How can you use Kotter's 8-Step Change Model to improve organizational culture?

Using Kotter's model to change culture is like thinking carbon offsets solve climate change. Kotter reduced an adaptive and highly complex problem to sequential steps, thereby creating the illusion that change was something easily done. The model is premised on several mid 20th century behaviorist assumptions: change is linear, sequential, planned, and behavioral, and culture is a variable easily manipulated through inputs to achieve an output. If modern cognitive anthropology and related disciplines have taught us anything it's that culture is not an independent variable, and behavioral approaches have no answer for the emotional-psychological realities of people. And we wonder why the majority of culture transformations don't work...

Oh yes, let's reduce the options to either "die here in the flames now" or "die down there in the burning shark-infested waters later". How was this ever helpful to begin with?! It's such a relic of past. This nonsense flourished during the time of the Great Man (Savior) Leadership era and should have perished a long time ago. Let's do better than this, maybe focus on purpose and intent more than some doom scenario that loses its scare factor after a few weeks. People aren't idiots, give them a compelling reason and they will help to make great things happen, fear-mongering not required.

Organizational change takes time. Shouting about a burning platform will evoke fear, not speed. Save the sprints for episodic project change.

Since COVID-19 struck, time has sped up and everything is now urgent, so adding another layer of urgency to your change program no long makes sense. Further, it adds a layer of anxiety to the change that can create another dimension of resistance that prevents the project from being successful instead of helping it. Instead, show people that you are taking a structured approach to change, show them the timeline and explain to them what resources are being provided to help meet any short lead times. The last thing anyone needs is to think the business failed to plan and has created a crisis as a result.

There is a fine line between creating urgency or kicking people into panic mode. The 8 step model by Kotter is very dated, even to the point that Kotter himself is now talking about Survive and thrive as the way forward. Survive is operating with the idea that you create a burning platform, survival happens when you change. But this often has a stressing effect that puts people into a modus where they can't learn effectively. Considering that most changes require a lot of learning, this is counter intuitive. By focusing of thrive and giving people a positive learning space we can often achieve a lot more than originally expected.

Everyone within an organization experiences change differently. I would argue that the most successful change initiatives are bottom-up, not top-down. A guiding coalition, as described above, is a start, but it’s not enough. There has to be equity, too. We must factor the social aspects of change into this model to ensure that those affected most have an equitable voice in the process. An effective guiding coalition engages those with diverse lived experiences (rooted in race, ethnicity, gender identities, neurodiversity, socioeconomic, etc.). Unfortunately, those with such lived experiences do not often have influence or credibility within a system, and their voices are rarely heard. And that makes many change models ineffective.

Seeking alignment from across the board is the biggest challenge in implementing change initiative. This is strong when making cultural change. 1. Establish there is executive or c-suite buy-in about the cultural change initiative. Have the alignment documented 2. Use the document to initiative conversation with management level members. This is the most part as this group is responsible for implementing the change 3. Establish a clear, frequent communication channel to discuss, communicate, seek feedback about the cultural change from the employee When there is seamless alignment at all levels the execution of change becomes seamless.

No individual alone, no matter how smart he or she is can transform a company alone. You need a powerful guiding coalition. In his book "Leading the change" Kotter differentiates between leadership and management. Management helps companies to run smoothly, leadership creates the future. Companies are usually over-managed but under-lead. You need management and leadership skills in the guiding coalition. Based on Kotter members in your guiding coalition should be selected based on 4 characteristics: Position Power, Expertise, Credibility and Leadership. Building trust within your guiding coalition is critical. Egos and Snakes can destroy your chances for success.

This is simple to say and hard to do: "You should also ensure that the coalition shares a common vision and goals for the change, and that they work as a team" ... if this was simple 99% of organizations would be successful in achieving any change the desire. But actually DOING this requires persistence, resilience and a lot more communication and attention than most leaders are ready to give...

