Managers are trained to make incremental, programmatic improvements. They aren't trained to lead large-scale change.

Kotter International is about leading large-scale change, not just managing it.

The vast majority of large scale change efforts fail. Which means that the probability that you have actually experienced a failure, and your people know that and are pessimistic, therefore, about trying something again, is very high.

If the culture you have is radically different from an 'experiment and take-risk' culture, then you have a big change you going to have to make - and no little gimmicks are going to do it for you.

We know that leadership is very much related to change. As the pace of change accelerates, there is naturally a greater need for effective leadership.

The rate of change is not going to slow down anytime soon. If anything, competition in most industries will probably speed up even more in the next few decades.