Organisations have always changed, but the discipline of Change Management is one that has developed over the last couple of decades, as the pace of change has increased beyond recognition. Undoubtedly one of the leading figures of this ‘new’ discipline has been John Kotter of Harvard Business School.

Kotter’s seminal HBR  article, “Leading Change: Why Transformations Fail” first outlined his lessons from fifteen years of analysis, which were later developed into his Eight-Stage change framework. These eight stages have been a central influence in many of the change management methodologies used by corporates and consulting firms.

Kotter’s Eight Stage Process for Managing Change

Establishing a sense of urgency

Many people talk of creating a “burning platform”, and the need for discomfort with the

status quo. On the other hand, “if it ain’t broke, why fix it?”. Comfort and complacency are a barrier to change and it is imperative that change leaders establish a sense of urgency to overcome them.  This isn’t easy – your leadership team might instinctively seek to “soften the blow”, or they may themselves be in the denial for the change. The urgency may not be clear enough, or undercommunicated. People might simply not care…

Creating the Guiding Coalition

Leaders cannot deliver change on their own. They need to build ‘critical mass’.  Malcolm Gladwell’s “Tipping Point” provides some interesting reading on the phenomenon of ‘social epidemics’ and the importance of certain types of people. Credibility, coverage and the effectiveness of the coalition as a collective are all important.

Developing a Vision Strategy

Vision is essential, and often underdeveloped and undercommunicated during failed change. Vision is a core aspect of leaderships that creates the general direction of change, motivating (or “compelling”) people to act in that direction in a co-ordinated manner. A sound vision is, according to Kotter, Imaginable, Desirable (the attractive destination to go with the burning platform), Feasible, Focused, Flexible and Communicable.

Communicating the Change Vision

In his original article Kotter suggested that in failed change the vision is undercommunicated to the power of ten. In other words, a lot. Then do it again. Don’t just have a ‘roadshow’ with powerpoint slides, put the vision into the hands of your coalition and other leaders, in an easily communicated format. At my old consulting firm we used ‘Rich Pictures’ on the basis that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ – initially these were literally paintings before we moved into digital (and more interactive) formats.

Empowering Employees for Broad-Based Action

Simply put, people that feel powerless to act cannot make change happen. And you need them to help. Barriers to ‘empowerment’ (the ability of people to take responsibility) include structure, competence, processes and systems. Perhaps most of all, line managers can give or remove power from their reports. Identify those in your organisation that can have this influence (often supervisors) and target their behaviour.

Generating Short-Term Wins

One thing that I can vouch for is that as a change manager you can find that you can have to do a lot of work before anyone sees the fruits of your labour, and momentum can be easily lost.  Short-term wins help provide opportunities to reinforce momentum towards change, create confidence and give cause for celebration while undermining critics. When creating your plans, consider what short-term wins might be accomplished.

Consolidating Gains and Producing More Change

I guess I’d sum this one up as “keep the ball rolling”.  It may be tempting to let up at certain times, good or bad, but Kotter’s advice is to build on success by creating more change.  This requires leadership to be out of the detail, providing general direction and more people contributing to the change effort at lower levels.  Yes, people can become change-fatigued but that’s more to do with trying to manage multiple changes at once or because change initiatives are abandoned before the benefits can be realised. In reality, it may be best not to set out towards a fixed destination, but to make change a journey, updating the vision and keeping things moving.

Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture

This is about sustaining the change, or making it ‘sticky’. It’s easy for old ways to re-establish themselves when change is new. Kotter’s view is that it’s a mistake to try to fix the culture first, and that it should be done last. People need to see that the new ways work. Assuming they produce results, build on those with continued communication (informal as much as formal) and be prepared to reward, promote and hire based on the culture that you want to create.

Kotter’s Eight Stages in Practice

In summing up, there’s no doubt that Kotter’s Eight Stage Process has been one of the most important frameworks in shaping change management as a discipline. As always, however, it is not without its critics.

One of these is that it is described as a process, per se. You don’t necessarily move from one step to another, ticking each one off as you go. Ensure that you are constantly reviewing where you are, whether you have done enough, whether you need to go back and do more – and this becomes less of a problem, in my view.

Of course, neither is Kotter’s framework a complete change management methodology in its own right. There are more complete methodologies out there, such as Prosci, and indeed many consulting firms and corporates now have more fully developed toolkits with their own process and tools. That’s fine. If you are new to change management, you will still gain from reading Kotter’s work.

Finally, it’s easier to put down in words some guiding steps than to provide detailed instruction on how to carry them out effectively. There are, now more practical resources available that build on the original framework. Alternatively (or in parallel), combine Kotter’s framework (or others) with a good grounding in psychology to understand the human dynamics that will determine the success with which you apply these steps, and you will do so with more skill.