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John Kotter is a Professor of Leadership at Harvard Business School. He is widely regarded as the world's foremost authority on leadership and change and has published 16 books, 12 of which have been business best-sellers. With millions of copies sold, his books have been translated into more than ninety languages. He is also the author of several seminal articles in the Harvard Business Review.
A Sense of Urgency
John P. Kotter
John Kotter, author and leading guru on the subject of change management, once again turns his attention to the subject in his latest book, A Sense of Urgency, which focuses on getting the conditions right for kick-starting the change process.
In 1996, Kotter’s Leading Change which became hugely successful and influential, put the rate of failed or mis-managed organisational change initiatives at about 70%. This figure, according to Kotter in A Sense of Urgency, has remained largely unchanged throughout the decade since that book was published. In A Sense of Urgency he examines the reasons why.
The book focuses on urgency - the first step in an eight step process, which Kotter originally introduced in Leading Change. By exploring urgency in its various guises and in great detail, Kotter deals with the many problems and misunderstandings surrounding the concept. He sheds light on why urgency is the most important of the original steps and, crucially, provides a new step-by-step guide to kick-starting and maintaining urgency to achieve exceptional results. John Kotter also introduces the idea that urgency itself is now an essential element to all businesses, not just those involved in change initiatives.
Complacency or ‘non-urgency’, Kotter explains, often hinders or stalls change initiatives because employees accept the status quo and become oblivious to change possibilities, both good and bad. Having ‘a sense of urgency’ may not always imply a benefit however. If undirected or unfocused, a frenzy of activity gives the illusion of ‘true urgency’, but with no productive activity. This, Kotter describes, is ‘false urgency’.
The ‘right’ sense of urgency, therefore, must be created and maintained. Kotter lays out tried and tested methods not only for creating, but for maintaining the right sense of urgency, even after change has begun. Specifically, he looks at how to promote a ‘culture of alertness’, focusing on working smarter not faster, and training employees to have their eyes open to both opportunity and hazards.
This ‘right’ or ‘true’ urgency, Kotter demonstrates, is as relevant to personal effectiveness as it is to organisational culture, and is the key to explaining the huge number of failed change initiatives. The main areas explored in A Sense Of Urgency are:
- Understanding, identifying and overcoming a lack of the ‘right kind of urgency’
- Understanding why urgency is so important
- The tools, actions and behaviours needed to create and sustain urgency
With A Sense Of Urgency, John Kotter has expanded on an idea from Leading Change in 1996 and brought the element of ‘winning hearts and minds’ from his later book The Heart of Change in 2002. The result is a usable tool showing how urgency, forms the vital kick-start and regulator of all organisational change.
The book will appeal to leaders wondering how to restart failed initiatives, managers and executives looking to get world-class performance from their teams, and strategists looking for new ways to generate dynamism and enthusiasm in their workforce. Anyone who has an interest in realising organisational change can learn from John Kotter, the original change management guru.
