The 8-Stage Process of Creating Major Change — Foundation for Development of a Growth Vision Strategy

In our article “Change as a Growth Imperative,” we refer to the work of John Kotter, world-renowned expert on leadership at the Harvard Business School. Below we review his eight steps for creating major change:

1. Establishing a Sense of Urgency
   • Examining the marketing and competitive realities
   • Identifying and discussing crises, potential crises, and opportunities
2. Creating the Guiding Coalition
   • Forming a group with enough power to lead the change
   • Getting the group to work like a team
3. Developing a Vision and Strategy
   • Creating a vision to direct the change effort
   • Developing strategies for achieving the vision
4. Communicating the Change Vision
   • Using every possible vehicle to communicate the new vision/strategies and expectations for implementation
   • Having the guiding coalition “role model” the behavior expected of employees
5. Empowering Broad-Based Action
   • Getting rid of obstacles
   • Changing system or structures that undermine the change vision
   • Encouraging risk-taking and non-traditional ideas, activities, actions
6. Generating Short-Term Wins
   • Planning for performance improvements or “wins” and creating those wins
   • Visibly recognizing and rewarding people who made the wins possible
7. Consolidating Gains and Producing More Change
   • Taking responsibility for changing the systems, structures and policies that don’t work and don’t support the strategy and change vision
   • Hiring, promoting and developing those people who can implement the change
   • Reinvigorating the process with new projects, themes, and change agents
8. Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture
   • Creating better performance through customer-centric and productivity-oriented behavior, more and better leadership, and more effective management
   • Articulating the connections between new behaviors and organizational success
   • Developing the means to insure leadership development and succession

 *Adapted from Leading Change by John P. Kotter, Professor of Leadership at the Harvard Business School, published by Harvard Business School Press, 1996