mission – Bruno Gillot

Back in 1995, John P. Kotter published an article in the Harvard Business Review titled “Leading change: Why Transformation efforts fail?”
At that time, he listed a set of 8 errors that he had observed over a decade. We are now in 2019 i.e. 25 years later and these errors are still happening today.

Error #1: Not Establishing a Great Enough Sense of Urgency
I can see companies today that are talking about transformation however there is no leadership call on a hard timeline. Top management is paralyzed, does not see it as a priority on the agenda and nothing will happen as a result.

Error #2: Not Creating a Powerful Enough Guiding Coalition
Although a Transformation can be initiated by the idea of 1 person, it cannot be sustained by that 1 person through the iterations and cycles of decisions and management reviews in any large company. Unless this idea is offshoot as a start-up outside the organization. Otherwise, a team of dedicated leaders, managers and experts must be assembled and grow over time. If expertise is not available inside, budgets must be allocated to bring in the required external expertise & knowledge. I can see companies today trying to leverage their current internal structure exclusively for their digital transformation. and not allocating any budget. This can only fail as everyone is 1. busy with day-to-day operations, 2. not empowered to transform, 3. largely resistant to change due to fear and 4. there is not enough knowledge internally. Here again, this can only fail.

Error #3: Lacking a Vision
In my opinion, this is the most critical error and I would actually move it to the top of list. Without a vision, there will be no timeline and no guiding coalition. The vision has to be imagined by the company founder or the actual CEO. This is a top-down approach and I will comment on this in a specific post. The vision is about WHY the company is going to transform. The HOW and the WHAT can be defined once the WHY is known. Talking about the HOW or the WHAT is a futile exercise if the destination (the WHY or the Vision) is not known. Transformation initiatives without a Vision and Mission statement fail and will continue to fail.

The 5 other errors are in the HBR article (see link below)

References

Harvard Business Review: Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail
Books: John P. Kotter books on amazon.com