John P. Kotter, Harvard Business School professor
Harvard Business Press; 1st edition (January 15, 1996)
I am always on lookout for reading books by business leaders from Harvard school. So when I got the book, I read it thoroughly to see whether I find solutions to problems faced by me in running my business i. e. Dnyandeep Infotech.
John P. Kotter studied over hundred companies and found that the companies are always trying to make fundamental changes in how business is conducted in order to help cope with a new, more challenging market environment. The lessons that can be drawn are interesting and will probably be relevant to even other organisations.
Successful initiatives -
1. Establishing persistant sense of urgency. A high sense of urgency rate helps enormously in completing all the stages os a transformation process. It requires effective performance evaluation system
2. Forming a powerful guiding coalition - Encouraging the group to work together as a team and provide enough power to lead change
3. Creating a vision which is imaginable, desirable, feasible, more focussed, flexible and communicable in simple language
4. Effective communication- using every vehicle possible to communicate the new vision and strategies to workers. Language should be simple and easy to understand, analogy and example should be given. Generally ideas sink in deeply only after they have been heard many times.
5. Empowering others to act on the vision by getting rid of obstancles to change and encouraging risk taking and nontraditional ideas, activities, and actions
6. Planning for and creating short-term wins, visible performance improvements and rewarding employees involved in the improvements.
7. Consolidating improvements and producing still more change
8.Institutionalizing new approaches and establishing connections between the new behaviors and corporate success
Critical mistakes:
Out of 8 mistakes mentioned by him , I think that foloowing four are more crucial.
1. Not establishing enough sense of urgency - A transformation program requires the aggressive cooperation of many individuals. Without motivation, people won't help and the effort goes nowhere.
2. Not creating a powerful guiding coalition - Companies that fail in this phase usually underestimate the difficulties of producing change and thus the importance of a powerful quiding coalition.
3. Lacking a vision - Without a sensible vision, a transformation effort can easily dissolve into a list of confusing and incompatible projects that can take the organization in the wrong direction or nowhere at all.
4. Not creating short-term wins - In a successful transformation, managers actively look for ways to obtain clear performance improvements, establish goals in the yearly planning system, achieve the objectives, and reward the people involved with recognition, promotions, and even money.
He has commented on mental habits of leadership that support lifelong learning
1 Risk taking - Willingness to push oneself out of comfort zones
2. Humble self reflection - Honest assessment of successes and failures, especially later.
3. Solicitation of opinion - Aggressive collection of information and ideas from others.
4. Careful listening - Patience to listen to others.
5. Openness to new ideas. Willingness to view life with an open mind
In general, I found that he gave more importance to clear vision, effective communication, Sense of urgency and risk taking attitude of leadership that achieves desired change in organisation. Now I shall try to implement his suggestions to see its impact on my business.
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