During this step, the groundwork that was laid in the first three steps, such as urgency generation,
vision creation and political support development, comes into action and helps to provide a more
smooth transition into change. This step consists of empowering people by removing obstacles
to change, reassuring that change is possible, planning activities and commitments, and
managing structures.
Contrary to popular thought, empowerment is not just about giving people more power, but
removing the obstacles that are preventing change (Kotter and Cohen, 2002). Indeed, giving
employees additional power without first ensuring that they are capable of handling it may be
detrimental (Duck, 1993). Further, Hansson and Klefsjo (2003) state that leaders need to drive
the change effort by eliminating obstacles instead of just assigning new responsibility. The
obstacles in this stage are often found in the formal and informal organization and could be
people, processes, bureaucracy or just about anything else that has the potential to thwart the
change initiative. Therefore, in this step it is important to ensure congruence between the change
strategy and tasks. Empowerment is one way to ensure that the tasks performed are essential and
that the essential tasks are performed.
Thus, empowerment can surface in the form of releasing employees from nonessential daily
tasks in order for them to participate in the change process. It is a good idea to estimate the
additional time and effort that employees will need to devote in order to embrace the change.
Sirkin et al. (2005) claim that the increase in an individual’s work load should not exceed ten
percent. They suggest that when change requires more than ten percent additional effort from
employees, they are likely to resist the change altogether. In order to minimize the additional
effort, it is likely that some old, non-value-adding activities, such as excessive paperwork, can be
removed from the employee’s job requirements to make certain that only essential tasks are
being carried out.