John P. Kotter on What Leaders Really Do John P. Kotter Harvard Business Review, Cambridge (1999) Leaders figure out what to do in spite of uncertainty and get things done through people over whom they have little direct control. Book Review © Dr. Terry J. van der Werff, CMC

I have yet to be disappointed by anything from the mind and pen of John Kotter of the Harvard Business School.  In particular, as a business futurist and strategy consultant, I have frequently leaned on his eight step change process:

(1)  Establishing a sense of urgency.
(2)  Forming a powerful guiding coalition.
(3)  Creating a vision.
(4)  Communicating the vision.
(5)  Empowering others to act on the vision.
(6)  Planning for and creating short-term wins.
(7)  Consolidating improvements and producing still more change.
(8)  Institutionalizing new approaches.

The organizing principle of Kotter's book, itself woven from six articles originally published in Harvard Business Review, is "that most organizations today lack the leadership they need."  I agree.  Most companies pay some attention to development of their managers.  Only the truly successful companies actively nurture their leaders at every level. [On which, see my recent article  "Nurturing Leaders."]

Kotter makes ten observations about "managerial behavior."  Two of them are

(1)  When managers produce successful change of any significance in organizations, the effort is usually a time-consuming and highly complex eight-step process (given above).

(4)  Leadership is different from management, and the primary force behind successful change of any significance is the former, not the latter.

He states clearly, "Most U.S. corporations today are overmanaged and underled."  He takes pains to differentiate management and leadership:

Management.  The fundamental purpose of management is to keep the current system functioning.  Management is about coping with complexity.

Leadership.  The fundamental purpose of leadership is to produce useful change, especially nonincremental change.  Leadership is about coping with change.

The plain fact is that you need a healthy balance of the two, just as every successful company must balance stability with change to thrive in both the short- and the long-term.  Unfortunately, Kotter does not use these two words consistently throughout, no doubt a legacy of cobbling together six articles without sufficient attention to the evolving changing nature of these words.

Anyone who has ever led an organization knows that all change encounters opposition.  Kotter outlines the major forms of opposition and outlines six strategies to deal with them, ranging from communication to coercion.

In a chapter devoted to leading change, Kotter states something near and dear to my own heart, "In every successful transformation effort that I have seen, the guiding coalition develops a picture of the future that is relatively easy to communicate and appeals to customers, stockholders, and employees.  A vision always goes beyond the numbers that are typically found in five-year plans."

Kotter illustrates his concepts with many examples, some from well-known companies such as American Express, Kodak, and Procter & Gamble, others such as a typical day in the life of a successful executive.

There are gems of insight peppered throughout Kotter's book.  After reading it, you will understand more about leadership and management and how to apply both effectively to your business.

---

For convenience, you may order this book from:    amazon.com    Borders    Barnes & Noble

Sign up for e-mail alerts to new postings.