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Writer's pictureTim Ellis

Change Management Series – Kotter’s 8 steps. Make them work for you!



Step 2 ‘Creating a guiding coalition’ John Kotter defined Step 2 of his Change Model as ‘Creating a guiding coalition’ or in other words establishing a group of people who will work together with enough power to lead the change. The reasons for this are clear, implementing major change is never easy, there will always be resistance to change for many reasons, too many to discuss here. Creating a multi-disciplined team from across the organisation and at different levels, with the power to influence, can massively increase your chances of success when it comes to change initiatives. The message is clear, plan ahead, there will always be some resistance to change. The added benefits of such teams is that you will be less impacted by departmental or functional specific agendas. However, it is critical that senior managers in the business support those appointed to this team to ensure they have the time and resources to carry out their roles. A common mistake is to pick the ‘usual suspects’ who are already very busy and with limited

capacity to take on more. Few businesses will have the luxury of freeing up people full time, so it’s essential that sponsoring managers discuss any reprioritising of workload so that the ‘guiding coalition’ can give the appropriate level of commitment to the task in hand. Why is this so important? Having explained the reasons why the changes are needed, the support team needs to maintain the momentum of the change, as the details of what the change is and the next steps in the process are discussed with employees and their

representatives. Having a strong support group, both spreads the workload and shows that the business is serious about the change, with the core team acting with ‘one voice’ to deliver consistent messaging. If you fail to invest in this team, the pace of change will inevitably slow down and inconsistencies will emerge which will undermine the credibility of the change proposal, undoubtedly impacting timeframes and costs. In addition to this ‘guiding coalition’, successful projects are managed through effective project governance. Best practice programme management would suggest that project sponsorship is explicitly allocated to a senior manager and that leadership roles are created for key workstreams and functions. A good governance process will ensure that a consistent approach is applied to the details of the change project, the success criteria that need to be met, including timescales and responsibilities for delivery. To be truly effective, the governance process must also include a clear link to the employee representatives in the organisation, providing clear channels of communication and feedback. This approach was taken by one of my clients managing a complex engineering in-sourcing and restructure. By establishing a cross functional team, ‘the guiding coalition’, and establishing a governance structure that included the employee representatives, the change programme was successfully implemented on time with full benefits delivery. If you’d like to discuss this article with me in more detail or a specific issue in your business, contact me via my website, www.hr-changeconsultancy.com or email me tim.ellis@hr-changeconsultancy.com John Kotter is a Harvard Business School professor and world-renowned change expert. Launched in 1996, his 8-Step Change Model from his book, “Leading Change” remains one of the most popular and well-established change approaches.


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