Book Review: Leading Change by John P. Kotter Essay

Leading Change by John P. Kotter. Harvard Business School Press, 1996.In send off of the increasing rate of switch over in the work environment due to factors such as proficient advances and globalization, the need to be suit equal to make no-hit transformations within an organization becomes more imperative than always before. In Leading Change, Kotter identifies an eight-step guide for making successful organization lurchs. These eight move stem from forefending popular mistakes make during organizational swap efforts seen in the then(prenominal) , such as too oft complacency failing to make off a powerful control coalition underestimating the power of vision under-communicating the vision permitting obstacles to shut down a wise vision failing to create short stipulation wins declaring a victory too soon and neglecting to spinal column changes firmly into the organizational culture.To keep down these mistakes, drawing cards of an organization requiring cha nges should consider the following steps1. Establishing a sense of urgency2. Creating a channelise coalition3. Developing a vision and scheme4. Communicating the change vision5. Empowering broad-based action6. Generating short wins7. Consolidating gains and producing more change8. Anchoring new approaches into the cultureIn establishing a sense of urgency , it is anticipated that a leader of change ordain be able to beam stakeh emeritusers drive towards a common purpose and squeezecomplacency. Common ca designs of complacency include the absence of a crisis, low everyplace every last(predicate) exercise standards, wrong performance measurement indexes, too much happy let the cat out of the bag from caution, and lack of sufficient performance feedback from external sources. It is suggested that a leader creates a sense of purpose allowing weaknesses to be exposed, setting performance targets that atomic number 18 too high, meditate current opportunities and highlight th e organizations inability to pursue them, and cut-down on the happy talk and listen to disgruntled customers. actually often, committees of employees devoted to making organizational change argon ineffectual because they do not take in the either influential, sr. managers who can make changes happen and reinforce the urgency of the committees purpose to all levels. Kotter suggests c areful selection of committee members to include senior watchfulness and influential population, with care taken to avoid those employees he labels egos and snakes (i.e. those employees whose egos may take precedence over the committees agenda and those citizenry who may undermine the assertion necessary to build strong committee relationships)By developing a vision, a leader creates a picture of the future with some implicit or explicit commentary on why people should strive to create that future. (p. 68) It not tho clarifies counselor but aids in motivating those people who go forth be affec ted and/or implementing change. Kotter gives examples of good and seriously visions and suggests that a perfect vision should be give and simple enough to explain within 5 minutes. A vision should also inspire people to force people out of their comfort zones, it should be challenging but attainable, and usually takes advantage of wakeless trends such as globalization or proficient changes.In communicating the change vision, Kotter argues that in this day of information overload, talk of vision and strategy takes up only a small fraction of employee season and the ideas are often lost. Using analogies, repetition and the use of multiple forums for conveying change vision will help employees to understand and remember the ideas. Clear laconic language is a must.To empower employees for broad-based action enables much more flexibility within an organization to line up to a changing environment. Barrier to empowerment still exist in i) the organizational structure w present re sources are so fragmented that timely delivery of objectives is nigh impossible , ii) the skills of employees, iii) systems of the organization such as HR systems which advocate antiquated measures of performance which contradict new changes, iv) supervisors who are reluctant to change from the traditional command-and-control hyphen of management.Despite the long-term nature of many organizational changes, Kotter suggests that the generation of short-run wins is of utmost brilliance and not necessarily at the expense of long-term benefits. He cites examples of CEOs who have implemented long term change initiatives but the failure to create short-term wins and veridical benefits made stakeholders impatient resulting in disenchantment. He reinforces the sack up difference between management and leadinghip and their importance in the pursuit of short-term and long term goals (leadership being more long-term vision and strategy-oriented, management being more concerned with the pursuit goals in the immediate future). The achievement of short-term goals not only reinforces that scarifies made for long-term goal achievement are paying off. They also help to reward change agents and undermine cynics/anchors to change, they build momentum and can help fine-tune vision and strategies.After a short-term win, Kotter warns that it is all too tempting to relax and notwithstanding regress in some cases back to old ways. All momentum of change is lost. To be able to consolidate gains and keep producing more change, he suggests that management increase urgency levels, and learn to understand and jimmy that interdependencies with in the organization dictate that when changes are made in one area, they often require progress changes to be made in other areas or departments.Once changes have been made, it is then important to anchor them into the corporate culture. It is observed that culture is not slowly manipulated so this should be done when all changes have been made. Changing the way we dothings around here is imperative so that regression to old practices is not experienced.To summarize, Kotter reinforces that an increasingly changing business environment is forcing decisions to be made quicker and organizations to become more limber to external changes than ever before. Only with increased flexibility, teamwork and gangly organizations can a leader ever hope to make changes in response to these pressure. The leadership qualities of the change agents very important because they set the vision for others to follow. The importance of continual learning is also emphasized because leaders who are constantly changing themselves and going out of their comfort zones arguably are more able to leave those comfort zones in order to aline to a changing environment.