Faculty and Research

John P. Kotter is an award winning business and management thought leader, New York Times best-selling author, and inspirational speaker. His ideas, books, and speeches have helped mobilize people around the world to better lead organizations, and their own lives, in an era of increasingly rapid change.

Awards, Honors, Recognition, Major Achievements* 

2009

-       Forbes of India and The Times of India survey puts Kotter on “The Definitive Ranking of the World’s
     50 Top Business Thinkers”, saying “Kotter has the well-earned reputation as the guru of change.”

-       CIO Insight magazine selects A Sense of Urgency as one of the 10 best business books of 2008.   

-       The American Association of Training and Development gives Kotter its Lifetime Achievement Award.

-       Kotter’s book Our Iceberg is Melting is adapted as a theatrical production by the U.S. Peace Corp.

-       Sage|Kotter is founded with the vision “Millions Leading, Billions Benefiting”.

2008

AudiFile Award for Excellence praises Kotter as “a profound business thinkeran extraordinary writer and heir-apparent to the legendary business writer Peter Drucker.”

*Partial list.

A Sense of Urgency becomes Kotter’s second New York Times bestseller (regular list, not just business list).

A Sense of Urgency is named as one of the very best (#2 on a top 10 list) business or investing book published in 2008 (rating by the editors at Amazon.com). 

 Edge Magazine honors Kotter in a Cover story with the citation: “It’s quite possible that there is someone in the world who knows more about the nature of change than John Kotter. But if so, they have yet to declare themselves”.

Two of Kotter’s books (Our Iceberg is Melting and A Sense of Urgency) are at the same time on Business Week’s top ten list of best sellers.

The Chinese edition of Harvard Business Review rates Kotter as one of six thought leaders who have “significantly influenced Chinese modern business ideas and practices”. 

2001-2007

2007. Kotter’s Succeeding in a Changing World is recognized as one of the two best management training videos of the year.

2007. Our Iceberg is Melting is rewritten as a play by The Times of India and shown to groups of senior executives and politicians in major Indian cities.

2007. Succeeding in a Changing World wins a Telly Award (Kotter’s second) for excellence in video production.2006. Our Iceberg is Melting becomes a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and USA Today bestseller.

2006. Kotter wins the McFeely Award for “Outstanding Contributions to Leadership and Management Development”.

2005. Reprints of Kotter’s six Harvard Business Review articles top the list of most sold HBR reprints of all time.

2004. The Heart of Change videos, dramatization of real stories from his Heart of Change book, win a Telly award.

2004. Excellence 100 lists Kotter as one of the two best business and management speakers, authors, and thought leaders (globally).

2003. The Heart of Change, a book written with Deloitte Consultant Dan Cohen, becomes a business best seller (Kotter’s 8^th).

2001. Business Week magazine announces that a survey of 504 enterprises lists Kotter as the #1 leadership “Guru” in America.

1991-2000

1999. Kotter on What Leader’s Really Do is published with 2 articles that have placed in the yearly HBR McKinsey Award competition.

1998. Matsushita Leadership wins the Booz-Allen, Financial Times competition for best business biography/autobiography of the year.

1997. Leading Change is a business bestseller. It subsequently becomes the best-selling book of its kind ever.

1996. Leading Change is recognized by Management General as the #1 business book in 1996, the best among many thousands of business and management books published that year.

1993. Corporate Culture and Performance is recognized as one of the year’s best books in the Academy of Management’s Terry Award competition.

1992. Corporate Culture and Performance, written with fellow Harvard professor Jim Heskett, becomes a business best seller (#6 in a row).

1991. A Force for Change becomes a business best seller (#5).

1981-1990

1990. Overwhelmingly enthusiastic reviews of A Force for Change include the commentary: “[the book] will be received as the seminal work on the nature of leadership”.  

1990. Kotter is awarded a lifetime Chair at Harvard Business School (The Konosuki Matsushita Professor of Leadership).

1988.The Leadership Factor becomes a business best seller (Kotter’s fourth book in a row to hit business best seller lists).

1986. Kotter wins the John, Smith, and Knisley Award for New Perspectives in Business Leadership.

1985. Power and Influence becomes a business list best seller (Kotter’s third).

1985. The Stanford University Alumni Magazine lists Power and Influence as one the year’s best business books.

1982. The General Managers becomes a business list best seller, Kotter’s second.

1982. The Stanford University Alumni magazine recognizes The General Managers as one of the best business books for the year.

1981. Kotter is voted tenure and a full Professorship at Harvard Business School, the youngest person ever to receive that award.

1968-1980

1980. Power in Management becomes Kotter’s first book to make it onto business best seller lists.

1979. Kotter wins the Exxon Award for Innovation in Graduate School Curriculum Design (the only award of its kind in North America for course design in any graduate program within business or management schools or departments).

1978. Kotter is promoted to Associate Professor at Harvard.

1978. “Power, Dependence, and Effective Management”, Kotter’s first published paper, is a runner-up in the McKinsey Award competition for the best Harvard Business Review article of the year.

1973. Kotter is offered an Assistant Professorship at Harvard and accepts.

1972. Kotter is offered a one year position as a Research Fellow at Harvard Business School (and accepts).

1968, 1970, 1972. John P. Kotter was awarded a bachelors degree in electrical engineering from MIT, a masters degree in management from the Sloan School (at MIT), and a doctorate in organizational behavior from Harvard.