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John Kotter¶s Eight-Stage Change Model

John Kotter (1996; Kotter & Cohen, 2002) has described a successful

model for understanding and managing change. According to Kotter, a

general lesson learned from successful cases of organizational change is

that the change process goes through a series of phases that, taken

together, require a length of time. Skipping steps will only create theillusion of speed and never produce sat isfactory results, according to

Kotter. Making mistakes in any of the phases may have devastating

impact, slowing momentum and negating gains. Each stage acknowledges

a key principle identified by Kotter, relating to people¶s response and

approach to change, how people see, feel, and then change. Kotter¶s

eightstep change model can be summarized as follows:

1. Establish a sense of urgency--inspire people to move, making

objectives real and relevant. A threat of losing ground in some way sparks

people into action, and they in turn will communicate a sense of urgency

to others. Kotter suggests that the urgency level is high enough when

75% of the leadership is convinced that business as usual is no longer an

acceptable plan.

2. Build the guiding team--get the right people in place with the right

emotional commitment, and the right mix of skills and levels. Efforts for

change may begin with one or two people. Regardless of the size of the

organization, this beginning group for change needs to have three to five

individuals leading the effort. This team¶s sense of urgency and sense of 

what¶s happening and what is needed is crucial. Involve leaders in this

beginning coalition.3. Get the vision right--get the team to establish a simple vision and

strategy and focus on

emotional and creative aspects necessary to drive service and efficiency.

Successful transformation rests on a vision of the future that is relatively

easy to communicate and appeals to customers, stockholders, and

employees. The vision will clarify the direction in which the organization

needs to go. What is needed is a vision that can be communicated to

someone in five minutes or less and that gets a reaction that shows both

understanding and interest.

4. Communicate for buy-in--involve as many people as possible andcommunicate the essentials simply to appeal and respond to people¶s

needs. De-clutter communications--make technology work for you rather

than against you. Kotter suggests that leadership estimate how much

communication of the vision is needed and multiply that effort by ten. Use

every existing communication channel and opportunity.

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5. Empower action--Remove obstacles, enable constructive feedback

and lots of support from leaders, and reward and recognize progress and

achievements. Organization members need to be allowed to make

changes in their areas of involvement. Budget money needs to be

allocated to the new initiative. Remove any obstacles there may be to get

on with the change.6. Create short-term wins--set aims in bite-size chunks that are easy

to achieve. Create a manageable number of initiatives. Finish current

stages before starting new ones. Commitments to produce short-term

wins will keep the urgency level up.

7. Don¶t let up; consolidate improvements and sustain momentum

for change--foster and encourage determination and persistence,

ongoing change, and ongoing progress reporting, highlighting achieved

and future milestones. However, premature declaration of victory may

kill momentum and allow the old system to regain ground. Leaders of 

successful efforts use the feeling of victory as motivation to explore their

organization more deeply, moving people committed to new ways into

key roles. Leaders need to keep in mind that the process may take years.

8. Make change stick; institutionalize the new approaches--

reinforce the value of successful change via recruitment, promotion, and

new change leaders. Weave change into culture. Change sticks when it

becomes ³the way we do things around here.´ Two factors are particularly

important for institutionalizing new changes: a conscious attempt to show

how the new approaches, behaviors, and attitudes helped improve the

organization, and ensuring that the next generation of leaders believes inand embodies the changes.

Each of the stages involves many smaller steps. Steps 1 through 4

involve a defrosting of the hardened status quo. During steps 5 through

7, new practices are introduced. The changes need to be grounded in the

culture during step 8.

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THE OD ACTION RESEARCH (AR) PROCESS

Action Research is a process which serves as a model for most OD interventions.

French and Bell (1995) describe Action Research as a "process of systematically

collecting research data about an ongoing system relative to some objective,

goal, or need of that system; feeding these data back into the system; taking

actions by altering selected variables within the system based both on the dataand on hypotheses; and evaluating the results of actions by collecting more

data." The steps in Action Research are:

1. Entry.

This phase consists of finding needs for change within an organization. It is also

the time to quickly grasp the nature of the organization, identify the appropriate

decision maker, and build a trusting relationship.

2. Start-up and contracting.

In this step, critical success factors and the real issues are identified. We link

into the organization's culture and processes, and clarify roles for theconsultant(s) and employees. This is also the time to deal with resistance within

the organization. A formal or informal contract will define the change process.

3. Assessment and diagnosis.

Here data is collected to find the opportunities and problems in the organization.

This is also the time for the consultant to make a diagnosis, in order to

recommend appropriate interventions.

4. Feedback.

This two-way process serves to tell what was found out, based on an analysis of 

the data. Everyone who contributed information should have an opportunity to

learn about the findings of the assessment process (provided there is no

apparent breach of anyone's confidentiality.) The feedback should start with the

executive client and his/her team. Usually it is cascaded down through the

organization to reach all who have participated. This provides an opportunity for

the organization's people to become involved in the change process, to learn

about how different parts of the organization affect each other, and to

participate in selecting appropriate change interventions.

5. Planning Change.

In this step recommendations are distilled from the assessment and feedback.

Alternative actions are considered and the focus of the intervention(s) is on

activities that have the most leverage to effect positive change in the

organization. An implementation plan is developed that is based on the

assessment data, is logically organized, results- oriented, measurable and

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rewarded. The next step is to plan for a participative decision-making process for

the intervention.

6. Intervention.

Now, and only now, the actual change process is carried out. It is important to

follow the action plan, yet remain flexible enough to modify the process as theorganization changes and as new information emerges.

7. Evaluation.

Successful OD must have made meaningful changes in the performance and

efficiency of the people and their organization. An evaluation procedure to verify

this success, identify needs for new or continuing OD activities, and improve the

OD process itself to help make future interventions more successful is needed.

8. Adoption.

After steps have been made to change the organization and plans have been

formulated, follow-up is started by implementing processes to insure that thisremains an ongoing activity within the organization, that commitments for action

have been obtained, and that they will be carried out.

9. Separation.

It must recognize when it is more productive for the client and consultant to

undertake other activities, and when continued consultation is

counterproductive. The change should be monitored for its success possibly to

plan for future change activities.

Following these sequential steps is the ideal way to do AR. But AR is tricky in

that the organization is dynamic and changes happen while we are in the middle

of assessing it. Flexibility while keeping the integrity of the process as much as

possible it is the art of the process. OD professionals need to know how and be

ready to change their strategy when necessary. Often they will have to move

back and repeat previous steps in light of new information, new influences, or

because of the changes that have already been made.

But for successful OD to take place, all of these steps must be followed. It works

best if they are taken in the order described. And, since learning is really an

iterative, not a sequential process, we must be prepared to re -enter this process

when and where appropriate.