Kotter’s model for leading change

The correct answer: C. Creating a sense of urgency about why the change is needed

✅ Why this answer

Kotter’s model begins with creating a sense of urgency: why must we change now? What does staying as we are cost? Without a convincing reason, people resist or ignore the change, however good the plan.

❌ Why the other options are wrong

• (A): anchoring the change in the culture is the last step.
• (B): short-term wins come in the middle, to prove the change works and keep momentum.
• (D): removing obstacles and empowering people come after building the coalition and the vision and communicating it.

💡 Key concept

The eight steps in order:

1. Create a sense of urgency.
2. Build a strong guiding coalition.
3. Form a vision and strategy.
4. Communicate the vision.
5. Remove obstacles and empower people.
6. Generate short-term wins.
7. Build on the wins and do not let up.
8. Anchor the change in the culture.

Kotter focuses on leading change in the organization, while ADKAR focuses on the individual’s journey.

To make them easier to remember, the steps are usually grouped into three phases: steps 1 to 3 create the climate for change, steps 4 to 6 engage and enable the organization, and steps 7 and 8 implement and sustain the change.

🔗 Related facts and questions

• Related change models: Lewin, with three stages: unfreeze, change, refreeze. Kotter, with eight steps for leading change in the organization. ADKAR, for the individual’s journey: awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, reinforcement.
  Practice question: Lewin’s model ends with refreeze, where the new way becomes the normal way of working. Which of Kotter’s steps does that job? → Anchoring the change in the culture (the eighth).
• Diffusion of innovations (Rogers): people do not adopt something new all together: innovators (2.5%), then early adopters (13.5%), the early majority (34%), the late majority (34%), and laggards (16%). The work starts with the early adopters, because they are the opinion leaders their colleagues follow, and the clinical champions of the guiding coalition are chosen from among them.
• The steps on a clinical documentation project: urgency, with data on errors or time lost in the current way. A coalition of physicians, nurses, management and IT. Short-term wins, with a template that clearly saves time in one department and is then publicized. Anchoring, by putting the new approach into the training of new staff and into policy.
• Common mistakes: starting with the plan before persuading people, a coalition of management alone without physicians, and declaring victory too soon after the first success.
  Practice question: two weeks after a successful go-live the project was declared finished and the support team was disbanded, and physicians went back to the old way. Which two steps were neglected? → Building on the wins, and anchoring the change in the culture.
• Resistance to change: its usual causes are fear of losing competence, lack of time, and the feeling that the decision was imposed. The remedies are involving users early in the design, enough training, and at-the-elbow support at go-live.
• The ADKAR model for individual change management: "The ADKAR model for individual change management" (in the full bank).
• Managing expectations in system implementation: a related question in the full bank.
• Transformational leadership: "Transformational leadership" (in the full bank).