The Transformational CIO: Leadership and Innovation Strategies for IT Executives in a Rapidly Changing World

Transformation, Then and Now

Back in the spring of 1995, Harvard Business Review published an article by John Kotter, then a professor of leadership at Harvard Business School in Boston. The title of the article was “Leading Change.” The subtitle was “Why Transformation Efforts Fail.”

The article previewed a book of the same title that was published the following year. I think it's entirely fair to say that Kotter's writing defined the way that most of us understand the concept of business transformation.

If you are familiar with the book, you will remember that Kotter describes an eight-stage approach for moving ahead successfully with transformation projects. Kotter's revolutionary process now seems like common sense, which demonstrates the extent to which we have internalized his original insights.

Given the hypermercurial quality of today's global economy, however, I believe that a faster and more flexible method is required. I have developed a four-step model that distills the critical stages of earlier models, reduces complexity, and eliminates steps that now seem redundant.

The model is designed to make it easier for CIOs to succeed in their roles as transformational leaders. The model provides a simple, practical framework for developing transformation projects, rolling them out smoothly, and making them operational within the accelerated timeframes that now seem quite natural to us.