You’re working hard to get your team to embrace change. You’ve laid out the vision and strategy, communicated it clearly, empowered your employees for broad-based action, used a variety of techniques to generate short-term wins, and anchored new approaches in the culture. But you still have some big challenges ahead if you want lasting change. It takes time for everyone to fully understand what’s at stake and adjust their behaviors accordingly. In order to truly move from resistance to real commitment on the part of employees so they can make these changes permanent—and keep them safe from backsliding into old habits—you need an approach that will help people deal with this transition period successfully.
The Kotter 8 Steps are a model for change.
They can be used in any organization, at any level of complexity. With these steps, you can achieve higher levels of performance and productivity, communicate better with your stakeholders and employees, create a culture of innovation that drives sustainable growth and profitability – even in a recession!
The goal is not to do away with change management altogether but to make it more effective through the use of a clear process, which will help people understand what they need to do when implementing an organizational change program. After all, who wants to follow something if they don’t know why or how it works? That’s where this model comes in handy as it provides clarity on what everyone needs to do before implementing any new initiative within their company’s structure; providing them with an understanding of how things work so they can lead themselves through this process rather than having someone else tell them what needs doing at every step along the way (which doesn’t always work).
Create a sense of urgency
When you’re trying to create a sense of urgency, it’s important to first establish what the problem is.
- Why is change important?
- What are the consequences of not changing?
- What will happen if we don’t change our behavior and make this improvement?
Then, you have to show that there’s a better way. Show how much better things could be with this new approach or idea. And finally, let people know what they stand to gain by changing their behavior or making these improvements. This will help them understand why they should care about your idea and give it more weight in their minds when deciding whether or not they should adopt it.
Form a powerful guiding coalition
A guiding coalition is a group of people who have the power to change, and want to change. They are willing to make a change happen, and they’re committed to seeing it through. These kind of people look for ways to build on their strengths and improve upon their weaknesses, and they work together towards a common goal. A guiding coalition brings about stability for an organization because it gives direction and confidence in the form of an inside-out approach: everyone has access to resources that help them get things done more efficiently than ever before.
A good example of this is when Steve Jobs took over Apple Computer Company after being fired by John Sculley in 1985—the company had been in bad shape financially since its founding back in 1976 due largely due its lackadaisical attitude towards innovation (or lack thereof). Jobs’ first step was forming what would later become known as “The NeXT Generation,” which included members like Bill Gates who contributed $150 million dollars worth of stock towards buying out NeXT Incorporated so that Apple could re-enter into hardware manufacturing with products like Power Mac G4 Cube computers or iMac computers with built-in CD-ROM drives; this gave Apple back some much needed credibility among consumers who had started questioning whether or not anyone cared anymore about creating innovative technology such as smartphones or tablets.”
Develop a vision and strategy
In order to get your team on board with the change, you will need to communicate your vision and strategy. A vision can be defined as a strong, shared belief in what you want to achieve. It also requires a specific set of goals that will help you get there. As Kotter explains it:
- A vision is a mental picture of how things could be or would look if they were transformed into something new.*
- It is the ultimate destination for the organization.*
The strategy section will outline how you plan on achieving this goal in detail; it includes who needs to be involved and when they need to know what they’re doing.
Communicate the change vision
Communicate the change vision. This step in Kotter’s 8-step model is to communicate your vision for an organization, product or service. Communicating a clear and compelling vision provides clarity and direction for everyone involved, including employees at all levels. This is important because it allows individuals to understand how their role relates to the overall mission of the company and how they can contribute in achieving that mission.
Making sure that everyone understands the purpose behind a given project or initiative is essential for motivating people to work toward its success. In order to encourage this type of understanding among staff members, you’ll need multiple channels for communicating information about your goals: email newsletters; employee meetings; emails sent directly from supervisors explaining why certain projects are being undertaken; town halls where managers answer questions about recent changes; webinars outlining what’s expected from each person as part of their job description (or other formalized procedures); etc.
Empower employees for broad-based action
You should now empower your employees and followers to inspire and make the change. The employees will be empowered to make decisions and address issues as they arise. They should be given access to the information they need in order to make those decisions, as well as a clear understanding of what is expected of them and how they will be rewarded for their efforts. This will help keep your employees focused on the task at hand and make sure that they feel included in the change. Empowering employees for broad-based action also means giving them access to resources that will help them succeed in their new roles. This could include training sessions, webinars and more formalized procedures like company policies and handbooks.
Generate short-term wins
The most important thing to remember is that you need to start small.
The first step in any change process should be to identify a few specific, achievable goals, and then concentrate on making them happen. These are called “quick hits” or “small wins.” Getting these quick wins under your belt quickly creates a sense of momentum in your organization that can keep things moving forward even when progress is slow or stalled.
Even more importantly, small wins create the foundation for building employee engagement—a key aspect of successful change management. When employees feel engaged with their work and have confidence in their company’s future, they’ll be much more likely to support the changes being introduced.
You can create change and the relevant culture by engaging each of the following:-
Enable Action By Removing Barriers
There are many barriers to change, ranging from logistical issues such as budget constraints and lack of resources to organizational dynamics like silos and turf wars. One of the most common barriers is “analysis paralysis”—the tendency for people to over-think things rather than just do them. This can happen when there’s too much information available or when multiple stakeholders have competing agendas.
Consolidate improvements and produce more change
The last step in the Kotter Model is to consolidate improvements and produce more change. In this step, it’s important to acknowledge and reward your team members for their work, as well as share successes with others who may benefit from the project’s success.
This final step also involves creating a new plan for future changes that can push your organization towards its long-term goals. If you’ve followed all eight steps of this model successfully, you should be able to see how far along you are in reaching those goals!
