John P. Kotter, Leading Change, Harvard Business School Press, 1996.
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LifeandLeadership.com Summary
Kotter, noted former professor of organizational behavior at Harvard Business School, wrote this volume that is still recognized as the standard secular work on creating and sustaining major organizational change. All good books on congregational change reference his eight-stage process for major change, which is the best one-shot on effective process. The eight steps are:
- Establish a sense of urgency
- Create a guiding coalition
- Develop a vision and strategy
- Communicate the change vision
- Empower employees for broad-based action
- Generate short-term wins
- Consolidate gains and produce more change
- Anchor new approaches in the organizational culture.
It is especially helpful in explaining the importance of sequence in a major change. This book is full of summary charts on key principles such as management vs. leadership, the over-managed and under-led corporate culture, ways to raise the urgency level, and creating and communicating effective vision. Kotter is both substantive and inspirational, helping the reader to come away neither half-cocked nor stagnant. An excellent sequel gives encouraging stories and bulleted application lists from those who have actually used the process – The Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations (Harvard Business School Press, 2002). For the church leader, and excellent duo is Leading Change followed by Redeveloping the Congregation, which intentionally adapts Kotter’s model for congregational renewal.
From the Publisher
The author examines the efforts of more than 100 companies to remake themselves into better competitors. He identifies the most common mistakes leaders and managers make in attempting to create change and offers an eight-step process to overcome the obstacles and carry out the firm’s agenda: establishing a greater sense of urgency, creating the guiding coalition, developing a vision and strategy, communicating the change vision, empowering others to act, creating short-term wins, consolidating gains and producing even more change, and institutionalizing new approaches in the future.
About the Author
John P. Kotter is the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus at Harvard Business School and is a frequent speaker at top management meetings around the world.
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