Cannot Do It On Your Own

Well back from a few days of R&R, and ready to jump back in. I am looking at the eight stages of leading change as outlined by John Kotter's book Leading Change. The first step is to create urgency, the second is to form a guiding coalition. One person, no matter what level leader they are, or what their skills and abilities are, can produce change. Change always requires a team effort, but not just any collection of people will do.

When putting together the team to instigate and implement change it is important to pay attention to the members of the team. A common error is to collect people who will always agree with you, and tell you what you want to hear. I want to be clear this is bad. Every effective team has the capacity to have healthy disagreement. However, the disagreement cannot be left at disagreement. There needs to be discussion and challenge of ideas, not to see who is right or wrong, but to produce the fruit of the desired change. Another component of the team which is often overlooked is the team must be willing to stand by each other and support each other when there is a bobble or a plan does not work. Change will often take a process of trial and error.

This is not simply an organizational principle. When trying to change an organization, a team is needed. The same is true when trying to create change within ourselves. We need to have a team of people who will journey with us through the change. People who will challenge us, people who will support us, people who will love us enough to enter the journey as their own. Without this team, or group change never becomes transformation, and transformation is ultimately the goal. I thank God I have both a personal team, and and organizational team, helping lead to transformation.