John Kotter

John Paul Kotter (born 1947) is a professor at the Harvard Business School and author, who is regarded as an authority on leadership and change. In particular, he discusses how the best organizations actually "do" change. (Kotter & Cohen, 2002)

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The Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations (2002)

Page numbers refer to the 2002 Harvard Business School Press edition, ISBN 1578512549.

• Changing behavior is less a matter of giving people analysis to influence their thoughts than helping them to see a truth to influence their feelings.
  • Introduction to the 2002 edition, p. 2

• The heart of change is in the emotions.
  • Introduction to the 2002 edition, p. 2

• Analytical tools have their limitations in a turbulent world. These tools work best when parameters are known, assumptions are minimal, and the future is not fuzzy.
  • Introduction to the 2002 edition, p. 12

• Motivation is not a thinking word; it’s a feeling word.
  • Introduction to the 2002 edition, p. 13

• Budgeting is a math exercise, number crunching. Planning is a logical, linear process. Strategizing requires a great deal of information about customers and competitors, along with conceptual skills. Visioning uses a very different part of the brain than budgeting. As the name implies, it involves trying to see possible futures. It inevitably has both a creative and emotional component (e.g., “How do we feel about the options?”). When you use “orthodox planning” to create a vision, frustration and failure are inevitable.
  • Step 3, p. 68

• No vision issue today is bigger than the question of efficiency versus some combination of innovation and customer service.
  • Step 3, p. 69

• Never underestimate the power of a good story.
  • Step 3, p. 80

• Good communication is not just data transfer. You need to show people something that addresses their anxieties, that accepts their anger, that is credible in a very gut-level sense, and that evokes faith in the vision.
  • Step 4, p. 84

• Great vision communication usually means heartfelt messages are coming from real human beings.
  • Step 4, p. 95

• Never underestimate the power of the mind to disempower.
  • Step 5, p. 112

• Without conviction that you can make change happen, you will not act, even if you see the vision. Your feelings will hold you back.
  • Step 5, p. 115

• One of the most powerful forms of information is feedback on our own actions.
  • Step 5, p. 116

• Valued achievements connect to people at a deeper level—and a deeper level can change behavior that is generally very difficult to change.
  • Step 6, p. 130

• We keep a change in place by helping to create a new, supportive, and sufficiently strong organizational culture.
  • Step 8, p. 161

• In a change effort, culture comes last, not first.
  • Step 8, p. 175

• A culture truly changes only when a new way of operating has been shown to succeed over some minimum period of time.
  • Step 8, p. 176

• We see, we feel, we change.
  • Conclusion to the 2002 edition, p. 179