Book Review
“Leading Change” by John Kotter 1996
Review by Chris Shea

John P. Kotter is internationally known and widely regarded as the foremost speaker on the topics of leadership and change. He is the premier voice on how the best organizations actually achieve successful transformations. The Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus at the Harvard Business School and a graduate of MIT and Harvard, Kotter’s vast experience and knowledge on successful change and leadership have been proven time and time again. The book Leading Change looks at an eight stage process for implementing successful transformations in today’s firms as well as the eight errors that are common to change efforts. The ideas and methods in this book should be considered a roadmap to successful change for any manager or leader in today’s modern organizations.
Leading Change is broken up into three parts. Part one begins by discussing the potential downside of change and the eight errors commonly made during transformation efforts and their consequences. He then goes into detail on the economic and social forces that drive the need for major change in today’s organizations. This is also where Kotter introduces his eight step process for creating change. In Part two Kotter goes into great detail about his eight step process for successful change highlighting what to focus on and avoid at each step of the process. Part three looks at the implications for the 21st century, he goes into detail about the organization of the future and talks about sustaining that success through leadership and lifelong learning.
“The Change Problem and its Solution”. Kotter starts off in chapter 1 by highlighting the eight most common mistakes or errors that prevent successful change efforts. He does note that there are a few organizations that have been successful and positioned themselves for a