About the book

Great many books want to take the place of John P. Kotter’s ”Leading Change. It is by far the best business ever. No need to state that it has sold so and so many millions of copies. When you ’ll read it you will know why it’s the best. All businesses or organizations are in transition all the time. That’s why the learnings of this book are crucial. Read it! By the way – originally ”Leading Change” was a Harvard Business Review article. You can still read it as an article – if you want to cut corners.  

How was the book?

Why to read this book? Reading this book is like combining meditation and product development of your ideas. Include the learning part also for the reasons as well. I have read this book for the first time about twenty years ago and it struck me at once. I knew instantly that these topics are universal and timeless. And the reading experience is even more pervasive than twenty years ago.

I could state that that there is a triangle between Kotter’s ”Leading Change”, ”The Goal” by Eliyahu M. Goldrattand ”Good to Great” by Jim Collins. With these books you could easily start any change management project.

What are the key learnings?

This is the Eight-Stage Process and it’s the essence of the book:

·      Establishing a Sense of Urgency

·      Creating the Guiding Coalition

·      Developing a Vision and Strategy

·      Communicating the Change Vision

·      Empowering Employees for Broad-Based Action

·      Generating Short-Term Wins

·      Consolidating Gains and Producing More Change

·      Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture

These stages will lead into a successful change. Many of the steps are self-explanatory and I won’t start scrutinizing these steps. It would spoil your reading experience. Hence more important is to raise some topics into your radar. Remember that the pace of change has changed from the times that book was originally published. So all time tables that Kotter suggest must be divided by two. The thing that he got right is that the change sticks only when people around you start saying that ”this is the way we work”. Then it’s time to celebrate.

How to fail in a change? Kotter uses a lot of time to explain complacency and why it is bad for any change management activity. Weak sponsors and committees will also deteriorate the change. And undercommunicating vision and where you are going will not either speed the change.

And two notions that we must not forget:

·      Managing change is important, but leading the change is crucial.

·      Training is something that makes the change stick, because culture is powerful and without training the new culture will not be embedded into the organization.

How should we change according to the book?

”If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it” seems to be still a valid fact in the change management business. But we often resist change unless it is crystal clear that the alternative is substantially better. For a successful strategy implementation process – however, it is useful to put the default the other way around: Change it unless it is crystal clear that the old way is substantially better. Execution involves change and you should embrace it. Empowering employees means that the leaderships must design a systems that allows the employees to act – ”Strategy implementation requires top managers to design the company’s internal system that does the selection for them.” So change leadership to fit the culture. Read more from these articles.

Drivers behind change have not altered from the days of Kotter. It is clear that globalized economy together with digitalized economy has made the change a default. So make change default in your organization and maybe you can skip stages 1-4? Then make change part of the culture and you will save 6-12 months? It might turn into a competitive advantage for your organization. So by making change your default and you will make change your competitive advantage.

At the end of the book Kotter is trying to predict the future company. How well did Kotter in his prediction of the future company? Pretty well:

·      He was thinking that we will witness higher sense of urgency. And it is here and we migh state that it is even a default.

·      Teamwork at the top – big egos and snakes have been killed. And so it is.

·      Kotter was also seeing that the number of people who can create and communicate vision is rising. He was right although there is a lot’s to do. 

·      Broad based empowerment was also in his agenda. Meh – might be growing, but that’s for start-ups. Right?

·      Delegated management for excellent short-term performance. Might exist, but mostly in lean and flat organizations.

·      Sorry, the unnecessary interdependence are still here. 

·      An adaptive corporate culture can facilitate adaptation and some organizations can witness this, because winning is fun and making a real contribution is pleasing to the soul.

What should I personally do?

Generating short-term wins is my favorite topic.

Summary

The book in six words – Walk the talk and lead by example.