What not to do Managing Change

So far, you’ve learned about the basic change process (unfreezing, change intervention, refreezing) and man-aging resistance to change. Harvard Business School professor John Kotter argues that knowing what not to do is just as important as knowing what to do when it comes to achieving successful organizational change.

Managers commonly make predictable errors when they lead change. The first two errors occur during the unfreezing phase, when managers try to get the people affected by change to believe that change is really needed. The first two errors occur during the unfreezing phase, when managers try to get the people affected by change to believe that change is really needed.

The second mistake that occurs in the unfreezing process is not creating a powerful enough coalition. Change often starts with one or two people. But change has to be supported by a critical and growing group of people to build enough momentum to change an entire department, division, or company.

The next four errors that managers make occur during the change phase, when a change intervention is used to try to get workers and managers to change their behavior and work practices. Lacking a vision for change is a significant error at this point.

Undercommunicating the vision by a factor of ten is another mistake in the change phase. Successful communication of the vision requires that top managers link everything the company does to the new vision and that they “walk the talk” by behaving in ways consistent with the vision.

Furthermore, even companies that begin change with a clear vision sometimes make the mistake of not removing obstacles to the new vision. They leave formidable barriers to change in place by failing to redesign jobs, pay plans, and technology to support the new way of doing things.

Declaring victory too soon is a tempting mistake in the refreezing phase. The last mistake that managers make is not anchoring changes in the corporation’s culture. An organization’s culture is the set of key values, beliefs, and attitudes shared by organizational members that determines the accepted way of doing things in a company.

Changing cultures is extremely difficult and slow. According to Kotter, two things help anchor changes in a corporation’s culture. The first is directly showing people that the changes have actually improved performance. The second is to make sure that the people who get promoted fit the new culture. If they don’t, it’s a clear sign that the changes were only temporary.