John Kotter: Profile

Harvard Business School Professor John Kotter is widely regarded as the world's foremost authority on leadership and change.  His is the premier voice on how the best organizations actually "do" change.

In his newest work, A Sense of Urgency, Kotter shows what a true sense of urgency in an organization really is, why it is becoming an exceptionally important asset, and how it can be created and sustained within organizations.

John Kotter’s international bestseller Leading Change—which outlined an actionable, eight-step process for implementing successful transfor-mations—has become the change bible for managers around the world. Our Iceberg Is Melt-ing, the New York Times bestseller, puts the eight-step process within an allegory, making it accessible to the broad range of people needed to effect major organizational transformations. In October 2001, Business Week magazine rated Kotter the #1 "leadership guru" in America based on a survey they conducted of 504 enterprises.

Professor Kotter is the author of seventeen books, a collection that has given him  more honors and awards than any other writer on the topics of leadership and change.   In addition to A Sense of Urgency (2008), Our Iceberg Is Melting (2006), and Leading Change (1996), Professor Kotter is the author of The Heart of Change (2002), John P. Kotter on What leaders Really Do (1999), Matsushita Leadership (1997), The New Rules (1995), Corporate Culture and Performance (1992), A Force for Change (1990), The Leadership Factor (1988), Power and Influence (1985), The General Managers (1982), and five other books published in the 1970s. Professor Kotter's books have been printed in over 120 foreign language editions, and total sales exceed two million copies.

John Kotter’s articles in The Harvard Business Review over the past twenty years have sold more reprints than any of the hundreds of distinguished authors who have written for that publication during the same time period. His books are in the top 1% of sales from Amazon.com.

He has created three executive videos; one on "Leadership" (1991), another on "Corporate Culture" (1993), a third on "Succeeding in a Changing World" (2007) and an educational CD-ROM, "Realizing Change" (1998) based on the Leading Change book.

Professor Kotter's honors include an Exxon Award for Innovation in Graduate Business School Curriculum Design, and a Johnson, Smith & Knisely Award for New Perspectives in Business Leadership. In 1996, Professor Kotter's Leading Change was named the #1 management book of the year by Management General. In 1998, his Matsushita Leadership won first place in the Financial Times, Booz-Allen Global Business Book Competition for biography/autobiography. In 2003, a video version of a story from his book, The Heart of Change won a Telly Award. In 2006, Kotter received the prestigious McFeely Award for "outstanding contributions to leadership and management development." In 2007, his video "Succeeding in a Changing World" was named best video training product of the year by Training Media Review and also won a Telly Award.

Professor Kotter talks to groups with one and only one goal: to motivate action that gets better results.

Dr. Kotter is a graduate of MIT and Harvard. He joined the Harvard Business School faculty in 1972. In 1980, at the age of 33, he was given tenure and a full professorship.

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