Biography

John KOTTER

2009 ranking: 41

John P. Kotter (b. 1947)

John Paul Kotter is the Konosuke Matsushita Emeritus Professor of Leadership at Harvard Business School. He studied at MIT and Harvard Business School, before joining the latter’s faculty in 1972. Eight years’ later he was appointed a tenured professor, the youngest faculty member to hold such a position. He is the author of fifteen books, (including a biography of Japanese industrialist Konosuke Matsushita) and many articles.

Kotter has a well-earned reputation as the guru of change, though he would probably baulk at the title. In A Force for Change (1990), (based upon case studies of 11 leading American corporations) he put forward ideas about the nature of leadership and how it must be a force for change in any organization. He identified the human elements behind great leadership. He also restated the strong distinction between leaders and managers; leaders set overall direction while managers do the planning and budgeting. Leaders align people, as well as communicating the “bigger picture”: managers meanwhile take care of the organization and keep it functioning. Leaders inspire; managers solve problems.

In Leading Change (1996) Kotter argues that companies must change if they are to avoid obsolescence in the fast-altering business world of the twenty-first century Some have responded through downsizing, right-sizing, culture modification, restructuring, re-engineering, total quality management etc. None have been really successful; many more have failed because they haven’t altered human behavior. This is the job of the leader who should start the change ball rolling, and ensure it keeps rolling.

Leaders must communicate, not by words and mission statements but through bold and strident actions that touch everyone in the organization. One way is tying directors’ renumeration packages to performance, while simultaneously making everyone throughout the organization responsible for performance issues. This is innovative, but there are even bolder moves like selling the executive jet or even disposing of the corporate headquarters. A leader can effect change by openly exposing his company’s competitive weaknesses to key members of staff. This should make them more alert and far less ambivalence and complacent.

Kotter has distilled the changes companies can make into an eight-point programme of action. This involves:

1. Instilling a sense of urgency
2. Picking a good team
3. Creating a vision and support strategies
4. Communicating
5. Removing obstacles
6. Changing fast
7. Keeping up change.
8. Making changes stick

The first four “de-freeze” the organization, the next three effects change, while the last sees the organization popped back into the icebox again and refrozen, ready for use.

Kotter has also warned business leaders that just because something is or seems to be a good idea does not mean it will work in the real world. He sees many management gurus as mere peddlers of short-term hulahoop-like fads. “People come up with a term they can sell at the time. It is a question of fashion. If it is not based on a fundamental truth it comes and then goes.”

His most recent book Our Iceberg Is Melting (2006) showcases many of his ideas on change through the illustrated parable of a group of penguins in Antarctica. One of them makes the frightening discovery that the iceberg where they have lived is melting. At first he is treated as a crackpot, but eventually the reality of the situation is borne on all. They adopt various strategies to survive and are forced to overcome obstacles. Perhaps the hardest move they make is abandoning the iceberg. The leading penguin characters are frightfully familiar, including NoNo, who is determined to stay on the iceberg and scupper all moves that threaten the status quo.

Essential Reading

A Force for Change, The Free Press 1990

Leading Change, Harvard Business School Press, 1996

Heart of Change, The: Real Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations (co-authored with Dan S. Cohen), Harvard Business School Press, 2002

Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions (co-authored with Holger Rathgeber), Macmillan 2006

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