John Kotter
John Kotter is a prominent figure in the field of business leadership and organizational change, recognized for his significant contributions as an author and consultant. Born on February 25, 1947, in San Diego, California, he earned his degrees from prestigious institutions, including a bachelor’s from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a doctorate from Harvard University. Kotter became one of the youngest professors to gain tenure at Harvard Business School in 1980, where he later served as the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus.
His best-known work, *Leading Change*, outlines an eight-step process for implementing successful change within organizations, which has been influential in various industries, especially amid rapid technological advancements. Kotter's approach emphasizes creating urgency, building a guiding coalition, and fostering a strategic vision, among other principles. He has authored several bestsellers, including *Our Iceberg Is Melting* and *Accelerate*, and his insights have earned him recognition as a leading authority on leadership. In 2008, Kotter co-founded Kotter International, a consultancy dedicated to helping organizations navigate complex change. Through his work, Kotter has made a lasting impact on business practices and leadership strategies worldwide.
John Kotter
Business leadership expert
- Born: February 25, 1947
- Place of Birth: San Diego, California
Education: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard Business School.
Significance: An award-winning international authority in the field of business leadership and transformation, John Kotter is a bestselling author of books on organizational change. He was one of the youngest professors to gain tenure at Harvard Business School in 1980.
Background
John Paul Kotter was born on February 25, 1947, in San Diego, California. After earning his bachelor’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1968, he went on to attend the MIT Sloan School of Management, graduating with a master of science degree in 1970. He earned a doctorate in business administration from Harvard University in 1972 and joined the faculty of Harvard Business School (HBS) the same year. In 1980, at the age of thirty-three, he became one of the youngest HBS faculty members ever to be given tenure and a full professorship.
Organizational Change Expert
Kotter’s best-known work, Leading Change (1996), was noted by Timemagazineas "one of the top 25 most influential business management books" ever written. In it, Kotter describes the eight-step process that business organizations can use to increase productivity. The book emphasizes the concept of change, specifically the idea that businesses can alter strategies as they see fit and still succeed. Kotter’s ideas are especially applicable amid the rapidly shifting technological innovations of the twenty-first century. In 2005 Kotter and coauthor Holger Rathgeber published Our Iceberg Is Melting, a New York Times Best Seller, which uses a fictional allegory of penguins on an iceberg to communicate the eight-step process to a broader audience. In 2014 Kotter published an updated version of the eight-step process in Accelerate: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World. He published additional books after this, including That's Not How We Do It Here!: A Story About How Organizations Rise and Fall--And Can Rise Again (2016) and Change: How Organizations Achieve Hard-to-Imagine Results Despite Uncertain and Volatile Times (2021).
The first and most important step in Kotter’s process is to create a sense of urgency, to "craft and use a significant opportunity as a means for exciting people to sign up to change their organization." In the case of Apple, arguably one of the most successful computer companies of all time, the company’s charismatic founder and CEO, Steve Jobs, created excitement and inspiration for his employees with a keynote speech in 2007 in which he announced the creation of both the iPhone and Apple TV. During the speech, Jobs also announced that the company would change its name from Apple Computer, Inc., to simply Apple Inc., a move that signaled an overarching shift from the company’s previous focus on computers to one on a variety of consumer electronics.
Kotter’s second step is to create a guiding coalition, which he defines as "assembl[ing] a group with the power and energy to lead and support a collaborative change effort." In the case of Microsoft, for example, the company has in recent years moved away from traditional software and begun to embrace cloud computing. In keeping with Kotter’s second step, it hired a cloud-computing expert as its new CEO.
Kotter defines the third step as creating a strategic vision and initiatives for change. This vision should provide clear and accessible guidance for employees about the organization’s goals within a given time frame, but it should also include employees’ ideas. The fourth step is to "enlist a volunteer army" of people who are passionate about the vision and willing to drive change.
The social-networking company Facebook used Kotter’s fifth step—"remove obstacles to change, change systems or structures that pose threats to the achievement of the vision"—when it altered its corporate structure. In 2007, in the early years of Facebook, the company’s mission did not include a method for profitability; it created a new position, chief operating officer (COO), to implement a strategy to make Facebook profitable. Soon the company went public with an initial public offering of $104 billion.
The sixth step in Kotter’s process is to create short-term wins in order to inspire employees to help the change process improve and grow. Although such short-term wins are necessary, Kotter cautions in his seventh step, which is to consolidate improvements, that change is a slow process and that companies should continue to look for ways to improve. The eighth step, anchoring the changes, involves ensuring that the organization’s values, standards, and employees are aligned with the new vision and continue to support it.
Kotter retired from full-time teaching at HBS in 2002 and became the school’s Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus. In 2008 he cofounded Kotter International, a business leadership consultancy that helps leaders of Global 5000 companies learn the skills and methods they need to manage complex, large-scale change in their organizations. Kotter’s eight-step process for leading change serves as the foundation of the consultancy’s practice.
Impact
As a professor, author, and consultant, Kotter’s insights on organizational change and leadership have helped business leaders and companies around the world. In 2001 he was named the top "leadership guru," according to a survey of more than five hundred organizations by BusinessWeek.
Personal Life
Kotter has two children. He married Nancy Dearman, a cofounder of Kotter International, in 2015. The couple live in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Bibliography
"The 8-Step Process for Leading Change." Kotter International. Kotter Intl., 2016. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.
"John P. Kotter." Fast Company. Mansueto Ventures, 2016. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.
Kotter, John, and Holger Rathgeber. That’s Not How We Do It Here! A Story about How Organizations Rise and Fall—and Can Rise Again. New York: Penguin, 2016. Print.
Kotter, John. "The Long View: John Kotter." Interview. T+D Dec. 2009: 62–63. Biography Reference Bank (H. W. Wilson). Web. 22 Sept. 2016.
Kotter, John. "Management Is (Still) Not Leadership." Harvard Business Review. Harvard Business School, 9 Jan. 2013. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.
Kotter, John. "Capturing the Opportunities and Avoiding the Threats of Rapid Change." Leader to Leader Fall 2014: 32–37. Business Source Complete. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.
Tanner, Robert. "Kotter's Eight Step Leading Change Model." Management Is a Journey, 17 Sept. 2024, managementisajourney.com/summary-of-kotters-eight-step-leading-change-model/. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.
Van Vliet, Vincent. "Kotter’s 8 Step Change Model." ToolsHero. ToolsHero.com, 8 Jan. 2014. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.