University Libraries Promotion and Tenure Recognition

Leading Change by John P. Kotter is a legendary book describing an eight step process for enacting change within organizations. The book discusses common mistakes that cause organizational change processes to fail as well as how leadership, rather than management, is necessary to enact transformation. The book outlines a framework for leading change that begins with creating a sense of urgency, followed by establishing a guiding coalition, developing and communicating the vision and the strategy to achieve it, empowering key stakeholders, generating short terms wins, accelerating change, and finally anchoring those changes within the culture until the changes become the new norm. Kotter’s framework has been an instrumental guide to me as I have been leading curricular changes pertaining to implementation of interprofessional education/practice. I routinely gauge our team’s endeavors against Kotter’s framework to determine where we are at in the process and identify next steps.