As a follow up to last week’s post about leadership and culture, I’ll point to yet another article in this month’s HBR (this month’s issue is certainly a keeper!). It’s actually a “best of” article that was originally published in 1995 by John Kotter on “why transformation efforts fail.” It was previewing his book, Leading Change.
He lists eight major errors that leaders make when trying to transform or renew an organization.
- Not establishing a great enough sense of urgency
- Not creating a powerful enough guiding coalition
- Lacking a vision
- Uncercommunicating the vision by a factor of ten
- Not removing obstacles to the new vision
- Not systematically planning for and creating short-term wins
- Declaring victory too soon, and
- Not anchoring changes in the corporation’s culture.
Kotter has established himself as a thought leader regarding organizational change, so much of this should sound familiar. But that last one caught my attention (and links to last week’s post). It’s not enough to identify behaviors you want changed. They need to become rooted in “social norms and shared values.” Kotter points out that one mistake companies make is related to leadership development—they don’t pay attention to whether or not the people they promote into leadership really “personify” the new approach.