Strategic Transformation: Kotter's 8 with a Killer Q

Change is bloody difficult. If you’re trying to drive lasting transformation without a framework, you’re not giving your company or yourself the best chance of success. Kotter's 8 steps can work well - I've given it my own take after meeting with lots of customers over the past few years and added a killer question for each of the 8 steps:

Step 1. Establish a sense of urgency

Disrupt or be disrupted. Build messaging that speaks to the heads and hearts of all. The window of opportunity may be short, it may close tomorrow. Articulate why this must be seized now and clarify where energy needs to be focussed. Last month, I spoke at a CIO dinner and asked if the rate of change had ever been quicker; general consensus suggested that it had not. Therefore, these windows appear and disappear in ever-shorter moments. The most successful companies can capitalise on these faster than their rivals.

The Killer Question: Will this ignite the hearts and minds of the people?

Step 2. Form a powerful coalition

Typical guidance here is to select people from different orgs and functions to form your coalition, but I suggest a tweak. Your org is not just full of horsepower. You will have high and low context people, neurodiverse people, hungry people, numbers people, people people. Look beyond the usual suspects and think in terms of eyes, brains and hands who can really kick this into gear. If you fail to do this, you’ll just be creating another traditional hierarchical effort which is more likely to fail.?

The Killer Question: How will I bind this group together?

Step 3. Form a Strategic Vision and Initiatives?

I’ve seen this approach with just data before, and it doesn’t work. You have got to create a vision that hits people in the feels. Allow it to be the thing that translates their effort into meaning for them. Make sure it advances the opportunity that this window has created and that it underlines that amazing things are possible. It should motivate, align and clarify whilst also being simple, desirable and flexible. Underpinning your vision is a strategy to get to each transition state.

The Killer Question: Can I tell how the future will differ from today?

Step 4. Communicate the vision

It’s more than just communication here - it’s about getting buy in. Kotter talks about “Deeds speak volumes”. I love this. Use that as your underpinning guide. There is so much communication, so much data around in an organisation - so whenever we communicate, we do it with relevance, honesty and openness. Ensure you listen to feedback, and encourage 2-way comms. Make the big messages very, very visible through any medium you can. Look for tooling that can connect doers to thinkers. Here, I like the concept of Surround Sound.

The Killer Question: Do all stakeholders have permission to step up and act?

Step 5. Empower others to act on the vision

My favourite. You’ll undoubtedly have some in the team who are up for the challenge and dislike the status quo. Empower them in any way you can. Help remove obstacles. Get them trained. Confront nay-sayers. Persuade reluctant bosses, or escalate if necessary.

The Killer Question: Have I recognised enough effort so far?

Step 6. Create short-term wins

Choose some small packages of work that will create instant results. Try and tie them to user pain and keep them cheap. Jump on these early victories and go big with the announcements. Reward those who deliver.

The Killer Question: Do I have enough unambiguous, quantifiable wins to confidently articulate success?

Step 7. Sustain Acceleration

Keep the foot down. Develop people as they deliver. Don’t go back to the way things were done. Look for yet more unnecessary processes (extra points for inter-departmental nonsense) and throw them in the bin. Look for more opportunities and nail them.

Killer Question: Have the urgency levels dropped?

Step 8. Institute change in the organization's culture

You’ve done so much already, now anchor all of your good work. Create best practice, retrain the workforce. A recent Harvard course I completed suggests culture is the resulting conditions of new processes and profit formula. Use big stonking stories about the new org you have created to underline the culture. Identify those who really stand out by aligning to the culture are onboard; give them visible and influential roles.

The Killer Question: Have I connected the dots between new behaviours and better performance?

So there we go. Thoughts? Questions?