Choose an organization that has experienced major change. Arrange to interview two managers who were involved in implementing this change. Using John Kotter’s guide to corporate transformation, find out how the changes were managed. For each of the following steps, find out what was involved, how was it done, and how well it worked:
1. Establish a sense of urgency.
2. Form a guiding coalition.
3.Create a vision.
4.Communicate the vision.
5. Empower people to act on the vision.
6.Create ‘short-term wins’.
7.Consolidate improvements to produce further change.
8. Embed new approaches in the organization’s culture.
Finally, ask your managers for their assessment of these changes. Once you have discovered how the changes were managed, rate the organization on a 1 to 10 scale for each heading (1 = very poor; 10 = very good). A total score of 8 suggests disaster; a total score of 80 implies success. To what extent is your assessment consistent with that of the managers who you interviewed?
Now develop an action plan that answers the following questions:
1. Based on your analysis, what should management have done differently in implementing these changes?
2. What, if anything, should management do now in order to repair any damage that
may have been done during the implementation of these changes?
3. What should management do differently the next time when implementing organizational change?
One final question: how useful was Kotter’s model as a basis for assessing this organization’s changes? How would you improve this model?