Why Vilifying the Status Quo Can Derail a Change Effort: Kotter’s Contradiction, and Theory Adaptation

The Kotter eight-step change model has a pervasive influence in the practice of change management; founded on building urgency towards the desired change through convincing employees that the status quo is more dangerous than the future state. We critique this positioning of the current state as dangerous, the proposition of using it to drive urgency, and the resultant employee anxiety and stress that is synonymous with organizational change. We reveal that positioning the current state as dangerous is a combative (and futile) strategy given the inescapable nature of status quo bias. To address this complication, we propose a theory adaptation that appreciatively leverages status quo bias and recommends invoking approach motivation based on communicating the pressing importance of the future state.MAD statementChange practitioners utilize change models to support organizations to adapt, with the hope that they simultaneously support employee well-being during transition. Our theory adaption, as justified and described in this paper, provides both practical and theoretical contributions to those who want to prioritize the well-being of employees during change efforts through leveraging empirically-established status quo bias.