Management
Leading change with the Kotter method
In Singapore, change often arrives from a regional headquarters and has to land in a team that rarely objects out loud. Two days on Kotter's eight steps, applied to your own project, so buy-in is built before the rollout rather than discovered missing three weeks after it.
What you will be able to do
- Understand the human mechanisms of change, and adapt your posture as a manager accordingly
- Master the 8 steps of the Kotter method to steer a transformation project in a structured and effective way
- Identify and lift individual and collective resistance using communication tools and transactional analysis
- Mobilise key people around a shared vision and a coherent action plan
- Anchor change durably in the culture of your team or organisation
Programme
Opening and framing: where do you stand on change?
- Cross-introductions and the change projects each participant brings
- Your personal relationship to change: anchors, beliefs, posture
The natural stages of change: why people resist
- The main psychological phases of change (the change curve, behavioural models)
- Identifying which stage each team member has reached
- Practical tools: ownership, factual communication, transactional analysis
- Role-play: adapting what you say to the other person's profile
- Workshop: mapping your team in the face of change
The Kotter method, the frame that structures everything
- The 8 steps, from a felt sense of urgency to cultural anchoring
- Why each step matters, and what happens when one is skipped
- Concrete examples: reorganisations, relocations, service changes, customer transformation
Workshops: your change plan in action
- Working groups by project or by team, with canvases, step sheets and analysis grids
- Creating urgency, forming the coalition, building the vision
- Communicating, removing obstacles, creating quick wins, anchoring
- Trainer feedback on every piece of work, and public-speaking tips built into the workshops
Putting it into action and commitments
- Sequencing the change over time and choosing progress indicators
- The actions to launch the following week
- Three concrete commitments per participant, and cross-presentation of the action plans
Why this course
Reorganisation, relocation, process transformation, a changing customer journey: change is everywhere. Yet transformation projects most often fail for lack of method and buy-in rather than for lack of strategy.
Built on the Kotter method, the course is designed as a real, immersive working experience you can use immediately. You work in real time on your own change, with your team, alongside an expert, and leave with a clear vision, concrete tools and an action plan ready to deploy.
What you will work through
- Understanding why your team members resist, and how to bring them on board
- Structuring your change project step by step with the Kotter method
- Working in workshops on your own project, real or simulated
- Leaving with a concrete action plan, tested and validated by the group
- Developing your posture as a leader of change
One day or two
The one-day format covers the 8 steps, tests the method on a concrete case and gives you an initial action plan. The two-day format is recommended for structuring and launching a change with your team: the workshops go further, and each of the 8 steps is worked through in depth.
Questions about this course
Is the course really about the Kotter method?
Yes. Kotter's eight steps structure the course, from a felt sense of urgency to anchoring the change in the team's culture. The method is not taught as a model to recite: each step is applied in a workshop to a real project brought by the participants, with trainer feedback on every piece of work.
Our change is decided by a regional headquarters. Is the method still useful?
Yes. The steps apply at the level where you actually act: the urgency you create locally, the coalition you build in your own team, and the way you communicate a vision you did not write alone. The workshops start from the project each participant brings, including changes decided elsewhere and carried locally.
We have already announced the change and it went badly. Is it too late?
No. Kotter's sequence is as useful for diagnosing the step that was skipped as for planning from the start; in a stalled project it is often the coalition or the vision. A badly received announcement can be recovered, provided you do not simply repeat it unchanged and hope for a better reception.
Can one day be enough?
Yes, depending on the goal. The one-day format covers the eight steps, tests the method on a concrete case and gives you an initial action plan. The two-day format is recommended for structuring and launching a change with your team: the workshops go further and each of the eight steps is worked through in depth.
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