Gen­er­at­ing short-term wins is a pretty straight for­ward part of Kotter’s eight stage process, but yet it is often over­looked.  I can say that as a prin­ci­pal, teacher, and coach, this step is some­thing that I often over­looked.  As a big pic­ture thinker, I failed to rec­og­nize all of the short-term wins that were all around me.  Unfor­tu­nately, fail­ing to rec­og­nize short term wins can have dread­ful results on your long term goal. 

Kot­ter lists three char­ac­ter­is­tics of short-term wins.

1)  It’s vis­i­ble; large num­bers of peo­ple can see for them­selves whether the result is real or just hype.

2)  It’s unam­bigu­ous; there can be lit­tle argu­ment over the call.

3)  It’s clearly related to the change effort.

Com­mu­ni­cate these wins to edu­ca­tional stake­hold­ers so that every­one can see that there is progress being made.  By com­mu­ni­cat­ing and rec­og­niz­ing those wins, you will be much more likely to keep every­one on board for the long haul.