Last week we explored the first four of Kotter’s eight steps for managing change effectively:
- Establish a sense of urgency.
- Former powerful guiding coalition.
- Create a vision
- Communicate a vision
For the rest of this week if I want to explore the remaining four steps:
5. Empower others to act on the vision
6. Plan and create short-term wins.
7. Consolidate improvements.
8. Institutionalise new approaches.
However, before I do that I want to go back to a comment I made in the opening blog of this series relating to the non-linear reality of change in leadership. I stated, and I stand by that statement, that most change models are false in that they imply that you started a point A, go to point B, then point C etc before eventually arriving at your destination. Anyone who has experienced change in the real world, as compared to the world of academics and theoreticians, recognises that the situation is somewhat different.
Just look at last week’s four steps-might it just me that someone has a vision for change before getting together their guiding coalition? Or perhaps an initial guiding coalition (often one or two directors or maybe even the whole board) just senses a need for change and set out to create the sense of urgency and burning platform upon which subsequent action will be based? So when you look at change in your organisation, always remember my guiding principles
- “Do what you can, where you can, when you can”
- “Light fires in the business and tend or douse them, as appropriate”
- “Be prepared for changes of course-the planning is more important than the plan.”
So tomorrow we will explore the oft misunderstood field of empowerment and what we have to do to get people on board and working towards the new vision.
