The Heart of Change is the follow-up to John Kotter's enormously popular book Leading Change, in which he outlines a framework for implementing change that sidesteps many of the pitfalls common to organizations looking to turn themselves around. The essence of Kotter's message is this: the reason so many change initiatives fail is that they rely too much on "data gathering, analysis, report writing, and presentations" instead of a more creative approach aimed at grabbing the "feelings that motivate useful action." In The Heart of Change, Kotter, with the help of Dan Cohen, a partner at Deloitte Consulting, shows how his eight-step approach has worked at over 100 organizations. In just about every case, change happened because the players were led to "see" and "feel" the change. In one example, a sales representative underscores a sense of urgency to change a manufacturing process by showing a videotaped interview with an unhappy customer; in another, a purchasing manager makes his point to senior management about corporate waste by displaying on the company's boardroom table the 424 different kinds of gloves that the company had procured through different vendors at vastly different prices. Well written and loaded with real-life examples and practical advice, The Heart of Change towers over other change-management titles. Managers and employees at organizations both big and small will find much to draw from. Highly recommended. --Harry C. Edwards


From Publishers Weekly
"Never underestimate the power of a good story," Kotter and Cohen testify in this highly readable sequel to Kotter's groundbreaking Leading Change. Practicing what they preach, they have culled, from hundreds of interviews conducted by Deloitte Consulting, the 34 most instructive and vivid accounts of companies undergoing large-scale change. With chapters organized by each of the eight stages of change Kotter identified in his 1996 bestseller, the authors deftly contrast success stories with fumbles, then utilize the compare-and-contrast format for lively "how-to/how-not-to" discussion. Throughout, they pepper their discussion with arresting (and quotable) aphorisms, such as "Dying will not help" and "Honesty always trumps propaganda," to ensure that readers remain on task, engaged and awake. Viewed in stages with concrete examples and convenient end-of-chapter summaries, the challenges and opportunities of the change process emerge in sharp relief. Kotter and Cohen demonstrate the critical difference that focus, faith, leadership, commitment and creativity make in winning employees' hearts, offering good stories that truly apply to each topic. "The single biggest challenge in the process is changing people's behavior," they insist, while providing convincing evidence (as well as examples of the effectiveness of videos and creative visual displays) that their method of "see-feel-change" will enable a company to overcome resistance lurking in its midst.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Prolific author and change management expert Kotter (emeritus, Harvard Business Sch.) and consultant Cohen join forces in this timely update to Kotter's successful Leading Change (1996), which set the standard for books on the subject. This earlier work revealed why efforts at change so often end in failure and outlined the eight critical steps needed to turn things around. Having researched more than 100 organizations in the midst of major changes, Kotter and Cohen now reveal the core problems people face at each of these eight stages and provide straightforward solutions. Their main finding is that the central issue concerns not structure or systems but changing the behavior of people. An overview of how people see and meet change is followed by chapters on the steps to successful, large-scale change, including increasing urgency, building a guiding team, getting the vision right, communicating for buy-in, empowering action, creating short-term wins, and persistence. The inclusion of many firsthand, personal stories from people involved in change efforts makes this a useful book for any organization. Highly recommended for all academic libraries supporting business curricula. Dale Farris, Groves, TXCopyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


Library Journal, June 2002
Highly recommended for all academic libraries supporting business curricula.


Publishers Weekly, June 3, 2002
...practical no-nonsense guide that pumps up, orients and keeps on track companies struggling with change


Book Description
John Kotter's international bestseller Leading Change struck a powerful chord with legions of managers everywhere. It acknowledged the cynicism, pain, and fear they faced in implementing large-scale change-but also armed them with an eight-step plan of action for leaping boldly forward in a turbulent world. Now, Kotter and coauthor Dan S. Cohen delve deeper into the subject of change to get to the heart of how change actually happens. Through compelling, real-life stories from people in the trenches, in all kinds of organizations, the authors attack the fundamental problem that underlies every major transformation: How do you go beyond simply getting your message across to truly changing people's behavior? Based on interviews within over 100 organizations in the midst of large-scale change, The Heart of Change delivers the simple yet provocative answer to this question, forever altering the way organizations and individuals approach change. While most companies believe change happens by making people think differently, Kotter and Cohen say the key lies in making them feel differently. They introduce a new dynamic-"see-feel-change"-that fuels action by showing people potent reasons for change that spark their emotions. Organized around the revolutionary eight-step change process introduced in Leading Change, this story-driven book shows how the best change leaders use not just reports or analysis, but gloves, video cameras, airplanes, office design, and other concrete elements to impel people toward positive action. The authors reveal how this appeal to the heart-over the mind-motivates people to overcome even daunting obstacles to change and produce breathtaking results. For individuals in every walk of life and companies in every stage of change, this compact, no-nonsense book captures the heart-and the how-of successful change.


