Change: How Organizations Achieve Hard-to-Imagine Results in Uncertain and Volatile Times

by John P. Kotter, Vanessa Akhtar, Gaurav Gupta

How Organizations Achieve Hard-to-Imagine Results in Uncertain and Volatile Times Seller is not affiliated with Wiley and Wiley has not endorsed the spiraling of this book

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Leadership, Management, Business Leadership

240 pages, Spiral-bound

Published June 2, 2021

About the author

John P. Kotter, world-renowned expert on leadership, is the author of many books, including Leading Change, Our Iceberg is Melting, The Heart of Change, and his latest book, That's Not How We Do It Here!. He is the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus at the Harvard Business School, and a graduate of MIT and Harvard. He is co-founder of Kotter International, a change management and strategy execution firm that helps organizations engage employees in a movement to drive change and reach sustainable results. He and his wife Nancy live in Boston, Massachusetts.

http://www.kotterinternational.com/ab...

Reviews

[Muromets]

Full of nauseating jargon, self-congratulatory anecdotes, dated tropes and cliches, all told in a condescending voice to an unclear audience. Is this book meant for consultants? Change professionals? Leaders?

If you identify with any of those groups, prepare to learn how dumb and short-sighted you’ve been all along, and how all it takes to be great at change leadership is rejecting organizational theory and practice from the last half-century, doing away with “best-practices” and metrics, and instead adopting whatever this books suggests through a series of unsupported statements, personal consultant “war stories” from - naturally VERY successful - projects from unnamed companies, and charts/diagrams to help visualize common-sensical advice.

I chose the book based on Kotter’s name on the cover, and it did not live up to expectations. Not even halfway through 2021, and I think this will go down as the worst book I’ve read all year.

[Darren Labenberg]

Overall content was great, but it read like the dictionary. Not too much seemed valuable past the half way point in the book.

[Peter Murphy]

There was some helpful information, but there was a lot that wasn’t. Or, at the least, much of the information felt repetitive. This is a book to get from the library, not the bookstore.

[Jacqueline Manchester]

Thank you to my Change Leadership class for bringing this lovely book to me! If my MBA has done anything for me, it is remind me how much I enjoy reading Kotter!!!

📚🤓✨


“This book is meant to inspire people with the idea that by taking action in new ways, not only can we respond to rapid change, but we can accelerate this rate of progress.”

[Gwen]

From the book: "The vast majority of people tend to seriously underestimate the power of our built-in survival instinct and how it can inadvertently overwhelm our capacity to swiftly see opportunities, innovate, adapt, lead and change for the better."

This book reflects a worthy evolution of Kotter's Change Management thought leadership. It gets into the nitty gritty of why many change initiatives fail or are short lived. The book is particularly relevant now. Because of the rate and velocity of change we all experience, it's essential to understand the unconscious dynamics that make it difficult to explore opportunity and ultimately adapt to change.

Kotter's done a nice job of illustrating a way of thinking about the disconnect between intention and the unconscious realities that interfere with stated goals in an organizational setting. The frame he uses simplifies complicated human interactions in a way that makes them approachable for imagining next steps for change leadership initiatives as well as dealing with the unexpected.

[Jonathan Choi]

This book should have been an essay. There’s some useful insights in it, but most of it is repeating information that you’ve probably read elsewhere. If you’ve never read anything like it, sure it’s great. But if you’re reading this, you’re probably reading other books on leadership and change culture, and this doesn’t have anything that stands out as unique or unusual. It doesn’t feel like it asked tough questions or gave good answers - it’s just more of the same in the line of books on how to influence people and get results.

[Tõnu Vahtra]

Kotter is one of the all time leadership classics, I got recommendation to pick up this book from another book I read a few months ago and had relatively high expectations. Those expectations were not met. The book was written during Covid and it felt really like he had to say something for the "new normal" movement, but did not have that much new to say. The most repeated challenge (how overheated survive mode is killing thrive in an organization is a good choice of framing, but the suggested solutions were nothing novel. Also talking about VUCA 20 years ago was very novel, now everybody is talking about it.

