Have you ever taken a long trip and passed some unfortunate traveler on the side of the road with a gas can in his hand, a non-responsive vehicle, and unhappy family members in the car? This scene is an accurate description of the state of some organizational change efforts. Like this family trip, many organizational change efforts run out of gas before the organization ever reaches its desired goals. These change efforts lose their momentum because of poor execution. Just like the traveler who overestimated how far the family could travel on a tank of gas, senior leadership overestimates how far the change effort can proceed on the successful implementation of a few short term wins.
To avoid this fate, senior leadership and the guiding coalition must consolidate the gains from earlier short term wins and implement more change. This seventh step of John Kotter’s, eight step, Leading Change Model, prevents the organization from sliding into complacency and it continues the momentum for change. The intent of Step 7 is to use the success of Step 6, generate short term wins, as a means to implement larger change efforts. This seventh step is a tool to prevent the organization from reverting to its old way of doing things (complacency) and to counter any continuing resistance to change.
Over time, organizations develop many processes, internal connections, and inter-departmental procedures (or inter-dependencies, as John calls them). In working with stakeholders on this step, I find that there was likely a legitimate reason for all of these inter-dependencies. With time however, some inter-dependencies are no longer necessary and as they currently exist they represent real obstacles to the change effort as they support the status quo. It requires patience to help critical organizational stakeholders understand that the time for these inter-dependencies has passed. It also requires the active involvement of senior leadership. Keeping senior leadership engaged can be difficult as I find the temptation is great for senior leadership to feel their previous efforts are sufficient for this step.
Senior leadership involvement is just as critical in Step 7 as it is in the earlier steps, however. Through its communication and actions, senior leadership must keep the urgency level high to effect change. Using its organizational power, senior leadership sponsors the removal of unnecessary inter-dependencies. This requires the allocation of additional resources as the effort here is generally not on low hanging fruit. Lower level managers are needed to work with the guiding coalition. Working together, they identify unnecessary inter-dependencies and lead projects as needed to effect change. These gains further validate the legitimacy of the change effort and help to counter organizational resistance.
Organizational resistance to change is a reality for any significant effort. Some important stakeholders will resist the change through each of the various steps no matter how well the effort is communicated and implemented. This is particularly true in large organizations where effecting change is complex and more time consuming. However, even in smaller organizations resistance from a few stakeholders who are invested in the status quo can be just as fierce as it is in larger organizations. I have seen both forms of resistance. The following quote from John’s book, Leading Change, discusses the certainty of some form of continuing resistance for significant change efforts:
Irrational and political resistance to change never fully dissipates. Even if you’re successful in the early stages of a transformation, you often don’t win over the self centered manager who is appalled when a reorganization encroaches on his turf, or the narrowly focused engineer who can’t fathom why you want to spend so much time worrying about customers, or the stone-hearted finance executive who thinks empowering employees is ridiculous.
This quote from John is a reality check on the difficulty of organizational change. Resistance to change may go underground because of the continuing involvement of senior leadership, but it generally never completely disappears. It is ready to surface if an opportunity arises. For this reason, successfully consolidating gains and implementing more change is a powerful strategy to counter irrational and political resistance. It is hard to argue against continuing success!
At Step 7, senior leadership must resist the temptation to focus on other priorities in the organization or even slow down the change effort. Instead, working with the guiding coalition, senior leadership consolidates the gains from its short term wins, removes unnecessary inter-dependencies, and implements larger change in the organization. The continuing success of the change effort from a successful implementation of Step 7 is a powerful force against organizational complacency and organizational resistance. Organizations fail when they let up before the change effort is completed! To avoid having the change effort run out of gas, senior leadership must maintain the urgency for change even at Step 7 of the eight step model.
About the Author
Robert Tanner is the founder of the Management is a Journey Blog and Principal Consultant at Business Consulting Solutions LLC. He is a certified change management consultant, management mentor, trainer, and an Adjunct Professor of Management. Robert has a passion for helping managers and leaders fulfill their potential. Connect with Robert on Google+ and Twitter. To join the mailing list, subscribe here.
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