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Change is something that is embraced by some, and feared by others, yet everyone and everything eventually changes. Throughout our lives, each individual has faced change. Change be as small as starting a new semester, with new professors and new classmates, or as major as war, universal health care, etc. But, no matter how major or minor change is, it is inevitable.
In the book Exploring Leadership, authors Susan Komives, Nance Lucas, and Timothy McMahon discuss John P. Kotter’s Model for creating change. While it may, on the surface, seem as though one can just propose change and then immediately implement it, the true nature of change requires a much deeper implementation. One of the biggest problems that people, organizations, etc. have in implementing change is not necessarily implementing the change, but ensuring that everyone that the change affects are cooperative. Failure to achieve full cooperation can result in not only an unsuccessful change, but it can completely cripple an organization to the point that the organization must disband. What Kotter suggests is that in order to create change, there are necessary steps that one must follow achieve success/avoid failure:
1. Establishing a Sense of Urgency
2. Creating the Guiding Coalition
3. Developing a Vision and Strategy
4. Communicating the Change Vision
5. Remove Obstacles
6. Generating Short-Term Wins
7. Consolidating Gains and Producing More Change
8. Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture
As I go through each stage of Kotter’s model, I will use a hypothetical example of a company, Gen Co., seeking to merge two separate distribution departments, one that distributes widgets to customers on the west side of the city, and one that distributes widgets to the east side of town.
Establishing a Sense of Urgency
This initial step may seem to some to be somewhat manipulative, but it is still necessary. In order to get others to join your cause for change, you must create a sense of urgency for the change.
For example, the executive members of Gen Co. have realized that having two separate distribution departments, which essentially perform the same duty, has become a great burden on the company. Because these two departments have been separated for some time, they have developed entirely conflicted procedures for handling their tasks, even if the tasks are the same. As a result of this, customers have begun complaining that they have been receiving the wrong widgets, and/or have not been receiving their desired widgets at all. This is causing many customers to leave Gen Co., and is ruining Gen Co.’s otherwise perfect reputation. It is not too late, however, for Gen Co. to turn this around, and salvage their once great reputation, and their strong customer-base. The executives realize this, and, understanding that they only have a short time to turn things around, they begin communicating the necessity of the merger to the distribution departments so that they understand that if something is not done right away, everyone will be out of a job.
Creating the Guiding Coalition
Although people may understand that something must be done immediately, there will still be a resistance to change, and many will try to think of solutions to get around the problem, rather than face the change necessary to resolve the problem. Those dissenting parties must understand that major change is the only appropriate solution, and as such, is necessary. In order to do so, leaders of an organization must create a team of other influential leaders to persuade everyone to follow the change.
Returning to Gen Co., the employees of the distribution department are now well aware that something must be done immediately, but the majority of the employees are still hesitant to give up their ways of doing things and having to learn to follow the procedures from the other department. This mentality is leading to everyone thinking that they can remain separate, but just be a little more careful in handling the distribution of widgets in order to avoid the change. Gen Co.’s executives hold a meeting with the representative parties outlining the problems with the current system, and show the representatives that the change is necessary, and that merely running each department more effectively is not going to fix anything, except to delay the inevitable. With these representatives on board, they are dismissed back to their departments to discuss what they learned with all of the parties involved in the merger.
Developing a Vision and Strategy
When developing a vision and a strategy for the change, one must keep in mind that they need to include everyone affected by the change. In other words, the vision and strategy must be clear and easily remembered by everyone. When people can actually visualize the end result, they feel more comfortable with the change, and find the implementation to be much easier.
For Gen Co., employees from both departments have been trying to argue to the executives that while they understand that change is necessary, and that they are on board with it, they demand that the other department adopt their procedures, and not vice versa. While many other suggestions have been made, this suggestion/demand seems to be most frequent. In creating their vision and strategy for the change, Gen Co. executives realize that by making either department learn the other’s procedures, there will emerge a sense of hostility and resentment, and a lack of cooperation. So, rather than taking the easy way out and facing more problems down the line, Gen Co. executives have decided to hold another meeting/more meetings with the employee-representatives to work on developing a new procedure that will incorporate elements currently used by both departments.
