How Change Is Changing

Mike McLaughlin, who publishes the well-respected Management Consulting News website, recently interviewed change-guru John Kotter.

In Kotter's newest book "Our Iceberg Is Melting" he finds:

• The good news is that most organizations have gotten better at managing and guiding change. The bad news is that the world is changing faster than organizations are getting better at it, and the gap may be growing.
• Many organizations just can’t keep up with the speed of change.
• Within the timeframe most of us must deal with, that is, one to ten or fifteen years, the rate of change is just going up and up.

Kotter's recommendations:

• We need to get better at all of the eight steps that I identified for successful change:

1. they must create a sense of urgency;
2. build guiding teams;
3. get the vision right;
4. communicate for buy-in;
5. empower action;
6. produce short-term wins;
7. never let up;
8. and make change stick.

BOTTOMLINE: You can find out more about Professor Kotter at www.johnkotter.com