If you’re both an Engine for Change reader and a PSNS & IMF Guiding Coalition team member, this is the article you’ll want to share with your family and friends.
You should be very pleased with your accomplishments.
You deserve the attention.
You are driving change!
Dateline: 15 March 2010, PSNS & IMF Public Affairs Office
Leadership Guru to Visit Puget Sound Naval Shipyard
Why would an internationally recognized expert on leadership and change ask to visit the U. S. Navy’s shipyard in Bremerton, Washington?
John Kotter, Harvard Business School professor and best-selling author of Leading Change, will visit the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility at the Bremerton site on March 19, 2010. He wants to see for himself the successes the Command has had with his eight-step Leading Change model.
Kotter’s book describes how organizations can gain the ability to change their culture for continued success. “Readers found the eight-step change framework compelling,” Kotter said. “It made sense as a roadmap and helped people talk about transformation, change problems and change strategies.”
According to Kotter, his model shows that “a strong Guiding Coalition [committee] is always needed—one with the right composition, level of trust and shared objective. Building such a team is always an essential part of the early stages of any effort to restructure.”
Dennis Goin, a national facilitator of guiding coalitions who has worked with Kotter, believes that PSNS & IMF is an example of how the Leading Change model should work.
“If you’ve ever wanted your strategic planning book put together with your strategic plan in place, then this is the model to use,” Goin said. “The book stays open; the initiatives are constantly being worked; you are constantly touching them.”
Taking the Leading Change eight-steps developed by Kotter—and blending a mixture of positional power, expertise, credibility and leadership—the PSNS & IMF Guiding Coalition has become more than a committee; it is an engine for change.
In the last four years, this group has formed a Command University through expanded investments in training; created a Diversity Council; and improved the Command’s cafeterias, facilities, communications and more. These successes have reverberated throughout the Command; impressing people from the Shipyard Commander to the deckplate mechanic.
If you are trying to ignite the energy in your organization, look to Puget. The Command is aglow with people who are motivated to change and transform their environment and they’re creating results. Because of PSNS & IMF’s proven accomplishments, Kotter decided to see his model in action. The Command thinks this visit will validate his model and show by using it correctly, people can set a standard well above what others thought was possible and hit it, repeatedly!
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And what an event it was! Fortunately for anyone who could not attend the various meetings, April arranged for the panel discussion to be filmed for later sharing.
Congratulations April for an opportunity not only taken, but knocked out of the park, out of the county, and out of the solar system! Go you!
Thanks Nancy. It was a great day and I hope everyone who got to hear Professor Kotter knows now how much they’re really accomplishing, not only the wins their collecting, but in the way they are making wins. Fabulous job to everyone involved!