Success Means Being Willing to See Reality

by Brenda J. Christie

I've written a few posts about Leadership, having happy productive, engaged employees, engaging stakeholders and tools to ensure successful projects.  Obviously, these are subjects near and dear to my heart.  And I am always looking for ways to improve.

So I was delighted to come across another great article, "Leading Change:  Why Transformation Efforts Fail," which I will now add to my career toolbox, and which I will also share with you. Written by John P. Kotter and appearing in the Harvard Business Review, Dr.Kotter outlines eight critical phases which need to be followed in order to make organizational change.  He discusses the people who need to be involved and the effect at each of the eight stages of not adequately following a step on the overall attainment of a goal, whether that be to improve revenue flow, improve stock price, change a corporate culture.  The overarching goal, however, is to stay in business and be able to take advantage of change and challenging market conditions.

Below is a screen shot of the eight success factors which Dr. Kotter discusses in the Harvard Business Review article.

While identifying the eight critical success factors in transforming an organization into one which can excel and exploit changes in the market place, Dr. Kotter devotes significant amount of time in describing the often negative human aspects which can come into play at each stage and delineates the impact on success such aspects can have.  Being proactive, he suggests actions to take to mitigate the negative effects in order to move forward.  He applies this approach to each phase.

What I like most about this article is the admonishment to take off the blinders and see reality as is in order to make the hard decisions and move forward.  His approach and advice appears to be very strategic and does not rely upon tactics too commonly employed today, whether in business or project management -- that approach being throw as much on the wall and see how much sticks.

The article is also realistic in acknowledging that there will be failures and setbacks.  In project management, we would plan for such setbacks and were they to occur, already possess a plan to put in action in order to maintain the schedule.  

"Leading Change:  Why Transformation Efforts Fail" also highlights the importance of having a clear vision and communicating it to everyone so that it is evident how everyone's actions either contribute to or detract from that vision.  It is an acknowledgement that leaders do not always have a clear vision, and that even if one exists, it is often not sufficiently communicated which contributes to failure to realize that vision.

Altogether, I found this a fascinating article and hope you enjoy it as well.  It can be found at the Harvard Business Review website.  You may have to create an account to read the entire article, but it is definitely worth the few minutes required to sign up.

Happy reading!

Best,

Brenda J. Christie