Kotter International is about leading large-scale change, not just managing it.
If people think the boss is manipulating them to get them to work harder, it backfires.
The vast majority of large scale change efforts fail. Which means that the probability that you have actually experienced a failure, and your people know that and are pessimistic, therefore, about trying something again, is very high.
Low lights signal to our senses that the workday may be over and it's time for sleep, making it hard for an audience to pay careful attention. When we stand behind a big wooden podium, it can feel as if there's a shield between us and the audience.
Tradition is a very powerful force.
If you're overbooked, you can't manage pressing problems or even recognize they're pressing until too late.
We are always creating new tools and techniques to help people, but the fundamental framework is remarkably resilient, which means it must have something to do with the nature of organizations or human nature.
Congress is full of people who get reelected and reelected. How can you have urgency when there are all of those safe seats?
Because management deals mostly with the status quo and leadership deals mostly with change, in the next century we are going to have to try to become much more skilled at creating leaders.
We started Kotter International to improve leaders' ability to deal with big, important transformations in organizations - and in their lives.
Urgency is unbelievably important when you're talking about, not little changes, but big changes.
