Have you ever noticed how easy change is when there is a crisis in the air? I used to work for a company that almost ran out of its product, a product that was used daily by four and a half million people and whose very lives depended upon that product. We were within 11 days of not being able to provide several tens of thousands of those customers with that life critical product. I vividly recall how easy it was to get decisions made and implemented in that climate and I also recall how, in the aftermath, the whole organisation found it relatively easy to become customer focused rather than product focused. The change that rocked through that company, and it was one that was already familiar with both continuous improvement and transformational change, was astonishing in its breadth and depth.

So think of times in your own life career when change seemed relatively straightforward-perhaps moving from one part of the country to another for a new job, perhaps you got a new or lost an old partner, perhaps the recent economic crisis left you facing unemployment, or not, perhaps the company about to go bust. In all of these situations you are likely to have accepted that change was necessary, whilst perhaps still finding it difficult.

Kotter suggests that the very first step in any significant change process is to create a sense of urgency, others have called it a burning platform. Whatever you call it you need to formulate a very clear rationale for the change and to be able to explain why if you do not change a range of unpleasant consequences will arise for both the organisation and the individuals within that organisation. And remember that the burning platform for the company is not a burning platform for the people employed within it.

Indeed I remember a conversation with an ex-managing director  some years ago who, after his first hundred days, did the usual thing and stood up in front of his senior managers to explain what he was going to change and why he was going to change it. I challenged him, by saying that “Well that’s all very interesting Mr X, but do you understand that what you will get is what the four and a half thousand people working for this company wants to give you?” He had completely missed the point that people change for their own reasons, they change because they see an advantage. So your burning platform, your sense of urgency need to address both the corporate issues that you face and the implications of those corporate issues on the people within and around your organisation.

So, you’ve established your sense of urgency, your burning platform-what next?