Leading Change

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Summary: Excellent common sense approaches to change.
Review: Kotter's book on leading change is elegant in the use of language and examples that demonstrate the techniques he uses to insure success with change in organizations. He identifies why change strategies often fail. Some of his examples may seem trite to seasoned managers but overall the advice is solid.

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Summary: How to lead change
Review: Kotter's eight-step formula for leading change provides some practical and valuable strategies, but it does not get to the core of the problem. When an organization hires and retains only those who have made the commitment to do their best regardless of the circumstances, then complacency is never a serious problem and the leader does not need to falsely impose a sense of urgency. I recommend this book, and suggest Optimal Thinking: How to be your best self is read along with it. We are integrating Optimal Thinking into our company (mission statement and culture) and moving away from the old paradigm of managers and employees to the new optimized paradigm of corporate optimizers.

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Summary: Changing Orginizations Outside of America
Review: Leading Change offers some business basics, but also provides a workable structure for implementation. The structure can be applied across cultures. The system works with Germans in Germany, as well as Americans in America. And works with foreign nationals work for international firms in a global market.

Rating:
Summary: Recommended
Review: One of the great books on self help practical leadership that has come out in recent years. You can complete your philosophical knowledge on leadership of character by going on to read the Remick book, "West Point: Jefferson: Character Leadership..." when you finish Kotter's "Leading Change".

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Summary: The leading change process model
Review: Organisations need change. We all know that. But how can an organisation adopt great ideas, tools, and methods, absorbing them in a way to stimulate change and get superior results?

Harvard-professor John P. Kotter has been observing this process for almost 30 years. What intrigues him is why some leaders are able to take these tools and methods and get their organizations to change dramatically - while most do not.

How many times have we not seen somebody get very excited about some new tool (CRM, e-business, etc.)? Yet two years later there is no performance improvement at all. Often because most of the organisation has rejected the change needed to make it happen.

When people need to make big changes significantly and effectively, Kotter finds that there are generally eight basic things that must happen:

1. INSTILL A SENSE OF URGENCY. Identifying existing or potential crises or opportunities. Confronting reality, in the words of Execution-authors, Charan and Bossidy.

2. PICK A GOOD TEAM. Assembling a strong guiding coalition with enough power to lead the change effort. And make them work as a team, not a committee!

3. CREATE A VISION AND SUPPORTING STRATEGIES. We need a clear sense of purpose and direction. In less successful situations you generally find plans and budgets, but no vision and strategy; or the strategies are so superficial that they have no credibility.

4. COMMUNICATE. As many people as possible need to hear the mandate for change loud and clear, with messages sent out consistently and often. Forget the boring memos that nobody reads! Try using videos, speeches, kick-off meetings, workshops in small units, etc. Also important is the teaching of new behaviours by the example of the guiding coalition

5. REMOVE OBSTACLES. Get rid of anything blocking change, like bosses stuck in the old ways or lack of information systems. Encourage risk-taking and non-traditional ideas, activities, and actions. Empowerment is moving obstacles out of peoples' way so they can make something happen, once they've got the vision clear in their heads.

6. CHANGE FAST. Little quick wins are essential for creating momentum and providing sufficient credibility to pat the hard-working people on the back and to diffuse the cynics. Remember to recognize and reward employees involved in the improvements.

7. KEEP ON CHANGING. After change organizations get rolling and have some wins, they don't stop there. They go back and make wave after wave of other actions necessary for long-term, significant change. Successful change leaders don't drop the sense of urgency. On top of that, they are very systematic about figuring out all of the pieces they need to have in place before they declare victory.

8. MAKE CHANGE STICK. The last big step is nailing big change to the floor and making sure it sticks. And the way things stick is through culture. If you can create a totally new culture around some new way of managing, it will stay. It won't live on if it is dependent on one boss or a couple of enthusiastic people who will eventually move on.

We can divide these eight steps in three main processes. The first four steps focus on de-freezing the organization. The next three steps make change happen. The last step re-freezes the organization on the next rung on the ladder.

I've personally used Kotter's change process in several e-business projects. It has helped me a lot. I highly recommend that you buy this easy-to-read and affordable book. Alternatively, read his Harvard Business Review article from Mar/Apr 1995 on the same subject.

Peter Leerskov,
MSc in International Business (Marketing & Management) and Graduate Diploma in E-business

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Summary: Lists ways to effectively manage change in your company.
Review: Success rarely comes without change. And change requires leadership. We all want success but not all of us are taught to succeed. If we manage day-to-day business operations of our company, it will run smoothly without making any noise and growth. To get your company to run and win the race of competition, you have to jolt it, change it, and know how to manage that change to successfuly leverage that change to your advantage.

Kotter argues that, to effectively manage changes in your organiztion, you must:

1. Be scared enough to muster the courage to manage the change and not let your complacency mar your mustered courage. Rabbit.

2. Know how to make a network and use it. Weave, woo, and win. Spider.

3. Know how to envision your company's strategical future. Chess Player.

4. Let the people in your organization know how important the change is, so they become willing to make little sacrifices. Communicator.

5. Give the common person in your company the power to speak and suggest changes. A Just Ruler.

6. Make people go along by giving them short doses of victorious pleasure. Kindergarten Teacher.

7. Not give them too much pleasure or they will become arrogant and lazy. Highschool teacher.

8. Make it a chain reaction. Produce gains from change and use those gains to feed more change. Change-O-Maniac.

9. Make change your culture. Mutiple Personality Disorder & Co.

All of this will become easy to accomplish after you'll read this book. Not bad.

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Summary: Leading Change by John P. Kotter
Review: The book is terrific if you really intend to move your organization forward through change. The insights proferred by the author are exceptionally pertinent to today's global changes. Provided in the book are step-by-step processes to achieve success as well as pitfalls to avoid. The eight primary mistakes of leading changes are clearly identified and relevant discussions are presented in a clear and concise manner. I would recommend this book to anyone who wishes to accompish change with the least amount of pain to their employees and with the most guarantee of success. Outstanding.

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Summary: Make Change Irresistibly Attractive
Review: The leaders of some organizations have no idea how to make successful changes, and are likely to waste a lot of resources on unsuccessful efforts. Professor Kotter has done a solid job of outlining the elements that must be addressed, so now your organization will at last know what they should be working on.

On the other hand, if you have not seen this done successfully before, you may need more detailed examples than this book provides or outside facilitators to help you until you have enough experience to go solo. I suspect this book will not be detailed enough by itself to get you where you want to go.

Here's a hint: The Harvard Business Review article by Professor Kotter covers the same material in a much shorter form. You can save time and money by checking this out first before buying the book.

I personally find that measurements are very helpful to create self-stimulation to change, and this book does not pay enough attention in that direction. If you agree that measurements are a useful way to stimulate change, be sure to read The Balanced Scorecard, as well, which will help you understand how to use appropriate measurements to make more successful changes.

If you want to know what changes to make, this book will also not do it for you. I suggest you read Peter Drucker's Management Challenges for the 21st Century and Peter Senge's Fifth Discipline.

Good luck!

Rating:
Summary: Old School
Review: This book can be summed up as "old-school" leadership.

Essentially, Kotter thinks that an organization and, indeed, an individual persons' motivations can be altered if the leader just 'says the right things'.

This may have been true in the old days when "command and control" was an effective organizational model. Not today. Not everyone can pull a Jack Welch.

Nevertheless, an interesting read with the caveat - "Don't expect it to actually work".

Rating:
Summary: Ok, but...
Review: This book is OK for a start. But get "Strategic Organizational Change" by Beitler, if you are a practicing manager.

Donald Close
Change Consultant
Milwaukee, WI