Leading Change, With a New Preface by the Author

What happens when an organization needs to change (if it hopes to be successful in the future) but hasn't put much thought into what the process of change itself looks like? More than likely: failure. John Kotter outlines here a critical difference between change efforts that have been successful, compared to change efforts that have failed. Drawing on decades' worth of experience consulting with firms and coaching leaders, and attentive to ever-increasing globalization of markets and competition, Kotter offers an eight-stage change process. The eight stages are: 1. Establishing a sense of urgency 2. Creating the guiding coalition 3. Developing a vision and strategy 4. Communicating the change vision 5. Empowering broad-based action 6. Generating short-term wins 7. Consolidating gains and producing more change 8. Anchoring new approaches in the culture Successful change, Kotter argues, "is 70 to 90 percent leadership and only 10 to 30 percent management. Yet for historical reasons, many organizations today don't have much leadership." Kotter articulates what effective leadership -- not management -- actually looks like. Kotter provides a helpful, clear, and concise chapter devoted to each of the eight stages. He articulates precisely what is needed at each critical moment in the transformation process. He provides numerous examples of what happens when any stage is ignored (basically, he suggests that to ignore any of the eight stages will likely lead to failure). Specific guidance and steps are offered at every point along the way. A useful summary of the whole process is provided on page 21. The final couple chapters provide a glimpse into the organizations and leaders of the future. "The rate of change in the business world is not going to slow down anytime soon. . . . The typical twentieth-century organization has not operated well in a rapidly changing environment. . . . If environmental continues to increase, as most people now predict, the standard organization of the twentieth century will likely become a dinosaur." The winning enterprise of the twenty-first century will have a persistent sense of urgency, teamwork at the top, people who can create and communicate vision, broad-based empowerment, delegated management for excellent short-term performance, no unnecessary interdependence, and an adaptive corporate culture. Leaders of the future are going to be people with high standards and a strong willingness to learn. Arguing that leadership traits can be learned, Kotter provides examples of people he has known over an extended period of time who once upon a time showed little promise, but who developed superlative leadership skills and have become highly effective, successful, influential leaders. Just as organizations need to continue to continue to change and grow, so too will organizations' future leaders. Overall, this is a highly readable, useful book. It is obviously useful for leaders in the corporate world. I would argue that it is also highly useful for leaders in ANY organization that is trying to thrive in the twenty-first century. I wish I had read it years ago!

This book came in great condition! Also it is a very informative and engaging read about the need to change in business organizations. I would recommend this book if you are interested in change management and how to lead a change initiative at your job.

Leading Change from Kotter is one of the classics on modern change management and it is a pretty good book. Though, definitively not perfect and it does, in my opinion, have a bit a 'traditional management' taste to it. But, well, as that is probably practices in the majority of the companies, I can't blame this book for it. Leading change is fairly short, a bit less than 200 pages. It consists of 3 different parts: 1) The change problem and its solution (or it could be called "overview"), 2) The eight-stage process, 3) Implication for the twenty-first century. The first part consists of 2 small chapters. The first cover why organizations fail with their change efforts and it provides eight mistakes (which is basically the reverse of his later proposal). In the second chapter, Kotter introduces his 8-step change process for managing change in an organization. The eight steps are also the eight chapters of part 2. They are: - Establish a Sense of Urgency - Creating a Guiding Coalition - Developer 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. Each of the chapters in Part 2 describe the change step, why it is needed and give some advise and stories about the change. The third and last chapter speculated about the future and how change is becoming more and more important. All in all, the book was actually pretty good (better than I had expected, as I was familiar with the basic content already). It is well-written and in quite a convincing way. I did get uncomfortable at times, these were mainly about 3 assumptions that I felt throughout the book. 1) The enormous focus on 'leadership' which, I believe, somewhat misses the point of building an environment in which all people flourish (and yes, you might say the leader does it, but why not all people? Isn't it just caring?). 2) A lot of focus on "top-down" change rather than grass-roots change and with it a lot of focus on traditional management roles, and 3) A lot of focus on BIG change efforts over many small ones (many small ones is more a Kaizen spirit). It felt in line with the "big project" and "re-engineering" thinking rather than the view of gradual change. Anyways, all three of these are to be expected and as the book has a clear focus/audience, it doesn't matter too much. Thus, a good book on traditional change management and worst reading from that perspective. It wasn't an *aha* book for me, it was just good. For that reason, I'll stick with 4 stars. Pretty good.

In Leading Change, John P. Kotter introduces an eight step process for change that focuses not on management but on leadership. He charges leaders to establish a sense of Urgency, Create a guiding Coalition, Develop a Vision and Strategy, Communicate the change Vision, Empowers Employees for Broad-Based Action, Generate Short Term Wins, Consolidate Gains, and Anchor New Approaches in the Culture. Kotter casts a vision for both organizations and leaders of the future that endeavors to negate the effects of over-management and to lessen the impact under-leadership. Kotter proposes that leadership be driven down into the lower levels of an organization through adoption of a philosophy of lifelong learning at both the individual and organizational levels. This philosophy is intended to create leaders who are continually growing and improving themselves and their organizations. I found Kotter's approach to be both practical and well reasoned. His eight steps are well grounded and realistic. This is a well written book that has plenty of hands on advice that can be implemented immediately. This will remain a reference for leadership versus management and will undoubtedly become well dog-eared in the coming years. I recommend you read Leading Change by John P. Kotter. His down to earth style helped make this an easy read and you and your organization will benefit from his advice.

This book reads as a manual for change projects, while inspiring at the same time. I very much like the definition of leadership vs management. This helps me with a lot of observations on what goes well or wrong

Trata dos princípios do change management como ninguém! Inspiração para a verdadeira transformação dos negócios

le livre de john Kotter présente une méthode de gestion du changement qui a fait legion pendant de nombreuses années. Il montre aussi pourquoi les projets de gestion du changement échouent et comment ces problèmes peuvent être évités. Le titre introduit dja - la notion de leadership - lead - et une question qui suivra sera quel leadership pour le contexte actuel sachant que ce livre a été ecrit il y a plus de vingt ans Il est aussi important de repositionner le contenu dans un contexte de mondialisation. Je trouve ce livre trés utile.

This book has become something of a classic among management books. Kotter starts by listing eight reasons why major organisational change initiatives fail. He then goes on to give his eight point plan for leading change. The process he recommends is: 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 the New Approahces in the Corporate Culture He clearly explains the why and how for each point and stresses the importance of following this procedure in sequence and of not omitting any steps. Both leadership and management is needed in the process and he shows their different roles. The book is easy to read and the arguments are cogent. There are many examples and stories - though no proper case studies. Overall it is a highly valuable guide to the tough challenge of leading large-scale change.

A fantastic structured look at change and transforming an organisation. The way Kotter writes it all appears common sense. But for those of us in Change roles we know that it I'd not that easy. A great read and an interesting insight that although this nook was written a few years ago today, the issues have not changed.