Book Info
Through true stories from real people, the authors present a play by play of challenges encountered, mistakes made, and lessons learned through each of the eight steps of change, and offers tips and tools readers can apply within their own organizations.


About the Author
John P. Kotter, world-renowned expert on leadership at the Harvard Business School, is the author of many books, including the award-winning, best-selling Leading Change. Dan S. Cohen is a Principal with Deloitte Consulting LLC.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Critically acclaimed author John P. Kotter has developed a groundbreaking paradigm for implementing change that places emphasis on the critical link between workplace behavior and an individual's feelings about his or her job.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

John Kotter's international bestseller Leading Change struck a powerful chord with legions of managers everywhere. It acknowledged the cynicism, pain, and fear they faced in implementing large-scale change-but also armed them with an eight-step plan of action for leaping boldly forward in a turbulent world.

Now, Kotter and coauthor Dan S. Cohen delve deeper into the subject of change to get to the heart of how change actually happens. Through compelling, real-life stories from people in the trenches, in all kinds of organizations, the authors attack the fundamental problem that underlies every major transformation: How do you go beyond simply getting your message across to truly changing people's behavior?

Based on interviews within over 100 organizations in the midst of large-scale change, The Heart of Change delivers the simple yet provocative answer to this question, forever altering the way organizations and individuals approach change. While most companies believe change happens by making people think differently, Kotter and Cohen say the key lies in making them feel differently. They introduce a new dynamic-"see-feel-change"-that fuels action by showing people potent reasons for change that spark their emotions.

Organized around the revolutionary eight-step change process introduced in Leading Change, this story-driven book shows how the best change leaders use not just reports or analysis, but gloves, video cameras, airplanes, office design, and other concrete elements to impel people toward positive action. The authors reveal how this appeal to the heart-over the mind-motivates people to overcome even daunting obstacles to change and produce breathtaking results.

For individuals in every walk of life and companies in every stage of change, this compact, no-nonsense book captures the heart-and the how-of successful change.

Author Biography: John P. Kotter, world-renowned expert on leadership at the Harvard Business School, is the author of many books, including the award-winning, best-selling Leading Change. Dan S. Cohen is a Principal with Deloitte Consulting LLC.

SYNOPSIS

John Kotter realizes that change breeds pain and cynicism and often ends in failure. In his 1996 bestseller, Leading Change, he laid out a revolutionary eight-step process that organizations can use to facilitate successful change. Here, he and coauthor Dan S. Cohen reveal the results of their detailed research into more than 100 organizations in the midst of pervasive change. Both exciting and instructive, these true stories are certain to strike a responsive chords in manager/readers. Solid advice for the great leap forward.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

"Never underestimate the power of a good story," Kotter and Cohen testify in this highly readable sequel to Kotter's groundbreaking Leading Change. Practicing what they preach, they have culled, from hundreds of interviews conducted by Deloitte Consulting, the 34 most instructive and vivid accounts of companies undergoing large-scale change. With chapters organized by each of the eight stages of change Kotter identified in his 1996 bestseller, the authors deftly contrast success stories with fumbles, then utilize the compare-and-contrast format for lively "how-to/how-not-to" discussion. Throughout, they pepper their discussion with arresting (and quotable) aphorisms, such as "Dying will not help" and "Honesty always trumps propaganda," to ensure that readers remain on task, engaged and awake. Viewed in stages with concrete examples and convenient end-of-chapter summaries, the challenges and opportunities of the change process emerge in sharp relief. Kotter and Cohen demonstrate the critical difference that focus, faith, leadership, commitment and creativity make in winning employees' hearts, offering good stories that truly apply to each topic. "The single biggest challenge in the process is changing people's behavior," they insist, while providing convincing evidence (as well as examples of the effectiveness of videos and creative visual displays) that their method of "see-feel-change" will enable a company to overcome resistance lurking in its midst. (Aug. 1) Forecast: Author appearances and a national marketing and advertising campaign will alert Leading Change's huge audience (it is HBS Press's all-time bestseller) to this practical no-nonsense guide that pumps up, orients and keeps on track companies struggling with change. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Prolific author and change management expert Kotter (emeritus, Harvard Business Sch.) and consultant Cohen join forces in this timely update to Kotter's successful Leading Change (1996), which set the standard for books on the subject. This earlier work revealed why efforts at change so often end in failure and outlined the eight critical steps needed to turn things around. Having researched more than 100 organizations in the midst of major changes, Kotter and Cohen now reveal the core problems people face at each of these eight stages and provide straightforward solutions. Their main finding is that the central issue concerns not structure or systems but changing the behavior of people. An overview of how people see and meet change is followed by chapters on the steps to successful, large-scale change, including increasing urgency, building a guiding team, getting the vision right, communicating for buy-in, empowering action, creating short-term wins, and persistence. The inclusion of many firsthand, personal stories from people involved in change efforts makes this a useful book for any organization. Highly recommended for all academic libraries supporting business curricula. Dale Farris, Groves, TX Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Booknews

