct the change effort
§       Developing strategies for achieving that vision

4.     Communicating a Change Vision
§       Using every vehicle possible to constantly communicate the new vision and strategies
§       Having the guiding coalition role model the behavior expected of employees

5.     Empowering Employees for Broad-Based Action
§       Getting rid of obstacles
§       Changing systems or structures that undermine the change vision
§       Encouraging risk taking and nontraditional ideas, activities, and actions

6.     Generating Short-Term Wins
§       Planning for visible improvements in performance, or “wins”
§       Creating those wins
§       Visibly recognizing and rewarding people who made the wins possible

7.     Consolidating Gains and Producing More Change
§       Using increased credibility to change all systems, structures and policies that don’t fit together and don’t fit the transformation vision
§       Hiring, promoting, and developing people who can implement the change vision
§       Reinvigorating the process with new projects, themes and change agents

8.     Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture
§       Creating better performance through customer- and productivity-oriented behavior, more and better leadership, and more effective management
§       Articulating the connections between new behaviors and organizational success
§       Developing means to ensure leadership development and succession

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