Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model

In this paper, Starbucks will adopt Kotter’s 8-step model to implement the proposed change.

  1. Establishing a sense of urgency

The first step entails creating urgency based on the fact that change is successful only when every member in the organization understands and embraces its significance (Kotter, 2012). For Starbucks, creating urgency will entail engaging in an honest, compelling dialogue with employees regarding the value of offering them sponsorships to advance their education. At the same time, Starbucks will engage employees in a dialogue about how other companies in the market have embraced this change and are reaping notable benefits from it. To accelerate the urgency building process, the HR manager at Starbucks could guide employees in developing scenarios illustrating future trends that could negatively affect employees who fail to take advantages of opportunities to upgrade their knowledge. At the same time, the organization could approach external parties such as colleges and universities offering part-time courses to employed persons. This kind of collaboration will help to create urgency and strengthen the company’s proposal to offer sponsorships to willing employees.

  1. Creating a coalition

The second step in the change management model is creating a coalition. According to Kotter (2012), convincing people to accept change often calls for strong leadership as well as support from influential members of an organization. This is because good leaders play a key role in establishing a learning culture, formulating plans, and empowering staff besides transforming operations in organizations (Lv & Zhang, 2017; Weiss & Li, 2020)). In reference to Starbucks’ proposed granting of sponsorships, the guiding coalition will comprise people who are not only influential but also individuals who share in the organization’s objective of employee development. As the organization selects the guiding coalition, it should be taken into consideration that not all people in senior positions in the organization support this idea. It is possible that some managers or supervisors will not be genuinely supportive as they feel that empowering employees in this manner is a threat to their jobs and rank. For this reason, the company should only select people who genuinely embrace the idea. The coalition will also be made up of external players, notably partners, donors and well-wishers who are ready to fund the company’s proposal. Motivational speakers and career guidance experts may also be included.

  1. Developing vision and strategy

The next step is to create a vision that will guide implementation of change. In decision making, individuals start by generating as many ideas as possible then using the elimination method to narrow down the list to the most feasible ideas. The same case applies in change management: every change proposal attracts numerous ideas together with solutions. To ensure that only those ideas necessary to change implementation are chosen, it is crucial that organizations develop clear visions as these will help members to understand the proposed change (Kotter, 2012). For Starbucks, the third step will entail crafting a vision statement that captures where the company sees itself in the next five or so years. For example, Starbucks’ vision in regard to the proposed change would be something like “To become the company with the most relevantly trained workforce globally”.

  1. Communicating the vision

 The new vision will be of little use unless it is properly communicated across the entire organization. A key proposition in Kotter’s model is that “what you do with your vision after you create it will determine your success” (Jeston & Nelis, 2014 p.529). The implication of this is that Starbucks must endeavor to communicate the vision of becoming the company with the most relevantly trained employees worldwide not only frequently but also powerfully, embedding this message in every activity that takes place in the organization. This vision will be applied in operational areas such as performance reviews and staff training, both formal and informal.

  • Empowering broad-based action

Looking at the steps described above, one may be led to conclude that resistance to change is unlikely if the organization creates urgency besides creating and communicating the change vision. However, it is still possible for employees to resist change unless they are adequately empowered on how to implement the vision (Kotter, 2012). To avoid this, it is very important that Starbucks ensures that all the necessary systems, resources and tools are available and adequate for all employees. Precisely, the company will review key aspects such as job descriptions, reward systems and organizational structure to keep them aligned with the change vision. Any employees or managers who are identified as opposing the plan will be talked to to identify the problem and help them to understand the short-term and long-term benefits of the proposed change.

  • Generating short-term wins

Providing results indicating that the company is making progress motivates employees to keep working towards a set goal. In regard to change management, such short-term wins help a lot in minimizing resistance (Kotter, 2012). Much as Starbucks’ change vision is to become the organization with the most relevantly trained employees in the world, it pays to develop and work towards smaller targets that are all aligned to this big vision. A practical strategy would be for the organization to begin implementing its big plan by sponsoring employees in lower-cadre jobs to upgrade their skills and education. Here, the company will pay for certificate or diploma courses for those employees whose current education level is high school or certificate respectively.

Since most certificate courses take less than six months to complete, they could be effective short-term targets that will help Starbucks to measure success of the planned sponsorship of all willing and eligible employees. Likewise, diploma courses that take a year or two are equally useful targets that can be used to project the achievability of the organization’s broad goal. An important thing to mention is that Starbucks should provide appropriate rewards to employees who successfully complete the certificate and diploma courses as a way of motivating others to embrace the bigger plan.

  • Consolidating gains and producing more change

While it pays to implement change in phases, it should be remembered that celebrating victory too early can be disastrous. In Kotter’s (2012) words, many change initiatives fail due to premature declarations of victory. Managers need to understand that quick wins only indicate areas on which emphasis is necessary for long-term change to be realized. In this light, therefore, Starbucks must be careful not to relax after recording wins with the certificate and diploma programs. Instead, the company should use the results obtained from these short-term wins to identify areas that need improvement when the firm starts rolling out sponsorships for Bachelors, Masters and PhD courses. In other words, the focus should be on continuous improvement and constant generation of ideas on what can be done to achieve the best results.

  • Anchoring new approaches into the culture

The final step in the implementation process is to make the changes a part of the company’s core. The rationale behind this is that in most cases, a company’s culture greatly determines its achievements and the extent to which the vision and mission are realized (Kotter, 2012). As such, the change should be reflected in all the organization’s aspects and the leaders motivated and encouraged to support it. To incorporate the change into the company’s culture, Starbucks should constantly talk about the change’s success stories and include its ideals as well as values during the hiring of new staff. Equally important, members of the change coalition should be publicly recognized.

References

Jeston, J. & Nelis, J. (2014). Business process management. Routledge.

Kotter, J. P. (2012). Leading change. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business Review Press.

Lv, C. M., & Zhang, L. (2017). How can collective leadership influence the implementation of change in health care? Chinese nursing research4(4), 182-185.

Weiss, P. G., & Li, S. T. T. (2020). Leading change to address the needs and well-being of trainees during the COVID-19 pandemic. Academic pediatrics, 20(6), 735-741.

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