Communicating the Change Vision
So, you’ve developed a great new vision. Now what? The vision needs to effectively communicated to those individuals who will be affected by the change. Communicating the vision effectively entails not only knowing what to say and how to say it, but more importantly, which medium to use to get the point across most effectively.
In the Gen Co. example, the executives have decided that the best way to communicate their vision and strategy is through direct personal communication. They have decided to hold three training workshops prior in the weeks leading up to the day in which the two departments will be fully merged. In doing so, employees are able to see the new procedure first hand, and ask any questions that they might have before being expected to immerse themselves in the new procedures.
Remove Obstacles
At this point in creating major change, the majority of employees are likely to be on board with the proposed change, and almost everything seems to be in place for the implementation to be able to go into effect, but there may still exists various obstacles standing between you and change. The most common obstacle is a still resistive employee. This step may need to involve hiring, promoting, or developing employees who will be able to help you produce change.
At Gen Co., while the majority of the employees are accepting of the necessary change, many of whom are eager to get the change underway, there are still a handful of employees who are resisting the change, even knowing that the future of the company and their jobs are at stake. Unfortunately, at this point, Gen Co. is forced to let these parties go, and replace them with a group of new hires who will begin working (aside from training) on day one of the change.
Generating Short-Term Wins
By creating small victories and success, everyone involved in the change will be more motivated achieve more success, and will actually feel that success is increasingly likely.
Gen Co. has decided to run a one week trial of the new system with the east-side distributors. Immediately, customers began calling to say that not only have they received everything they ordered, but that they had also received it much more quickly than ever before! Any doubt of the new system that anyone had is quickly diminished, and everyone is re-energized to continue on with the change.
Consolidating Gains and Producing More Change
Even with these new short-term wins, one must realize that a large-scale change will need further development.
Now reinvigorated to see the merger through, everyone at Gen Co., although eager to implement what seems to be working, understand that they need to continue to fine-tune the new system. While the new system may seem fool-proof, a new major challenge surfaces: having the employees personally merge with one another and accept new responsibilities. To combat this, Gen Co. executives have decided to host several small events meant to build a new, unified team from two existing teams. Initially, employees are hesitant to leave their established groups and interact with those from the other department, but through the course of the events, the pre-formed group boundaries have become completely erased. New friendships have been formed, and the employees are eager and willing to work alongside one another.
Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture
In the final step of creating change, one must ensure that the new change will stick. To do this, Kotter suggests integrating the change into the core of the organization. In other words, this new change must appear in every aspect of the organization.
The two departments have now been merged for a number of weeks, and the rewards for the merger have already begun to show. Now, Gen Co. must ensure that this merger, and more importantly this sense of cooperation, must stick. To do so, they look back at the whole process and decide that one of the key strengths of this change is that through the personal events used to integrate the employees of the two departments, they managed to create a unity in the department that, as an unexpected benefit of these events, actually became the strongest part of the newly merged department. Gen Co. executives decide that in order to increase efficiency, they will begin to hold frequent events, open to the entire company, in order to boost unity, harmony and cooperation amongst all of the employees, regardless of their departmental affiliation.
Conclusion
It is essential for any organization looking to implement change to follow Kotter’s eight steps in order achieve an effective implementation of change. As I stated before, anyone with authority can implement change, but in order to have that change be successful and effective, Kotter’s eight steps must be followed in order (although some steps may occur simultaneously). The bottom line is that in order to truly implement change of a system, procedure, etc., the attitudes and behaviors of those affected by the change. Change can be a great thing, and there are a lot of things in this world deserving of well-needed change, but for anyone reading this who considers themselves an advocate for change, do not rush it. Do not try and declare a need for change and then do nothing about. Instead, take the time necessary for the change to be implemented correctly. Even if the proposed change is something desperately needed, it will fail if the necessary steps are not followed.
