John Kotter: Where's the Urgency?
John Kotter is considered one of the great management gurus on the subject of organizational change, penning such business best sellers as The Heart of Change and Leading Change.
Welcome back Kotter, a Harvard Business School professor emeritus, with his book A Sense of Urgency. His message: To achieve significant corporate transformation, all employees need a hyper-awareness of the failings in the present situation, and be ready with an emotional commitment to fix it.
Why is urgency important? In an excellent video interview, Kotter explains to Harvard Business Publishing editor Paul Michelman:
"The rate of change is going up. Everyone says that, but very few people believe it. If you look at the data, though, on everything from number of patents filed, M&A activity, all kinds of global activity, it's going up like that. It's not even linear. The faster the world moves the more you have to change."Fire In The Belly
How do you know when your employees lack the energy and enthusiasm required to move management mountains? From the book Harvard Business Publishing extracts these lagging behaviors:
- Managers over-rely on consultants to analyze the business and recommend changes.
- Key people aren't participating in the task force charged with executing the initiative.
- Task-force members procrastinate in setting up their meetings.
- Task-force discussions only generate complaints about the company's situation, not active decisions.
- Task-force members focus more on office politics and finger-pointing than on what's causing the company's problems.