Making change happen.

• Author: Kavanagh, Shayne C.

A sense of Urgency

By John P. Kotter

Harvard Business Press

2008, 196 pages, $22

Buy-In: Saving Your

Good Idea from Getting Shot Down

By John P. Kotter and Lorne A. Whitehead

Harvard Business Review Press

2010, 208 pages, $22

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The Great Recession has required local governments to make adjustments. Financial strategy is foremost among those areas requiring change. However, people tend to be averse to change or even resistant to it. Therefore, to help local government make the needed transformation, finance officers must be versed in techniques for promoting organizational change. John P. Kotter, a noted expert in this field, has recently produced two books that make an important contribution to our understanding of how to promote change.

INSTILLING TRUE URGENCY

The first is A Sense of Urgency. The thesis of this book is that organizations are often missing what Kotter calls "true urgency" when it comes to advancing important business improvement initiatives. True urgency is a strong desire to "move and win, now." With true urgency, action is alert, fast, and focused on the issues that drive the need for change. Irrelevant activities are assiduously eliminated to free up time and resources for critical activities. True urgency is rare, in contrast with two more common modes of operation: complacency, and a false sense of urgency. In a complacent organization, members are content with the status quo and perhaps fearful of change. The organization focuses inward and is largely oblivious of new opportunities and threats. When there is a false sense of urgency, members of the organization exhibit anxiety, anger, and frustration. There is frantic activity--many meetings, memos, projects, committees, etc.--a whirlwind of activity that exhausts and stresses people.

The strategy Kotter promotes for creating true urgency is a "hearts-mind" approach, where proponents not only present important facts to support their case but also make an appeal to their audience's emotions. Kotter points out that a case for change built exclusively on logic and facts might be sufficient for achieving an intellectual commitment to change, but an intellectual commitment alone is not enough to create the focused and determined action that will he needed to see the change through. Rather, proponents of the change must complement the intellectual case with a connection to emotionally compelling needs and goals that elicit...