Dr. John Kotter’s 8-Step Process for Leading Change provided a structured framework for explaining the characteristics of successful organisational transformations based on research and observation of leaders and organisations tackling change. However, Kotter later recognise the trend towards agility and evolved the model into the 8 Accelerators.
Where the original, linear model aimed to guide successful transformation by addressing common success factors, Kotter and Kotter International (founded 2010) identified that an episodic approach fell short of addressing the constant nature of organisational change. The 8 steps became 8 Accelerators, with a focus on impact and iteration.
By allowing the 8 Accelerators to work iteratively, organisations are thought to address their need for flexibility and agility in change, enable a continuous improvement mindset and align with the reality of constant change.
Of Kotter's 8 steps or Accelerators, today we look at enlisting a volunteer army.
From the website https://www.kotterinc.com/methodology.
The change agent network or change community will be familiar to many change managers. Depending on implementation, Kotter's volunteer army concept may not be exactly the same as a change agent network. Change Agent Networks can include formal roles that are embedded within the organisational structure; and the volunteer army may not - they might just be a group of committed individuals who participate from a sense of belief in the vision and purpose for the change.
Some factors may need to be addressed in the organisation before jumping in to the creation of a change agent or volunteer network, see more in Creating a change-ready culture. This is because the creation and coordination of large groups of people can be time-consuming requiring commitment from the respective people leaders. And having the group work together towards a common goal requires organisation.
Enlist a Volunteer Army: Large-scale change requires a unified group of people rallying around a common goal. They must actively contribute and work together to achieve the vision.
For a major bank, I managed an industry-wide change initiative in the Institutional and Business segment. This required helping stakeholders to understand a revolutionary change that streamlined the payments for a large number of transactions, effectively removing batch processing between participating banks and enabling instant inter-bank transactions.
In addition to understanding the impacts on the business of the detailed technology changes, managing the production of learning and communication assets, managing execution of training and information sessions, the program also mobilised a Working Group.
The focus of the Working Group members was to represent respective business streams for the dissemination of awareness and detailed change impact information, to execute mitigations against the impacts to marketing, technology, product and sales enablement, and to support their businesses and manage the impacts accordingly. Working Group members participated in a formal, regular meeting forum, but beyond that built underlying networks individually, enlisting supporters in ways that suited their streams.
The Working Group firstly assisted in the development of a mutually acceptable Change Plan, and sponsored the agreed change plan to achieve governance approval.
Next, the group validated the impacts identified and coordinated representatives within each business area to create awareness and take actions to resolve impacts. In dealing with impacts the group participated with both a change management focus and a communications focus that enabled informed, collaborative development of internal and external communications. This was important because the external communications needed to take in customer messaging, as well as messaging to the broker and adviser network: audiences that were regularly over-saturated. The Working Group and its members helped to narrow down the communications such that timing and messaging fitted compatibly - and successfully - within the bank's broader messaging architecture.
Further, the Working Group supported the negotiation and development of a future state operating model. The cooperation achieved in developing future ways of working would not have been possible without the contribution of the Working Group members, and the collaboration and support they achieved from their underlying networks.
Finally, the group developed an appealing - and commercial - capability development program. By networking with members of the business, unknown facts became understood that would not have come to light so easily - such as the need to remunerate certain categories of employee when they undertake training.
Conclusion on Kotter's Step: Enlist a Volunteer Army
Unfortunately, the desire to establish working groups, enlist volunteers in the change effort and form change agent networks can meet with resistance. One key platform of resistance has been the move to agility.
Stakeholders and business leaders can sometimes see organising groups of volunteers as 'clunky' and counter-agile, preferring to have interactions streamlined into existing forums. However, this approach, while expedient, may not allow the proponents of change to step forward and form a team amongst themselves. This may become increasingly more difficult for change managers as operating less formally may mean relying more on influence and less on structure.
In Kotter's model, the volunteer army needs to understand the value of the proposed change, grasp the vision and reasoning behind it. They should be people who actively want to contribute to the change effort and collectively form a unified force working toward achieving the shared goal.
Beyond being a technology program, this was an industry-wide movement impacting millions upon millions of payment transactions that occur in the national economy on a daily basis. An effective group of volunteers understands the need for key initiatives to go beyond being a mere project and become instead a movement. This type of collective effort needs organisation, and it needs everyone involved to participate consciously and to leave their own mark.
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