Change is necessary for any organization to win in both the present and future life. The book ‘Leading change’ has established reasons why change can fail in organizations. John Kotter acknowledges mistakes made in organizations including under-communication made by managers or sending inconsistent messages that ultimately leads to stalled transformation. Therefore, change in any organization should purpose to strive towards a great common vision.
Themes
Strategy
The organization should develop the change vision, ensuring that the vision is clear, precise and consistently communicated. Well-chosen words can make a message memorable, and such a vision can impact greatly on an organization. This is the challenging step that requires an intellectual strategy consultant to ensure that the established vision is well adapted. While strategizing, a governance model should be in place, and an assessment impact should be done, assess readiness. For example, ‘we are going to be making make fewer Fiats and more Mercedes.’ In this case, if employees tend to value Fiats more than Mercedes, then this communication would fail.
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Leadership
Being a leader and being a manager are two different terms. For those trained to be managers, communicating a vision can particularly seem difficult. Managers deal with immediate bosses, and they are comfortable with routine activities/communication. ‘Leadership boils down to establishing a direction for a group of people, lining them up in that direction with commitment and energizing them to overcome inevitable obstacles along the way’ (Kotter,2012). A leader should be able to communicate precisely and understand perceptions. The goal in communicating the change vision is to simplify the complex message. Leadership means walking the talk by being an example; leaders should live the change consistently. This will deflect resistance and increase the credibility of the perceived change. As a leader, interaction with stakeholders (employees) is key using group meetings, memos or one-on-one talks to communicate the vision effectively. A leader should assess awareness, competence, and engagement by communicating and listening to feedback from your employees. This will help the CEO deal with inconsistencies noted during the communication process and make amendments.
Culture
Successful cases of change include repetitive communication to enable employees to grasp the importance of the vision. For this change to be common; managers, supervisors, executives, and employees need to look at their daily activities through the lens of the new vision. This means that it has to be a cultured habit to be adopted by all. Therefore, this vision needs a plan especially geared towards visual communication that will ensure the vision becomes a culture in that organization.
Leadership characteristics
Kotter vividly distinguishes between managing and leading. A leader has the following characteristics:
A director
A leader should be able to establish/develop a vision of the organization that will guide the present and future. This is in addition to strategies for dealing with changes needed to achieve the proposed vision.
Effective communicator
A great leader should be able to communicate the direction of employees, to create coalitions in a position to understand and commit to the vision. This will entail using metaphors, analogies, and examples to paint the picture of this vision in people’s minds; the vision should be simple as well. Similarly, interact with employees, accepting their feedback during multiple forums to determine any inconsistencies. Effective change will require people to understand the change. Therefore, the leader should communicate by repeating the vision sometimes.
A motivator
A leader should keep people moving in the right direction by inspiring his subordinates by leading by example. Nothing undermines communication of a change vision more than behavior on the part of key players that are inconsistent with the vision.
Organizational Impact
John Kotter has developed the 8-step process for leading change in organizations. Organizational impact can be realized by establishing a sense of urgency that will help others see the need for change and take action. The second step is creating a guiding coalition; assembling a group with enough influence to lead the change initiative, ensuring credibility, expertise and fostering leadership. The third step is developing a change vision; this gives a sense of direction for the organization, clarifying the future from the past. Fourth is communicating the vision ensuring as many people as possible understand and most importantly accept the vision. The fifth step is empowering broad-based action by clearing barriers and inconsistencies that may hinder the success of the vision. The sixth step is generating short-term wins; planning for achievements that are visible and are targeted towards the success of the vision. The seventh step is never letting up; this is increasing credibility to change systems to fit the proposed vision. Finally, the organizational impact can be realized by incorporating changes in the culture, possible by introducing new approaches and changes in the culture.
Student opinion and position
In my opinion, a memo or several speeches announcing change is not enough to change the culture of an organization. Most companies under communicate their vision; therefore, the best way of communicating is by showing them how, leading by example. This will speak much more and drastically influence your subordinates to follow suit.
Kouzes and Posner
Kouzes and Posner argue that no form of leadership can implement change without barriers/obstacles. Change meets various barriers; it can be fear of change, the attitude of resistance from staff/employees, lack of resources/financial support. Therefore, change needs continuous perseverance to implement.
Application and integration
“ John Kotter’s research reveals an average employee receives roughly 2,300,000 words in three months in their organization. Out of this, only 13, 400 words communicate vision; this is half of one percent the communication market center” (Kotter, 2012).
Reference
Kotter, J. P. (2012). Leading change. Harvard business press.