What leads to failed culture change? - A management solution to a leadership problem.

in Change Kotter argues that traditional hierarchies are too slow for today’s volatility. To achieve "hard-to-imagine" results, organizations must activate a Dual Operating System.

1. The Dual Operating System
The Hierarchy: Optimized for reliability, efficiency, and daily operations.
The Network: A fluid, agile structure of volunteers focused on "Big Opportunities" and rapid innovation. Success requires these two systems to work in sync, not in opposition.

2. The Biology of Change: Survive vs. Thrive
Survive Impulse: Triggered by fear/threat. It narrows focus and causes burnout.
Thrive Impulse: Triggered by opportunity. It fuels creativity and speed.
Insight: Leaders must "lower the noise" of threats and "amplify the signals" of opportunity to keep teams in a "Thrive" state.

3. The Volunteer Army
Stop using top-down mandates ("Have-to").
Build a "Want-to" culture by framing change as an exciting mission. When ~10% of the workforce is emotionally engaged, you reach a tipping point for organizational transformation.

4. Leadership vs. Management
Management: Planning and budgeting for predictability.
Leadership: Vision and motivation for change.
Most firms are currently "over-managed and under-led" for the modern era. (cliche)

[Horace]

Change: How Organizations Achieve Hard-to-Imagine Results (2012) was my first book by John P. Kotter, the Harvard Business School professor widely regarded as one of the leading authorities on leadership and change. Based on the reviews of others, this was not his best book.

Kotter writes with striking confidence, perhaps too much confidence. He is not tentative about what works and what fails in organizational transformation. The book is concise and organized around various categories of change—technology shifts, reorganizations, mergers and acquisitions, cultural change, and more.

At the heart of the book is Kotter’s distinction between changes that help organizations merely survive and those that help them thrive. Survival change addresses threats, stabilizes performance, and protects what already exists. Thriving change, however, positions an organization for growth, innovation, and new opportunity. Kotter argues that most organizations default to *managerial* responses—planning, budgeting, tightening controls—when what is actually required is *leadership*.

Transformational results come when leaders, preferable many leaders within the organization, assemble a credible guiding coalition, articulate a clear and compelling vision, remove barriers, and generate short-term wins that build momentum. Without those elements, change stalls. With them, organizations can achieve outcomes that once seemed unrealistic.

[Griffin M-H]

The book could be a bit dry at times and is not completely actionable, hence the 3 stars, but there were certain mindsets displayed by the book that I found interesting. It had compelling and inspiring examples of how change had made positive and unimaginable impact on organizations and provided a case for change, but it did not give much detail as to how change can be done in a way that would have a real impact.

The use of survive and thrive responses I believe is the most important and valuable part of the book, and I think a valuable takeaway is that organizations should design themselves in a way that these responses should be considered.

The ideas behind the book are great and valuable, I just think that the book could have been formatted better and could have provided more actionable steps.

[Siobhan Ward]

This was a book for work, definitely not something I'd pick up on my own. The book content was interesting enough, it helped a lot that I'm working with a lot of the Kotter principles in my job, so seeing things in action definitely helped to create more understanding.

There was a lot of dense content in the book, which definitely made it a slow read for me. I'm not a business person and have never read anything like this before, so that was probably part of the reason it was a challenging read. If you're looking for similar content that's more accessible That's Not How We Do it Here by the same author is a much more approachable take.

[Alex Courtney]

Ugh, I wanted to hate this book so much. I've learned that whenever a book features a genre-leading expert headliner and two people you've never heard of writing together it's going to be a disappointment. And this book is a disappointment, especially compared to Kotter's excellent research on change management and innovation culture. I begrudgingly give it two stars because there is one chapter about structural change and innovation that I marked up heavily. The rest of the book you can learn about from the people who actually had the ideas in the first place, not as retold by a couple of consultants who want to bolster their resumés. I will not recommend this book.

