Nearly three decades after John Kotter first published it, his eight-step model remains the most widely taught framework for leading organisational change – and one of the most widely misapplied. Used as a checklist, it becomes a compliance exercise. Used as a discipline, it becomes a genuine capability.

The eight steps

1. Create a sense of urgency – grounded in real market or performance data, not manufactured alarm.
2. Build a guiding coalition – a cross-functional group with enough credibility and authority to lead, not just endorse.
3. Form a strategic vision – a picture of the future specific enough to guide decisions.
4. Enlist a volunteer army – move beyond the coalition to broad buy-in across the organisation.
5. Enable action by removing barriers – structures, incentives and processes that quietly protect the old way of working.
6. Generate short-term wins – visible, unambiguous results within the first weeks and months.
7. Sustain acceleration – use early credibility to tackle bigger, harder changes rather than declaring victory too soon.
8. Institute change – anchor new behaviours in culture, systems and succession planning so they survive the people who championed them.

Where the model breaks down in practice

Kotter’s original model was written for an era of episodic, top-down change. In his later work, he acknowledged that most organisations now need change capability running continuously alongside day-to-day operations – not just during discrete initiatives. His answer was a second, more agile network of change agents operating in parallel with the formal hierarchy, rather than eight steps executed once and shelved.

What this means for leaders

The steps are still a useful sequence for structuring a specific initiative. But treat step 8 as the start of the next cycle, not the finish line. The organisations that sustain change build the guiding-coalition habit permanently, rather than reassembling it from scratch every time.

At Capacia Group, we help leadership teams build that muscle – not just run the workshop. If you are planning a change initiative and want an outside view on where it is likely to stall, get in touch.

References

Kotter, J.P. (1996) Leading Change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Kotter, J.P. (2014) Accelerate: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.