Dr. Kotter’s eight steps of organizational change exhibit the changes necessary in order to make a successful change in a professional organization.  Kotter recognizes that when making changes in an organization, most of the time it is met with resistance.  People generally aren’t fond of change, this could be related to Kotter noting that 70% of major change efforts fail. (Thomsen, 2013)

Dr. John Kotter’s approach to change includes eight steps.  The first step being creating a sense of urgency about the topic that needs change.  The more we discuss the topic and get people involved the more people recognize the need for a change. The second step is creating a guiding coalition. This means creating a group of 3-5 people that will advocate about the subject and have a strong reputation to make a change.  The third step is to develop a visual strategy. Show what the change will improve and how it will help the organization.  The fourth step is communicating the change vision.  Talk frequently about the change with everyone.  Kotter’s fifth step to organizational change is empowering employees for broad based action. The author notes that identifying and rewarding employees for taking action and removing barriers will help improve success for the change. ( Thomsen, 2013).  The seventh step is consolidating gains and producing more changes.  Finally the last step is anchoring new approaches in the culture.  Discussing the success and set backs with the employees is needed to complete the eight steps to organizational change.

My experience with change in the workplace relates to our unit using two programs to chart in and the fact that they didn’t communicate. The nurses used a program to chart in which is pertinent to wound care as it was specifically built for it, while the physicians and hospital use a different EMR to chart in. The two programs did not communicate so everything that the nurses charted didn’t automatically flow over to the other EMR.   Therefore it made more work for all of us, printing, stickering, and scanning charts into the EMR that physicians used.   We needed a change to take place. It didn’t take place at first and took time.  I can relate to Kotter’s eight steps to organizational change with this issue as we first had to create a sense of urgency and let it be known that this was a very important issue that was taking more time than it should. To make the change we had to create a coalition of 3 people to discuss and get the plan in process by developing a visual strategy.  That meant taking the visual strategy to the right people that would permit a change, even if it did cost. We had to communicate well to each other and all  of the parties involved. Eventually we were able to make the change and get the two systems to talk with an upgrade.  We had to follow through several times and reiterate the importance of the change.  This ended up saving time, supplies required for printing, and reducing confusion.

Thomsen, S. (2013, February 17). Kotter’s 8 steps organizational change model fc. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxtF40Xzhyl#action=share