In his book Leading Change, John Kotter provides the following diagram/list/rubric for creating change. He cautions that diagrams or lists tend to over simplify reality so reading the entire book is strongly recommended. Despite the caution the following list does provide a good overview of the process of creating change:
- Establish A Sense of Urgency
- Examining the market & competitive realities
- Identifying and discussing crisis, potential crisis or major opportunities.
- Creating the Guiding Coalition
- Putting together a group with enough power to lead the change.
- Getting the group to work together like a team.
- Developing a Vision and Strategy
- Creating a vision to help direct the change effort.
- Developing a strategy for achieving that vision.
- Communicating the Change Vision
- Using every vehicle possible to constantly communicate the new vision and strategies.
- Having the guiding coalition role model the behavior expected of employees.
- Empowering Broad Based Action
- Getting rid of obstacles.
- Changing systems or structures that undermine the change vision.
- Encouraging risk taking and nontraditional ideas, activities and actions.
- Generating Short-Term Wins
- Planning for visible improvements in performance, or “wins”.
- Creating those wins.
- Visibly recognizing and rewarding people who made the wins possible.
- Consolidating Gains & Producing More Change
- Using increased credibility to change all systems, structures, and policies that don’t fit together and don’t fit the transformation vision.
- Hiring, promoting, and developing people who can implement the change vision.
- Reinvigorating the process with new projects, themes, and change agents.
- Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture
- Creating better performance through customer and productivity-oriented behavior, more and better leadership, and more effective management.
- Articulating the connections between new behaviors and organizational success.
- Developing means to ensure leadership development and succession.
