Kotter's eight steps are tested as a sequence. The exam asks what comes immediately after a named step, what is last, and what the ordering implies.
The order, as published by Kotter Inc.
- Create a sense of urgency
- Build a guiding coalition
- Form a strategic vision
- Enlist a volunteer army
- Enable action by removing barriers
- Generate short-term wins
- Sustain acceleration
- Institute change
The traps
- After create a sense of urgency comes build a guiding coalition, step two. Forming a strategic vision is step three, enlisting a volunteer army is step four.
- Generate short-term wins is step six, not an early step. People mis-sequence it because wins are talked about early.
- The eighth and final step is Institute Change. Sustain Acceleration is step seven and is the tempting wrong answer because it also concerns making change last. Enable action by removing barriers is step five.
What the steps mean
- Build a guiding coalition is the formation of a group of influential, respected leaders with the authority to drive the change. When a change has stalled because a single sponsor is pushing while other leaders stay silent, forming a cross-functional group of respected leaders with authority to act is this step - not enlist a volunteer army, which is step four and means broad participation, and not create a sense of urgency, which establishes why change must happen now.
Why wins come before acceleration
The model places generate short-term wins (6), then sustain acceleration (7), then institute change (8). The implication for a two-year transformation is to use early visible wins to build momentum and keep driving further change rather than easing off.
The classic error the sequence warns against is declaring victory once the first wins land - two named steps still follow. Holding back all visible results until the end forgoes the momentum step six exists to create, and skipping early wins removes a named step from the model.
Carry this in: two steps come after the wins.