Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail John P. Kotter is the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership (retired) at Harvard Business School in Boston. He is the author of 15 books, including The Heart of Change: Real -Life Stories of How People Change anizations, John P. Kotter on What Leaders Really Do, and Leading Change . He has published six articles in HBR, including “What Leaders Really Do ” and “What Effective General Managers Really Do. ” by John P. Kotter Over the past decade, I have watched more than panies try to remake themselves into significantly petitors. They have included anizations (Ford) and small ones (munications), companies based in the United States (General Motors) and elsewhere (British Airways), corporations that were on their knees (Eastern Airlines), panies that were earning good money (Bristol -Myers Squibb). These efforts have gone under many banners: total quality management, reengineering, right sizing, restructuring, cultural change, and turnaround. But, in almost every case, the basic goal has been the same: to make fundamental changes in how business is conducted in order to help cope with a new, more challenging market environment. A few of these corporate change efforts have been very essful. A few have been utter failures. Most fall somewhere in between, with a distinct tilt toward the lower end