Leading change: What Kotter still gets right – and where I trip up
More than thirty years ago, John P. Kotter’s classic HBR article “Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail” described eight reasons why transformation efforts fail. I come back to his list more often than I expected. Not as a recipe. As a checklist I hold my own work against.
When I read it again recently, two things stood out. Some points describe what I already do almost by instinct. Others describe exactly where I keep tripping up.
The 8 traps…
… and my honest takes on the ones I know from practice:
A shared reason to move
Kotter starts with urgency. Not fear, but a reason people understand and share: what it costs to stand still, and what there is to gain.
What I’ve seen: A reason to move only becomes shared when people have shaped it themselves. I describe how this played out in one programme in this case story.
2. A guiding coalition
No single leader can carry a transformation. It needs a group with enough credibility and influence to move things.
What I’ve seen: In one project, we started with a small interdisciplinary team and a shared vision. Step by step, as the situation required, we brought new people in. Many of them arrived sceptical. Often, they became our strongest ambassadors.
3. A vision people can retell
Without a clear picture, a transformation falls apart into projects that don't fit together.
What I've seen: The best test I know is simple: can people repeat the vision without looking it up? In some projects, we boiled it down to one sentence. That sentence ended up on stickers… and on people's laptops. A sticker is not a strategy. But it shows the vision had become theirs.
4. Communicate – far more than you think
Kotter’s observation: most leaders under-communicate their vision by a factor of ten.
What I've seen: This is the one I forget most. I'm so close to the work that it feels present all the time. For people further away, it might come up once or twice a year in an update.
What I'm learning is to share where we stand even when there is little to show. A standstill or a step back, shared openly, keeps people with you. Silence doesn't.
5. Remove obstacles
People can believe in the vision and still be blocked: by structures, systems or other people.
What I've seen: With people, what works for me is listening without taking everything on. Sceptics get a voice. But we don't simply do what they ask. We explain our side too: that something would take too much effort to implement right now, that it would add complexity, or that it makes more sense once the basics are in place. That creates understanding in both directions. What becomes possible once people feel safe to voice their doubts is at the heart of another case story.
Where I trip up is systems and responsibilities. As an external, I'm never part of the system. I can see an obstacle clearly and still have no way to remove it myself. Perhaps that's one more reason why the guiding coalition matters: someone inside needs the standing to move what I can only point at.
6. Plan for short-term wins
Transformation takes time. Without visible progress along the way, people lose faith and energy.
What I've seen: Our projects follow a simple rule: better done than perfect. We put a first version out, then improve it together. The side effect matters as much as the speed. Everyone who helped improve it feels part of it.
7. Don’t declare success too soon
Celebrating a win is good. Declaring the job done while the change is still fragile lets old habits creep back.
What I've seen: A win is not yet a change in mindset. This point and the next one belong together.
8. Anchor the change in the culture
Change lasts when it becomes "the way we work here" – and when people can see the link between new behaviour and better results.
What I've seen: This is the hardest one. Even after a real first breakthrough, the scepticism comes back. So do the setbacks. Again and again, people return to the patterns that have worked for them for years – and there are moments when I catch myself thinking: haven't we been here before?
That isn't failure. Old habits are familiar, and familiar feels safe. What helps is staying with it. One step at a time.
A mirror, not a manual
Reading Kotter again, I don't see a model to follow step by step. I see a mirror. It shows me what already works – and where I need to be more deliberate.
Which of the eight do you do without thinking – and which one do you keep skipping?