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Summary: Suggested by the boss.
Review: I never heard of Kotter or Leading Change until the Director of our new agency recommended it. He's counting on Kotter's words of wisdom to affect favorable changes prior to his next report to Congress. I think I'll read it too--or at least have it sitting prominently on my desk.
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Summary: A must book for anyone leading organizational change
Review: I would rearely take the time to complete one of these on-line reviews -- but Kotter's book demands it. Anyone in a leadership position today should have this book and continually work through it until the pages are dogeared and worn. Must read for strong leaders.
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Summary: Read this book before reading anything else!
Review: If you don't know how to lead change, then reading all of the other management books won't do you any good. This should be the first book you commit to memory prior to launching into any new initiative, re-engineering, balanced scorecard process, or even the smallest changes to your organization. It reads easily, and it makes a lot of sense.
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Summary: Recommended
Review: If you match Peter M. Senge Fifth Dicipline together with this book, you have a very good idea how to upgraded management. Keep reading ! Robert
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Summary: Change and the leadership skills needed to promote it.
Review: In the wake of numerous books and articles on the ability of businesses to remain competitive in a more globalized economy and increasingly fast-paced society, corporations will need to continually improve upon the services and products they provide. John Kotter contends that in a slower moving environments, managerial skills are more useful; however, in today's more accelerated business world leadership skills are required to implement and sustain needed change. He differentiates managers from leaders where the former is more concerned with the smooth running of current conditions. The leader is more concerned with promoting meaningful change: developing a vision, making the vision transparent to others then implementing a plan that will make the vision reality. According to Kotter, leaders typically make mistakes throughout this process. In the first chapter, Kotter briefly identifies eight key errors that prevent organizational transformation. He then addresses each in subsequent chapters. Leading Change coincides with research that deeply rooted organizational change cannot come from one person. Change may start with one person, but it is more likely to become embraced and embedded with when a strong, broad-based coalition is guiding the organizational change. The author proposes a fairly prescriptive format for leading an organization; however, there is latitude to make adjustments for your particular setting. I recommend Leading Change to those who have a vision, who are passionate about their ideas and are willing to work with others in making the vision reality. Before you read the book ask yourself whether you would rather manage a group or lead a team.
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Summary: Change and Change Again!
Review: John Kotter has been around for ever it seems and his work is still valuable to the field of leadership and change. The style is highly readable and held my interest as I slogged my way through three texts for a doctoral class in leadership. The topics are valuable and provide current insight into both successful efforts and organizational failures. I liked the work and plan to buy other works of his as a result.
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Summary: Eight-stage process for transformation programs
Review: John P. Kotter is Professor of Leadership at the Harvard Business School. He has written several books and articles on general management and leadership issues. This particular book builds on his 1995 Harvard Business Review-article 'Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail'. The book is split up into three parts. In the first part - The Change Problem and Its Solution - Kotter discusses the eight main reasons why in many situations the improvements have been disappointing, with wasted resources and burned-out, scared, or frustrated employees. Each of these eight errors are discussed in detail, using simple, clear examples. "Making any of the eight errors in common to transformation efforts can have serious consequences." But Kotter argues that these errors are not inevitable. And this is why Kotter has written this book. "The key lies in understanding why organizations resist needed change, what exactly is the multistage process that can overcome destructive inertia, and, most of all, how the leadership that is required to drive that process in a socially healthy way means more than good management." In Chapter 2, Kotter discusses the reasons why organizations (can) need changes and improvements. Although some people suggest otherwise, Kotter believes that organizations can implement change successfully. "The methods used in successful transformations are all based on one fundamental insight: that major change will not happen easily for a long list of reasons." Kotter introduces an eight-stage process for creating major change. This eight-stage process is discussed in Part Two of this book:
(1) The first stage of the process involves the establishment of a sense of urgency, which is required to overcome complacency. The nine sources of complacency are discussed, whereby Kotter emphasizes that "a good rule of thumb in a major change effort is: Never underestimate the magnitude of the forces that reinforce complacency and that help maintain the status quo." He further discusses methods for raising urgency levels, the role of crises, and the role of middle and lower-level managers.
