(ISBN 9781422172063, Harvard Business School Publishing (c) 2011)
John P. Kotter
Idea in Brief
Most major change initiatives generate only lukewarm results. Many fail miserably. Why? Kotter maintains that too many managers don't realize transformation is a process, not an event. It advances through stages that build on each other. And it takes years. Pressured to accelerate the process, managers skip stages. But shortcuts never work.
Equally troubling, even highly capable managers make critical mistakes--such as declaring victory too soon. Result? Loss of momentum, reversal of hard-won gains, and devastation of the entire transformation effort.
By understanding the stages of change--and the pitfalls unique to each stage--you boost your chances of a successful transformation. Payoff? Your org flexes with tectonic shifts in competitors, markets, and technologies--leaving rivals far behind.
The most general lesson to be learned from the more successful cases is that the change process goes through a series of phases that, in total, usually require a considerable length of time. Skipping steps creates only the illusion of speed and never produces a satisfying result.
A second very general lesson is that critical mistakes in any of the phases can have a devastating impact, slowing momentum and negating hard-won gains. Perhaps because we have relatively little experience in renewing organizations, even very capable people often make at least one big error.
Eight step process:
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Last modified 26 July 2025