“Within well-functioning organisations, it is still possible to encounter individuals several levels below the top hierarchy who possess the capability to engange in insightful conversations regarding the organisation’s strategic direction”

Presenting is Professor John P. Kotter, professor at Harvard Business School, globally recognised as the foremost authority on leadership and change. Engaging in a discussion with him was Job ten Bosch, managing director and co-founder of Debatrix.

According to Kotter, true leaders play a pivotal role in guiding us towards a brighter future. They possess the ability to artfully articulate a compelling vision of what lies ahead and communicate it with utmost clarity. Kotter emphasises that the greatest challenge lies in fostering engagement and commitment from all employees, as he believes that every individual within the organisation contributes to its intellectual capital, transcending the boundaries of a select few at the helm.
“The collective intellect of an organisation resides within all employees, extending well beyond a mere handful of individuals in upper management.”

Successful Change Process

Kotter presents three crucial points for achieving a successful change process.

• Formulating a vision;
• Communicating the vision;
• To make the change successful, it’s essential to create an environment where people can work towards the vision. This involves removing barriers, providing necessary resources and empowering employees to contribute to the change process. Kotter emphasises that implementing a successful change process doesn’t happen automatically. People often resist change for various reasons and understanding these reasons is crucial to finding solutions. While limited knowledge and general resistance are potential factors, they don’t fully address the core problem.

Failing communication

Kotter explains how a vision for change can easily get overshadowed and drowned out:

• Over a span of three months, an employee receives 2,300,000 words or numbers worth of communication.
• Over a three-month period, the communication regarding a vision for change usually involves around 13,400 words or numbers. That is the equivalent of a thirty-minute speech, an hour-long meeting, a six-hundred word article in the company magazine, and a 2,000-word memo!
• 13,400 / 2.300.000 = 0,0058. The vision for change accounts for only 0.58% of the total communication.

Listening and being heard

According to Kotter, two-way communication is crucial to help people answer any questions that arise during a transformation project. There is a need for consistent and repetitive communication from different sources, that is clear, simple and memorable . However, most people, especially highly educated, accept something only after they have been able to wrestle with it. This ‘wrestling’ means asking questions, disputing and arguing something.

It’s incredibly important to get as many employees as possible to view situations from their daily practice through the lens of the new vision. This involves promoting dozens of inexpensive ways to engage in discussions about the vision. It could be just five minutes in a product launch meeting, two minutes during casual hallway chat or 10 minutes at the end of a speech. These little moments may seem short, but they add up to thousands of minutes of valuable engagement.

Kotter points out that executives often avoid these activities because they fear their vision might not withstand challenges. It’s understandable but unfortunate because without employee buy-in, the later stages of the transformation process, like gaining broad support for the change, will fail to make progress.