Based on interviews within some 100 business organizations, this work explores how business leaders implement large scale change within their businesses. The book is organized around the eight stop process introduced in the author's earlier work, and contains case studies of leaders making change. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Soundview Executive Book Summaries

If you have ever tried to change anything, you know how hard it is. How do you go about getting your message across to truly change people's behavior? While most companies believe change happens by making people think differently, according to John Kotter and Dan Cohen, this is not the case. Instead, the authors write that change happens when you make people feel differently.

They write that those who want to promote change must appeal more to the heart than the mind.

The authors write that people change what they do because they are shown a truth that influences their feelings. This is especially so in large-scale organizational change, where you are dealing with new technologies, cultural transformation, globalization and e-business. In an age of turbulence, when you handle this reality well, the authors explain, you win.

To understand why some organizations are leaping into the future more successfully than others, the authors write that companies first need to see the flow of effective large-scale change efforts. Change is an eight-step process that few handle well. These steps are: Create a sense of urgency so that people start telling each other, "Let's go, we need to change things!" In successful change efforts, the first step is making sure sufficient people act with sufficient urgency - with on-your-toes behavior that looks for opportunities and problems and energizes colleagues, that beams a sense of "let's go." Without urgency, large-scale change will not happen. Pull together a guiding team powerful enough to guide a big change. The team you put together to guide change needs a sense of urgency. When there is urgency, more people want to lead, even if there is personal risk and few short-term rewards. But urgency isn't enough. Large-scale change does not happen without a powerful guiding force. A fragmented management team cannot do the job, and a hero CEO does not work either. There are not enough hours in the day for even the strongest executive to accomplish change single-handedly. Your challenge is to put together an effective guiding team. Create clear, simple, uplifting visions and sets of strategies. In successful large-scale change, a well-functioning guiding team answers the questions required to produce a clear sense of direction. What change is necessary? What is our vision for the new organization? What should not be altered? What is the best way to make the vision a reality? What change strategies are unacceptably dangerous? Good answers to these questions position an organization to leap into a better future. Communicate the vision through simple, heartfelt messages sent through multiple channels so that people begin to buy into the change. In successful change efforts, the visions and change strategies can't stay locked in a room with your team. They must be communicated with as many people as possible, who in turn must buy in. The goal: to get as many people as possible acting to make the vision a reality. Empower people by removing obstacles to the vision. When people begin to understand and act on a change vision, you need to remove barriers in their paths. One example: Take away a pessimistic skipper and give the crew an optimistic boss. Often the biggest obstacle to change efforts is a boss - an immediate manager or someone higher in the hierarchy. Subordinates see the vision and want to help, but are effectively shut down. Create short-term wins that provide momentum. Empowered people create short-term wins -- victories that nourish faith in the change effort, emotionally reward the hard workers, keep the critics at bay, and build momentum. Without early wins that are visible, timely, unambiguous and meaningful, change efforts invariably run into serious problems. Maintain momentum so that wave after wave of change is possible. After the first set of short-term wins, a change effort will have direction and momentum. In successful situations, people build on this momentum to make a vision a reality by keeping urgency up and a feeling of false pride down; by eliminating unnecessary, exhausting and demoralizing work; and by not declaring victory prematurely. Make change stick by nurturing a new culture. Tradition is a powerful force. Leaps into the future can slide back into the past. Change sticks only if you create a new, supportive and strong organizational culture. A supportive culture provides roots for new ways of working. Making it stick is difficult. If this challenge isn't met at the end of the change-process, enormous effort can be wasted.