Jun 6, 2019
The Road to Effective Leadership and Successful
Organizational Change, with John P. Kotter
John P. Kotter joins us on the
show for episode 25 of the Re-Thinking the Human Factor
Podcast.
We know that while some of our
listeners will see his name and ask themselves, “Who?”, those
who are familiar with John P. Kotter’s work will be asking, “How?”.
As in, ‘How did they get him on the podcast?’. Wherever you find
yourself on the spectrum, we are very excited to bring you this
interview with someone whom we consider to be a living
legend.
John P. Kotter is regarded by
many as the authority on leadership and change. He is a New York
Times best-selling author, award winning business and management
thought leader, business entrepreneur, inspirational speaker and
Harvard Professor. Kotter’s ideas, books, speeches, and company,
Kotter International, have helped mobilise people around the world
to better lead organisations, and their own lives, in an era of
increasingly rapid change.
Change management is an area in
cyber security that requires consistent learning, creativity,
re-tooling, and re-thinking. We know that. So we are excited to
share this pertinent interview with you today.
JOIN JOHN KOTTER AND BRUCE HALLAS AS THEY
DISCUSS:
- The importance of having time
for reflection in order to bring about clarity of thought. Clarity
is the door to creativity, curiosity, innovation, and ultimately,
change.
- We have two systems operating
at a subconscious level -
- Survival Mode, a system developed over time to
help us identify and respond to threats quickly in order to to
ensure survival.
- Thrive mode, which is the brain’s system for
recognising opportunity and is most likely responsible for our
species emerging from the Savannah and from
caves.
- Understanding these two modes
is important. An organisation whose leaders and workers operating
most often in Survival Mode will have a far more difficult time
accessing the clarity and creativity that Thrive Mode affords us.
This ultimately means that change and innovation will be more
difficult to accomplish in those organisations.
- What factors are present in
organisations that have successfully implemented organisational
changes vs. those that fail to meet their objectives.
- Understanding various barriers
to change, such as -
- How
our dominant survival trait when married with desire for consistent
output creates an environment where change is difficult
- Complacency, a huge barrier to
change
- False
urgency, which is driven by the Survival system
- The power of a Guiding
Coalition to help achieve organisational change and the difference
between that style of leadership vs. traditional management
styles
- Best practice around
communication -
- Emotional communication is more sticky than
dry, non-emotional messaging. Interestingly enough, a person with
buy-in for an idea is more likely to naturally convey emotion when
speaking about the idea than the one who is going along because
he/she has to do so.
- Frequency is also key to making messages
stick
- Communicating ideas in various ways helps
ensure the message is picked up by lots of different
people
- Enabling situations where quick
wins are possible for an organisation is a necessary practice for a
few reasons -
-
- Establishing credibility for a change
initiative is a huge issue at the beginning of the change process,
and quick wins establish the necessary trust in an idea so that
buy-in is possible.
- Quick
wins then enact the Thrive System in the brain when the brain
receives feedback that progress is being made.
- A
series of wins keeps the Thrive System running and helps people to
hang in for the long haul of proposed change.
RESOURCES AND TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY
- Guiding Coalitions
- The availability heuristic bias
- Survival Mode vs. Thrive Mode
MORE ABOUT JOHN P. KOTTER:
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review.
Thanks for listening and sharing.
Bruce & The Re-thinking the Human Factor Podcast Team