I’ve taught Kotter’s 8-step change model for years now and have been a fan of the first step:  establishing a sense of urgency. As time has passed, however, I’ve become increasingly concerned that this model also has a bit too much of “change can’t happen without a sense of crisis” (to the point of even creating one), and it has always been prone to establishing urgency at the cost of the present state.

Rarely do we have the ability to burn everything down and start fresh–especially in higher education.  Universities and colleges are incredibly resilient and slow to change.  We almost always have to build on what’s already in place.  This means you have to take part of the present with you to a better and more successful future.

So it’s interesting that I came across this paper by McLaren, van der Hoorn, and Fein. Their work places change management–and especially the first step of Kotter’s model–in a different light.  While their view of Kotter’s model is overly reliant on the belief that it requires deriding or “vilifying” the status quo , it did make me take a moment to re-think my approach to establishing urgency to motivate change.

If I boil down my key takeaways, it really focuses on developing urgency by taking time to:

• Build a future that people want to RUN TO rather than a present they are forced to RUN FROM.
• Don’t completely invalidate the present.  By doing so, you invalidate other leaders by creating anxiety, stress, and opposition.  People generally have an affinity for the present–especially if they helped build it.
• Don’t assume that people will accept that you aren’t attacking the present.  You have to actively voice the positives of what already exists even as you talk about what needs to change.