Sometimes when we pursue to build a powerful coalition we look for the positive people, what we call the early adopters. We forget then to look for the people who are "working against" the change. In my experience, it is really powerful to work with both of them, to mix them up. From a systemic perspective, what we call difficult people are only persons that are being loyal or protecting something that has been valuable before. We need to acknowledge all the behaviours that had built us as a company. In the context of the change, are we denying who we were, are we questionning how the things were done? In the end, because all we did (good and wrong), we are where we are. Including both allows us to include it.

If you can not explain your vision to the understanding of an eight year old child, then you got a poor vision. Here's one way to explain it: A company's strategic vision is like a big, exciting puzzle. They have a special picture in their minds of what they want to achieve, and they make a plan (like a treasure map) to get there. Every decision they make is a piece of the puzzle, and when they put all the pieces together, they can make their vision come true, just like you would find the treasure on your hunt!

I've seen many organisations not being able to connect the vision with the initiatives in a consistent, stringent way to declare coherent actions on a portfolio level. Therefore the communication is often flawed (even though the intent is present), because ... 1) the leading long-/mid-/short-term outcomes are not clear ... 2) the targeted outcomes are not connected to the actions ... 3) the actions are not perceived as contribution towards the operating model(s) or new business models ... preventing the fact-based measurements of strategic change and impact.

The Strategic vision is, no doubt key. People try to contribute the best they can but sometimes we do not provide them with all the information they need. I came across a book that explains it very clearly. "This is lean". Agile, lean is about having the whole picture in mind. Only having it, allows us for decentralization, for coordination. I would say that the key in the ecosystems we are creating is alignment and acknoledging where we are going. In fact, we are working more and more in tools that make it easier to share the whole picture as for example OKRs.

A vision goes beyond a mere proverb paired with a image from the web. It must be authentic and honest. People are tired of being spoon-fed marketing slogans. It's okay for a vision to acknowledge that the journey towards our goal will be rocky, but assure that it will eventually get much better if we embrace change. Arguably, the most substantial challenge is incorporating key individuals within the company into crafting the vision. This is vital because a vision permeates the entire project and isn't just displayed on a slide during the kickoff. People will only buy into the vision if it’s co-developed from the top-down.

Based on Kotter your vision need to aim for both the head and heart, should be desirable and feasible and you need to be able to explain it in less than 5 minutes, therefore it should be focused and clear. Your strategy is the first level of details to realize you vision.

Volunteers don't emerge out of thin air. It takes work to get them. You must: 1) Target volunteers 2) Explain the initiative 3) Gain buy-in 4) Assign responsibilities And volunteers may choose to drop their role at any point. So keep them motivated.

An important tactic is to identify and cultivate change champions who can serve as role models for others. These are people who are enthusiastic about the change, and who can help communicate the vision and motivate others to get on board.

In my experience, change work is led from the top (which is good) and each aspect of the model applies, but without enough consideration of what the concurrent bottoms-up approach ought to be. What do front-line workers really care about? What motivates their interest and effort? What generates their actions? These questions must be understood to lead a change of any sort - let alone 'enlist a volunteer army.' Too many leaders want their employees to fall-in-line, but that never cuts it in today's environment.

The volunteer army or the change agent can become a crucial element of the entire change management approach. They not only become communicators but also act as the 'eyes and ears' closer to the ground, conveying back the reality.

I see the "Volunteer Army" and the "Change Agent" being very different from each other. You can nominate Change Agents from the management position. They might be a limited number of people, mandated and professionally organized resources helping the learning of new tools or processes. As resources, they might be both inspired and just acting dutifully, active and non-active. The Volunteer Army is different. That can be an ever growing group of active people from any role. Volunteers, who are inspired to contribute, to think about solutions and make the change happen. And make miracles possible.

In order to remove barriers, you need to understand what the barriers are in the first place. Obvious? Yes. Always done? No. Is it fear? Overwhelm? Is it lack of training or system confidence? Is it a surprise or a well communicated roll out?

I link remove barriers with psicological safety and trust. From a systemic point of view, removing barriers is connected to listening and accepting we've done our best to get to where we are. Sometimes in the process of change we deny who we are, who we've been. This denial brings a lot of reluctancies and resistances. Listening and making it possible for the people to talk is a key point to acknowledge who we are and where we're going.

