Speaker 1: John Cotter developed his 8-step model for leading change in his 1996 bestseller, Leading Change. Although there have been some changes in terminology over the years since 1996, the constant research that his team has carried out has continued to endorse the basic principles of Cotter's 8-step model. So in this video, I want to answer the question, what is John Cotter's 8-step process model for leading change? Although I still regularly refer to John Cotter's original Leading Change, his terminology has changed. In this video, I will be using the terminology from his more recent 2014 book, Accelerate. So what are the 8 steps? First, we need to create a sense of urgency. Second, build a guiding coalition. And third, form a strategic vision and initiatives. These first three steps create the platform for change. Fourth is enlist a volunteer army. Fifth, enable action by removing barriers. And sixth, enable short-term wins. This second set of three steps creates an empowered cadre of employees within the organisation. The seventh step is to sustain acceleration. And the eighth step is to institute change. And it's these last two steps that really do create the change. So let's look at these 8 steps in a little bit more detail. First, create a sense of urgency. First, we need to ensure that people recognise the need for change. This is for two reasons. First, we need to motivate them to start to let go of the past. And secondly, we need to infuse them to actively participate in the changes that are happening. Whilst fear is a hugely powerful motivator that can get people moving and start to release their grip on the past, it is not sustainable. For a sustainable change programme, you also need to craft a highly compelling vision of the future that will draw people forward rather than push them away from the past and leaving them feeling fearful and perhaps freeze them psychologically. Step two, build a guiding coalition. Your guiding coalition is a team that understands the need for change and is committed to taking a leadership role in delivering it. Ideally, you need to form a guiding coalition that spans every dimension of the organisation, every function, every division, every region and every demograph within your organisation. That way, it will be seen as having legitimacy as well as having the contacts it needs throughout the organisation to make real progress. Step three, form a strategic vision and initiatives. This step combines articulating what you want and putting together a practical plan for how you're going to achieve it. This is work for the guiding coalition or the change leadership team. They need to develop this vision and they need to start to build a plan for how they're going to deliver it. Step four, enlist a volunteer army. The guiding coalition on its own are not going to be enough people. You need the numbers if you're going to really make the change stick. A volunteer army will be able to share the load and they will also be able to create the momentum you need to drive change throughout the organisation. This means communicating your vision effectively and harnessing the enthusiasm that you create as you create it to build a movement that is going to drive the change and create the real adoption that you need at the grassroots level. Step five, enable action by removing barriers. You need to remove every possible barrier of policy and procedure and unproductive behaviours and mindsets. Organisations often find themselves in a siloed mentality where someone from this part of the organisation can't get things done in another part of the organisation. It's one of the reasons why your guiding coalition has to span the whole organisation. But you also need authority from the top to suspend the crazy rules and regulations that will get in the way of making the change really happen. It also means giving real power to your guiding coalition and it means the guiding coalition delegating or devolving that power down to their volunteer army. Step six, generate short-term wins. Success motivates and it also proves a point. It's hard to say this won't work if it just has. Look for opportunities to succeed, to create conspicuous successes and then recognise them, communicate them and celebrate them so that the rest of the organisation can find out about them. Small targets, quick wins, easy wins, they are important but they are also seductive. Don't over-focus on them, otherwise they will distract your attention from doing the bigger, more important things. As in all things, balance is vital. Step seven, sustain acceleration. The need to sustain progress means that you have to pace yourself and pace your team. It's the guiding coalition who need to determine what that pace is and they need to understand the importance of crafting resilience within the organisation as well as constant progress. This means building a culture of change into the organisation. It also means recognising the difference between change after change and change upon change. Change upon change, when you're trying to do more than one thing at once and it's all building up, is enormously disruptive. Creating change and then as it starts to stabilise, looking for the next opportunity, that's how we create sustainability. Step eight, institute change. The final step is about locking the changes into the culture. You need to do all of the work it takes to make the changes really stick. That means looking beyond the simple things like a little bit of behavioural change here and a little bit of policy change there, but overhaul everything you do to make the changes integral to the new way that the organisation works. Project management and change management are two ends of a spectrum. I have a whole video about that idea. And therefore, as a result, it is impossible to be a project manager without in some ways involving yourself in organisational change. And if you're going to learn just one model for how organisational change takes place and how to make it work, then you can't do any better really than John Cotter's eight-step process for leading change. Please do give a thumbs up if you've enjoyed this video. I'll be creating loads more great project management videos for you, so please do subscribe to my channel and hit the notification bell so you don't miss any of them. And I'll look forward to seeing you in the next one.