John P. Kotter - The Heart of Change: Real-life Stories of how People Change Their Organizations

Advance praise from the field

The Heart of Change

A fantastic piece of work.

Carl Frattini, Business Manager, Electric Systems, United Illuminating Company, Shelton, CT

A powerful message, communicated with great effectiveness.

Ho-il Kim, Vice President and General Counsel, Cabot Corporation, Boston, MA

A new message, a rare case where a book offers something that has not been said before.

Alan Frohman, Founder and Executive Partner, Lexington Leadership Partners, Lexington, MA

By and large, there is no lack of analytics, decision trees, financial models, process maps, and other forms of logical intercourse within corporate America. Our days are saturated with rational, left-brain thought patterns. This book does an excellent job of helping us where we need it moston the emotional or passionate side of the equation for driving change.

Gjon Nivica Jr., Vice President and General Counsel, Engines & Systems, Honeywell International, Inc., Phoenix, AZ

A lovely book. The use of stories makes [the authors] ideas about the change process so real and so tangible.

Scott Jamieson, President, The Care of Trees, Wheeling, IL

The presentation is most compelling. The emotional content, the stories with heart, will win over even the most skeptical reader.

Bo Thomas, Company Leader and Owner, The Thomas Consulting Group, Little Rock, AR

The heart-emotions theme blends effectively with the otherwise hard mechanics of some of the eight steps of leading change. The stories provide strong examples of the concepts and best practices. The What Works and What Does Not Work segments throughout the book summarize each section well. The overall results are excellent.

Robert Bender, Senior Operations Coordinator, Northrop Grumman, Newport News, VA

Entertaining, highly readable, and very useful.

Peter Wood, State Manager, Walter Construction Group Ltd., Brisbane, Australia

The illustrations, metaphors, and analogies provide mental pictures that clarify the concepts. Using the right-brain and left-brain approach, the book assists readers to understand both intellectually and emotionally. I am left feeling that if I become stuck in the change process, I can refer to a specific chapter and reread the conceptual information as well as the illustrative stories. Overall, this strikes me as a sort of right-brain field manual for implementing Kotters left-brain Leading Change.

Jim Williams, High School Principal, Paxon School for Advanced Studies, Jacksonville, FL

A joy to read and to learn from.

Sidharth Birla, Chairman, Xpro India, Limited, New Delhi, India

The Heart of Change is extremely well done. It has all of the elements necessary to be a highly useful tool for those who wish to make change happen.

Paul Daulerio, President, Founder, and CEO, Organization Plus, Inc., Weston, CT

Its a great book. I have already successfully used the storytelling approach right in the middle of a major restructuring when people were asking Remind me again why we are doing this?

David Bening, VP and General Manager, General Polymers, Ashland Distribution Co., Dublin, OH

More pragmatic than other change books. It offers clear advice. I have already made it required reading for my direct reports.

Dan Sajkowski, Optimization Manager, BP Amoco PLC, Whiting, NH

The individual case histories contain many pragmatic suggestions that can be readily applied to a readers organization. For the action-oriented manager, its excellent reading.

Doug Reid, Senior Vice President, Human Resources, PanAm Satellite, Wilton, CT

The concept is brilliant. I found myself highlighting all kinds of ideas that I can put to use in my job now.

Mary Thomas, Program Manager, U.S. Army, Alexandria, VA

The material has broad relevanceto individual contributors as well as managers and executives. The benefits to all come quickly in what is a very easy read.

Charles Doucot, General Manager, Technical Computing, Hewlett-Packard Co., Burlington, MA

It does not matter whether you are the one in charge, an active agent, or if you consider yourself a passive sufferer of change in your organization. In every case, the book reflects the reality you are living, and enables you to gain some control over it and better manage your part.

Susanna Martin, General Manager, LAlianca, Barcelona, Spain

I hate business books. I usually cannot make it past the first twenty pages. I read to the end of The Heart of Change with great pleasure. Its the ultimate study of effective change management and leadership.

Jean-Rene Gougelet, CEO, Mikasa, Inc., Secaucus, NJ

An excellent book on a topic that is so important in todays business climate.

David Walsh, Vice President of Classified Services, Chicago Tribune, Chicago, IL

A very enjoyable book.

Jeff Kishel, Vice President, MWH Americas, Inc., Sacramento, CA

Powerful and very useful.

John Strauss, CEO, Ocean Design, Inc., Ormand Beach, FL

Outstanding book.

Ben Anderson-Ray, Private Investor and Consultant, Sunrise Medical, Inc., Rancho Santa Fe, CA

Inspiring.

Lee Smedley, Principal, Smedley Consulting, Shoemakersville, PA

THE HEART OF CHANGE

THE HEART OF CHANGE

Real-Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations

JOHN P. KOTTER

DAN S. COHEN

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW PRESS

Boston, Massachusetts

Copyright 2002 John P. Kotter and Deloitte Consulting LLC

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Requests for permission should be directed to , or mailed to Permissions, Harvard Business School Publishing, 60 Harvard Way, Boston, Massachusetts 02163.

The authors are in no way affiliated with Heart of Change; Change of Heart Associates, of Baldwinsville, New York.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kotter, John P., 1947

The heart of change : real-life stories of how people change their organizations / John P. Kotter, Dan S. Cohen.

p. cm.

Originally published in 2002.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-4221-8733-3 (alk. paper)

1. Organizational change. I. Cohen, Dan S. II. Title.

HD58.8.K645 2012

658.4'06dc23

2012030715

e-ISBN 978-1-4221-8733-3

To Nancy and Ronnie
who have been at the heart
of our changes

Contents

Why people succeed and why they fail at large scale-change. The eight-step path to success. The primary challenge at each stage in the process. How people meet the challenge. The critical distinction between see-feel-change and analysis-think-change.

Raising a feeling of urgency so that people start telling each other we must do something about the problems and opportunities. Reducing the complacency, fear, and anger that prevent change from starting.

Helping pull together the right group of people with the right characteristics and sufficient power to drive the change effort. Helping them to behave with trust and emotional commitment to one another.

Facilitating the movement beyond traditional analytical and financial plans and budgets. Creating the right compelling vision to direct the effort. Helping the guiding team develop bold strategies for making bold visions a reality.

Sending clear, credible, and heartfelt messages about the direction of change. Establishing genuine gut-level buy-in that shows up in how people act. Using words, deeds, and new technologies to unclog communication channels and overcome confusion and distrust.