This step is essential and yet often overlooked. Clearing the obstacles requires a deep understanding of the company. The leadership coalition, along with the project team, needs to ponder these considerations. I like to pose the following question in this context: What impact does the change have on our culture, organization, technology, and interpersonal relationships? The answers help to identify barriers.

It is common in organizations to look for excellence. We still design huge projects where we want everything. What agile has taght us is to look for smaller goals to be able to start. In this context, I've used little things to awake new behaviours. If we need to awake action, can we identify something not big that has an impact to start doing things in an other manner. I used to work in a company were decisions were mainly taken top down. I decided we needed a company chair and a team was to decide which one. After 8 months, a decision had not been taken. I chose it in the end but there were no complains because they were not "able" to take the decision. Sometimes, we all want to agree on everything and this is not possible.

Especially in longer projects, this step is essential, serving to keep people motivated and hungry for more. This step must be adeptly combined with efficient project marketing and stakeholder management. If I’m not in touch with my stakeholders, I won’t know how great all the things are that we've changed so far. Moreover, the feedback from my stakeholders underscores the authenticity of my marketing.

It is important to plan for short-term wins, without scarifying the future. There is an important difference between short-terms wins and "short cuts" and they should not be confused. Oftentimes leaders takes short cuts which significantly impact future ability to deliver to demonstrate results on a short notice. Short-term wins need to be visible and unambiguous and clearly related to the change effort. Without short-term wins urgency goes down.

Crucial, as long-haul projects tend to doze off in the middle, and both project members and stakeholders sometimes need a reminder that there even is a project. Solid project marketing is a must here, alongside tools from the "how-to-motivate" kit. Unfortunately, team building often only takes place at the start of a project, rarely in the midst of it where it's truly needed.

Institutionalizing change is a matter of creating change management awareness and creating active change agents across the organization who remain active beyond a scheduled change project

Organizational change may impact project delivery, but each process and system change will need a separate project and impact analysis. If a culture successfully shifts to becoming more open to customer feedback you still need to work out how that looks in each area. It's not automatic.

Maybe don't use a model that even the creator has admitted (somewhere in 2012) is no longer suited to the world we live in today, let alone match how we understand culture and change today. The continiuous (and lazy) need for oversimplification to get to the quick fix faster has never worked and never will, not in 5, 6 or 8 steps. You have to do the work and the work takes time. If you're looking for a framework, look at Quinn and Cameron or Denison if you need something you can start with today. And don't start with "it still has it's uses", it's like sayig that using a 1994 map of Amsterdam you still had while you're trying to navigate the streets of 2023 Tokyo, it only worked in that context and the context changed a while ago.

I believe the most important aspect of culture is leadership. Having leaders who are transparent and generate first, a culture of trust, is the key first step to improving culture.

Having implemented the Kotter model several times successfully in global enterprises, especially those operating in high risk environments, I can share that it works well and it creates lasting results, in some cases 18+ years and counting. Two best practices are relevant: 1. Leaders and managers at all levels in the chain of command must accomplish their objectives. Change leadership and change management are vastly different bodies of work, must be implemented well, and simultaneously. 2. Organizations should implement this model as part of their normal daily strategic and operational activities. Change is constant, and leading change well is a differentiator. Companies who don't evolve will regress.

I think the whole problem setting and the tool therein proposed is totally off, plain nonsense. First, what are we trying to do... to improve culture??? Well - that does not mean anything really.. it just sounds silly, for me it is like saying we have as objective to "improve the weather". Second, why start with the assumption that Kotter is the solution here... that is like asking how should one best use a hammer and nails to clean a dirty window.

The 8 Steps of Successful Change methodology is a broad change methodology, not only applicable to an intended cultural (and cultural change only) change. It is more about an overall business change, where the change of the internal and employee culture might be part of the scope and desired by management particularly. We are living in a society now where misinformation and fake news has become a daily reality for everybody. Therefore skepticism and lacking trust of any communication of any authority is everywhere. To make the change successful, on really has to take unseen measures in transparency and honesty to win the hearts of the Volunteering Army. Show what you need to change, tell how to do it, and walk the talk yourself first.