It is December 29, 2005 and I have just completed the book The Heart of Change co-authored by John P. Kotter. (he is the author of Leading change) In October 2001 Business Week magazine rated Kotter as the #1 “leadership-guru” in America based on a survey they conducted of 504 enterprises. Dan S. Cohen is also co-author of this project. Dan Cohen is a Prinicipal with Deloitte Consulting where he focuses his consulting activities on large scale organizational transformation.
This book is a great follow-up to Leading Change. The secondary title is Real Life Stories of how People Change Their Organizations. It details the eight steps to real change in a company or organization.
Step 1 is Increase Urgency
Step 2 is Build the Guiding Team
Step 3 is Get the Vision Right
Step 4 is Communicate for Buy-In
Step 5 is Empower Action
Step 6 Create Short-Term Wins
Step 7 is Don’t Let Up
Step 8 is Make Change Stick
There are some several stories that impact each step. I will highlight one from each step.
In Step 1 The Videotaping of an Angry Customer – details how a companies employees couldn’t understand a specific customers problems with their product. So an executive with the company videotaped a customer trying to work with the product and it demonstrated his frustration. It changed the companies attitude toward the customer and changed them into a more customer focused organization.
In Step 2 General Mollo and I Were Floating In The Water – details how a team were on an outing in team building. General Mollo and Roland de Vries were from separate parts of the organization. Their boat capsized and they were floating in the water. General Mollo declares “I can’t swim” and de Vries says it is o.k. I am a strong swimmer. They shared personal stories about Vietnam and their families for 30 minutes until they were rescued. That is team building in the truest sense.
In Step 3 The Plane Will Not Move – details how in the construction of airplanes. Airplanes will move through multiple sections of a manufacturing hangar to be assembled. The standard operating procedure is that if a part was not available at section A, but all was completed they would send the plane to section B and disassemble the plane at the conclusion and put in the part from section A and put back. A time-consuming effort, to say the least. A new CEO comes in and announces The Plane Will Not Move. If a part isn’t available the plane will sit. It put accountability on everyone from purchasing to ensure the parts are ordered and on time to the assemblers to ensure they are ready to function. It put accountability on everyone from purchasing to ensure the parts are ordered and on time to the assemblers to ensure they are ready to perform their function when needed.
In Step 4 The Screen Saver – details how a company had a shared vision, everyone in the company knew the vision but the company was not communicating the shared vision. Screen Savers on the employees work stations were varied some had personal pictures, downloaded images etc. One morning all the employees turn on their computers and their on the machines was the shared vision as their screen savers. It got the employees talking, “when I turned on my work station this morning” “Oh did you get one of those new screen savers, too” it effectively communicated the shared vision “We will be #1 in the U.K. market by 2001”
In Step 5 I survived, So, You Can Too – Ron a former employee of Lexmark hauls all 200 employees into a meeting to talk with them about the change that occurred at Lexmark and how he changed and how the company changed for the better and it allowed everyone else to see Ron, survived and we will too.
In Step 6 The Senator Owned A Trucking Company – it detailed how a State Senator owned a trucking company and when he was asked he produced 15 forms that he had to fill out and when the organization got to work they reduced the paperwork to 1 form.
In Step 7 The Merchant of Fear – A company generates a skit using different characters and videotapes the skits and then shows the videotape to the company executives. It generated discussions of “is that me?” and months later “you are beginning to sound like the merchant of fear”
In Step 8 The Boss Went to Switzerland – details how a lean operating executive was sent to the company headquarters for five years in Switzerland, after three years he had to return due to plummeting numbers. When he returned he found a new layer of management. The executive put in his place did not share his vision of a lean operating machine.
I have already encouraged you to read Leading Change and this is a must read as well. If you are involved in companies or organizations that must change these books are exceptional. At the conclusion it details how anyone in an organization or company can lead change. My company has changed many times, always for the better by people that do not refer to themselves as “change agents or change leaders”
In my experience outside the corporate world beware of persons that refer to themselves as “change agents” because when you look at their organization within 3-5 years there is little to no change. The change that has occurred, has happened in spite of them. The self-proclaimed “change agent” is a modern day snake oil salesmen.
