Speedy & Profound Culture Change Through Self-Enrollment

By John Glasspool and John Orloff

Companies routinely institute culture changes to deal with management’s perception of the need for systemic mind-set change, in order to meet financial goals or competitive challenges. In his widely respected Harvard Business Review article “Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail,” John Kotter outlines eight critical steps to successful culture change — and reciprocal reasons why they fail. The common failure thread: Absence of clear management vision and change rationale, failure of communications throughout the corporation for the reasons and methodology of the change, and failure of managers to “walk the walk” of the new culture, from the CEO to the lowest management level.