Leading Change by John P. Kotter

Foreword by Spenser Johnson: One the surface, the story of this book appears to be a fable that is relatively easy to grasp, but it does subtly impart an invaluable lesson on change. The book covers John Kotter’s Eight Steps to bring about successful organizational change and can be equally useful for a high-school student as it is for a CEO of a multi-national organization.

Kotter’s 8-Step approach to transformational change begins with creating a sense of urgency. Creating a sense of urgency involves examining markets and competitive realities and identifying and discussing crises, potential crises, or major opportunities (Weiss, 2012). At its peak, Microsoft was at the forefront of computing technology. This position led to “overnight millionaires” that eventually skewed the perspective of the once eager employees. Long time executives ended up letting new employees handle everything while they waited for the next windfall. Instead of continuing a momentum of innovation, they [Microsoft] had allowed themselves to reach a plateau while the competition past them by. Innovation gave way to employees

Step 4 is to communicate the Vision. When everyone in the company understands and believes in what the company stands for, it creates a sense of unity and will reduce resistance to change. Communication is the key. Training will be implemented, but if there are any additional

Businesses are facing a dichotomy between wanting to chalk out an all-time structure and strategy for their organization, and recognizing that their world is in a constant state of flux [3]. For most of the 20th century they were largely focused on the static elements of this dichotomy. However, in the last decade changes have become more frequent and more dramatic, so much so that a whole branch of management is now devoted to the subject of change itself.

Communication – Talk about the change vision, if people have anxieties then address these openly and honestly. Tie in the vision to all areas of the business from training to performance reviews

Leading and managing change require a solid theoretical foundation. This assignment will research the theoretical elements of change and change management. Addressed will be the following: Organic Evolution of Change, Formulating Strategic Development Approaches, Leadership and Management Skills and Gathering and Analyze Data. As societies continue to evolve and changing demand creates the need for new products and services, businesses often are forced to make changes to stay competitive. The businesses that continue to survive and even thrive are usually the ones that most readily adapt to change. A variety of factors can cause a business to reevaluate its methods of operation. According to literature from the past two

The purpose of this book is to make us see that nearly all-operating prescriptions for creating large-scale corporate change are nothing but myths and that changes do not happen from one day to another by a miracle, the change from good to great is the result of a successful plan who

You also must form a powerful coalition and create a vision for change. This begins with strong leadership and effective communication skills in order to communicate your vision. Another step in the process is to remove obstacle or barriers that may block or prevent change from happening. You must also motivate the team along the way by creating short term goals, building on change and anchoring the changes in corporate culture. Kotter put an emphasis on step one which is creating urgency for change. You must be convincing and open when presenting this change to your team to gain their support. It is important to give scenarios, show the benefits of making this change and the drawbacks of not making the change.

In the first chapter Leading Change by John P. Kotter brought out the fact that all companies (large and small) go through changes. Some are to remain competitive others are to keep up with the changing marketing tactics. “These efforts have gone under many banners: total quality management, reengineering, rightsizing, restructuring, culturing, change, and turnaround” (Review, 2011, p. 1). Now to add another name, my company calls it PEx (production excellence. It is really not looked at as a good thing. We have a separate PEx group. When a manager has a process that they want to change (or update) they call the PEx team. After many (many many) meetings with core people changes are made. I have been through a few and looking back, it was not enjoyable.

* In forth step, I communicate change vision and plan of attain it with team members by assistance of guiding association.

John Kotter, the author of the well known book “Our Iceberg is Melting: Changing and Succeeding under Any Conditions “, taught for more than thirty years at Harvard Business School. Kotter could be considered an expert in the field of business with his many years of experience. After retiring from teaching, he then founded Kotter International and has spent his time assisting others in the area of implementing changes. He, like many others before him, observed the challenges that many businesses, organizations, and other institutions faced when trying to make changes. Over the years he observed that changes are not easily implemented or accepted because people in

The four mistakes discussed in the article Winning at Change by John P. Kotter are partly (very slightly) and indirectly discussed in Chapter 14. One of the key factors in the chapter is the rational approach to organization change and includes Beer’s model that is used to understand why change initiatives fail.

Create urgency: Make everyone aware of the need for change by showing statistics or status in market place. According to Kotter you have to work really hard on Step 1, and spend significant time and energy building urgency, before moving onto the next steps (Mindtools.com, 2017). This will motivate employees to participate in change process.

For any business in the rapidly evolving world of business, planning and implementing successful organizational change is indispensable. Essentially, organizational change refers to a process whereby an organization strives to optimize performance in order to achieve its ideal state characterized by high performance and profitability (Côté & Mayhew, 2014). Any business would be more likely to lose its competitive edge, as well as fail to meet the demands of its loyal consumers if it doesn’t plan and implement change. Weiss (2012) emphasizes that all organizations ought to embrace change, and it’s imperative to note that successful organizational change doesn’t involve simple process of adjustments; instead it requires appropriate change management capabilities.

When it comes to organizations, change is constantly occuring. Managers are accountable for preparing the business, in addition to helping the employees cope with the change. The purpose of this paper is to highlight an organization and to diagnose the need for change and present a plan to transform the company, using Kotter 's 8-Step Approach. The following topics will be covered in this paper, company overview, diagnosis, Kotter 's 8-Step Approach, and Conclusion.