Harvard Business Review--"Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail" by John P. Kotter

This is a Harvard Business Review article I had to read for class. I will give a quick summary of this interesting article--maybe my MBA colleagues will find it helpful.

Kotter argues there are eight steps to leading change in an organization. It is critical to execute each step correctly, in order, and at the right time.
The eight steps are:
1. Establish a sense of urgency
2. Form a powerful guiding coalition
3. Create a vision
4. Communicate the vision (use every vehicle available)
5. Empower others to act on the vision (remove barriers to change)
6. Plan for and create short-term wins
7. Consolidate improvements and produce more change (don't celebrate victory too early)
8. Institutionalize new approaches

Here are a few take aways from the article:

• Organizations must change from time to time
• There is a process (see the eight steps above) for change that must be respected
• More than 50% of companies fail at step 1
• The top of the organization must be on board
• About 75% of management's buy in is critical mass for change
• The guiding coalition must be the right size and be powerful (power is not just titles)
• The vision must be simple and concise enough to explain in under five minutes
• Leadership needs to be seen living the changes

Questions I had:

• How big of a "transformation" are we talking about? Is it necessary to go through this process for every little change?
• What are the most effective ways to gauge buy-in from managers and others that will be impacted?
• What if you are working within a restricted framework to be able to form your coalition or remove barriers to change? (i.e. volunteer organizations where you can't oust someone or a situation where you are assigned a team with very little opportunity to change)
• How do you prevent your change initiative from being co-opted by other projects or changes?