[Scott Fergel]

This was a tough read as it was far from the most exciting book every written. Some good points are made but it seemed to drag on example after example. We get it, some companies fail miserably dealing with change and if only they had used your methodology they would be thriving. Would have been nice to lose some of the sales pitch feel of the book and focused more on how to go about in more detail implementing change. Of course if you do that they wouldn't need you to come in now would they.

[Przemek Krydka]

I enjoyed this book. Professor Kotter understands the nuances of organizational change, and the factors that can derail it. I was impressed with how the book handled Agile transformation, especially with respect to nuances that derail it, factors that in my professional experience are taboos to be never mentioned. The book also takes into account global environmental factors from the perspective of change management, and that broadened my appreciation of the uncertain times we're in right now.

[Ron Willoughby]

Not on the level of ‘Leading Change’ or ‘From Good to Great’. That being said, Dr. Kotter is brilliant, far be it from me to dismiss his work. In fact, this is a worthwhile, accessible and insightful work.

I wish he had unpacked the dual system more specifically, but his website has great resources that will help with that. I probably would give it a 3.5, but I am a fan. So, 4 it is.

[Maarten]

I really like the way Kotter & Co approach change and their philosophy. Knowing their ideas, made it easy for me to understand the book. But for a casual reader I would suggest other books on change.

The case studies used in the book are good, but were made anonymous, I would have appreciated the real company names to understand it better do more research yourself or get a better picture.

[Nienke]

Not that much new here.

In order to unleash the thrive rather than survive in people and organisations, change needs to be done with people and not to, hearts and brains need to be reached, and dual management and agile approaches are necessary to move forward.

There, saved you reading the book :)

[Marisa]

Read this for a college course. Kotter and his team are well respected thought leaders in managing change in organizations. The material could be a bit dry, especially in the beginning, but the content was thought provoking. A worthwhile read for anyone leading, formally or informally, in an organization.

[Jose Rogerio]

A must read for everyone who wants to be better prepared to answer the risks we all see every day in ours lives and in the companies we work for and for everyone who wants to take advantage of the opportunities out there

[Sarah]

3.5 stars. Helped to address some of the weaknesses of the 1996 book, namely that it’s all about the actions of leaders. This book encourages informal leadership be a range of people (including those not in power positions). Moved closer towards viral change model.

[Inka Partanen]

Kirja ei tarjoillut hirveästi uutta, etenkin kun peilaa Kotterin omaan aiempaan tuotantoon eikä välttämättä genressään muutenkaan. Silti koin oivalluksen ja inspiraation hetkiä, ja se on kyllä tärkeintä mitä tämän lajin kirjoista haeskelen.

[Cam Graham]

His best yet

Lottery and team present their most ‘human’ approach to change yet. The simplicity of their survive/thrive perspective makes the approach a real winner.

[Aaron Horton]

This turned out to be decent book. It started out slow but it picked up. I will remember the Survive and Thrive theory. I would recommend this book understand how work is changing.

[Jill]

3.5 Lots of good info, but other than Survive and Thrive, much of this was covered in his previous works.

[Allison Kridelbaugh]

Required read for my job. Boring book. If you can’t sleep at night, this is a good pick, you’ll doze off instantly!

[Brad]

A helpful framework for thinking about change and it’s impact on organizations. Very “businessy” approach to the topic, so decide if that’s the right approach given your organization type.

[Gabriel Clarke]

Curiously unsatisfying though admittedly with many useful insights. Weirdly repetitive for such a comparatively short book.

[Vinny M]

Good book, but not as good as Leading Change

[Don Barger]

Awesome book about organizational change. Highly recommended.

[Lauren Reeves]

For grad school. Too jargon filled for my taste.

[Thomas Gebel]

Gutes Buch mit einzelnen Anregungen, kddivh gefühlt viele Wiederholungen