Kotter International works with senior executive teams during their leadership meetings focusing on their highest priority business issues, and the opportunities they represent for the organization. We help executive teams build alignment around those immediate, critical opportunities, as well as develop their competencies to lead large-scale change in the future.
Our team of Engagement Leaders designs each session to meet the client’s transformation objectives. The end result is helping start the executive team down the path toward becoming more aligned and better able to lead change going forward. Our focus is on transferring change leadership competencies to executives by facilitating activities related to real-life issues facing the organizations. By working with leadership teams on priority initiatives for their organization, we not only help them achieve their important objectives, but we also engage their heads and hearts to lead transformation going forward.
During a typical 1 to 2 day off-site session, we work with the senior leadership team to do the following: 1) Create alignment around a significant opportunity for the organization that when achieved will result in important long-term benefits; 2) Develop an understanding of proven approaches for creating urgency throughout the organization required for large-scale change; and 3) Teach best practices for leading large-scale organizational change.
Our approach utilizes Dr. Kotter’s world-renowned 8-Step Process for Leading Change. Many of the tools and techniques that are shared with the executive team during these sessions are not found in Dr. Kotter’s books, but have been developed through active engagement with clients seeking to implement large-scale change.
Large-scale change typically starts with urgency and alignment of the executive team, and is a critical first step in the 8-Step Process for Leading Change.
Large scale organizational change starts with the senior executive team. When leaders get together as part of a leadership team meeting there is often the opportunity to align around The Big Opportunity for the organization, but just as frequently this opportunity is squandered. What is often lost in the planning for leadership team meetings focused on change is the fact that the meeting itself is just part of an overall change process and not an isolated event.
Often these meetings engage an inspirational speaker such as Dr. Kotter or one of our Kotter International Engagement Leaders with the objective of raising the visibility and importance of a change initiative to the leadership team. The momentum that is generated in these gatherings, however, is frequently lost when everyone leaves the meeting and goes back to their day jobs. The lack of an overarching plan for a leadership team meeting is a significant missed opportunity for many organizations.
We have witnessed this scenario play out again and again at the senior-most levels in organizations, and believe there is a better way to execute leadership team meetings to advance specific change objectives. With proactive planning and leadership alignment before the meeting, effective communications surrounding the meeting, and a concrete plan to make the message stick and advance change after the meeting, an isolated meeting can become a galvanizing part of the change process.
- – Kotter International works with the executive sponsor and planners in charge of the leadership team meeting to outline the objectives of the meeting, communications, and follow-up tailored to the specific objectives of the organization.
- A Kotter International engagement leader is assigned to work with the meeting participants, and interviews up to 10 senior executives in preparation for the leadership team meeting.
- The engagement leader works with the meeting planners and senior executives to ensure that Dr. Kotter’s participation in the meeting is tailored to the needs of the organization. The engagement leader designs and facilitates a participatory learning experience for the meeting itself.
- Meeting participants receive follow-up materials that cement the take-aways from the meeting as a whole and ensure that participants understand and are using the material based on accountability feedback that is interactive and motivating to participants.