Monday Morning Mojo

The Greatest Positive Impact

Harvard Business School professor John Kotter is a world-class authority on change leadership, perhaps best known for his eight-step model for leading successful change. His vision is, Millions Leading, Billions Benefiting.

His body of work, which provides extensive help to those who lead change, matches his farsighted, noble intentions. Each of his eighteen books makes substantive contributions to the field, with powerful stories from his exposure to hundreds of organizations illustrating his findings. I have relied on his stories, techniques, and insights, many times in my work.

What motivates Kotter himself? I spoke to him on this and here's how the conversation went:

Seth: You appear to have a sense of urgency yourself.

John: There is no question that I’ve got a sense of urgency. I think in terms of thirty years, but I get up every morning to figure out what I can do today to push things along. I have big aspirations and I believe (a) they’re possible, but (b) let’s face it, you can drop dead tomorrow. So I play it both ways. The only way you’re going to work on big aspirations is by taking a long view. But if you’re going to be realistic about things, you might only have two days . . . so, use them!

John Kotter's book: A Sense of Urgency

Seth: Your book, A Sense of Urgency, is written for leaders in organizations. Yet several times you point out that maintaining urgency is good for the individual and the world too.

John: That is what I believe and what I have found. Some people feel they are being pressed to provide more leadership by their superiors. They are not convinced they can make much of a difference.

success!

If you dig into what most people call urgency, it is a frenetic, energy-draining, meeting-to-meeting, taskforce-to-taskforce, activity-and-not-productivity behavior. It is not helping them at all. But it looks like a sense of urgency. It couldn’t be more different. It is as radically different as complacency is from real urgency. Getting that clear in my own head was an important distinction.

My messages are (a) you can make a difference in your organization—more than you think sometimes—and (b) collective differences have a big impact on society. Sometimes even single individuals have this kind of impact.

There is no question that the greatest positive impact from a person demonstrating leadership is on him or her.

VisionaryLeadership.com