So, your great vision is underway. You have your sense of urgency, your guiding coalition, your compelling vision, you have communicated and empowered your people and all you have to do is sit back and wait for the results. Wrong! The big challenge now is to keep the motivation going.

Kotter’s sixth step is to “plan for and create short-term wins”. You need to be both actively planning quick wins and actively looking out for opportunities to praise and reward those involved for the progress that is being made. I might even suggest that, without going too far over the top, you temporarily lower the bar as to what is praisable.

These quick wins, or more accurately the public reward and recognition of the quick wins, will not only made motivate the individuals responsible for them but sends signals that progress is being made and will be rewarded. Make sure that you plan in celebrations at key milestones and always remember that the cost of a few bottles of champagne, cream cakes or whatever is nothing compared to the gains from your overall change programme. I recall, about 20 years ago, on completion of a software upgrade for a laboratory management system that I bought the project lead a bottle of champagne. That might not sound like very much (although it was unheard of in the organisation at the time) but I know that it created a huge buzz round the IT department and believe it or not still gets mentioned occasionally. A bottle of champagne that perhaps cost the equivalent of one hours work had an impact lasting many years-now that is what I call return on investment.