(2) The second stage involves the creation of a guiding coalition. "A strong guiding coalition is always needed - one with the right composition, level of trust, and shared objective." According to the author the four key characteristics to effective guiding coalition are position power, expertise, credibility, and leadership. And he emphasizes that management and leadership must work in tandem, teamwork style.
(3) The third stage requires the development of a vision and strategy. Good vision clarifies the general direction for change, motivates people to take action in the right direction, and it helps coordinate people's actions. The characteristics of an effective vision are imaginable, desirable, feasible, focused, flexible, and communicable. But vision alone is not enough. "This is where strategy plays an important role. Strategy provides both logic and a first level detail to show how a vision can be accomplished."
(4) The power of a vision is most powerful when all people within an organization have a common understanding of its goals and direction. Although the general myth is that failures to communicate vision are attributed to either limited intellectual capabilities among lower-level employees or a general human resistance to change. But that is not really the problem. The vision needs to be communicated in a clear, simple message (focused and jargon-free). Kotter discusses each of the seven key elements in the communication of vision.
(5) Empowering employees for broad-based action - "Discouraged and disempowered employees never make enterprises winners in a globalizing economic environment. But with the right structure, training, systems, and supervisors to build on a well-communicated vision, increasing numbers of firms are finding that they can tap an enormous source of power to improve organizational performance. They can mobilize hundreds or thousands of people to help provide leadership to produce needed changes."
(6) Major change takes time and it is therefore advisable to pay serious attention to short-term wins. Short-term wins should be visible, unambiguous, and related to the change effort. Short-term wins play various roles in a change effort, most notably building the necessary momentum.
(7) Many forces can stall a change process short of the finish line. And we should be aware that irrational and political resistance to change never fully dissipates. We should not let the celebration of short-term wins allow complacency back into the organization. We should also be aware that progress can slip away for two reasons: corporate culture (see more in the next stage) and increased interdependence as a result from interconnections.
(8) "Culture refers to norms of behavior and shared values among a group of people." In large organizations, there are some social forces (corporate culture) that affect everyone. Corporate cultures have a powerful influence on human behavior, since it is almost impossible to change and invisible. Kotter believes that "culture is powerful for three reasons: (i) Because individuals are selected and indoctrinated so well. (ii) Because the culture exerts itself through the actions of hundreds or thousands of people. (iii) Because all of this happens without much conscious intent and thus is difficult to challenge or even discuss." He provides with one other important warning: "most cultural change happens in stage 8, not stage 1." Part III - Implications for the Twenty-First Century - consists of two chapters. In the first chapter, Kotter discusses the organization of the future. In particular, the impact of the future on the eight stages in the change process. There is an interesting table, which compares the differences in structure, systems, and culture between 20th-century and 21st-century organizations. "The key to creating and sustaining the kind of successful 21st-century organization is leadership - not only at the top of the hierarchy, with a capital L, but also in a more modest sense (l) throughout the enterprise." These two notions are discussed in detail in the final chapter of the book. Yes, this is an excellent book on controlling change. The book provides an extremely useful framework for a change process and should be kept as a checklist. Although the process looks rigid, the stages are flexible and take place concurrently. I recommend this book to all people involved in a major change process within larger organizations. The author uses simple business US-English.
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Summary: A "Must"
Review: John's "Leading Change" is a classic. I recommend it to all of my clients. It's easy-to-read and easy to apply. Dr. Michael Beitler
Author of "Strategic Organizational Change"
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Summary: Outstanding
Review: Kotter has created a system by which you can take managers and make them excellent leaders!
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Summary: Welcome back, (Dr.) Kotter!"
Review: Kotter has encapsulated the essence of why most corporate reorganizations, down-sizings and overhauls fail in his title -- "Leading Change". His eight step recipe for successful corporate transformation is clear, concise and action-oriented. He supplements each step with practical "how-to" examples for distinguishing traditional goal management from the leadership of change. I was pleased that his techniques were equally applicable to smaller (260 employee) organizations like ours. We are hoping to have Dr. Kotter address our industry group on this most crucial topic for all business leaders concerned about their corporation's ability to transition to 21st century management structures.
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