“A culture truly changes only when a new way of operating has been shown to succeed over some minimum period of time.”
“A guiding coalition made up only of managers—even superb managers who are wonderful people—will cause major change efforts to fail.”
“A guiding coalition with good managers but poor leaders will not succeed. A managerial mindset will develop plans, not vision; it will vastly under-communicate the need for and direction of change; and it will control rather than empower people.”
“A higher rate of urgency does not imply ever-present panic, anxiety, or fear. It means a state in which complacency is virtually absent.”
“A leader needs enough understanding to fashion an intelligent strategy.”
“Align information and personnel systems to the vision: Unaligned systems also block needed action. “
“Analytical tools have their limitations in a turbulent world. These tools work best when parameters are known, assumptions are minimal, and the future is not fuzzy.”
“Anyone in a large organization who thinks major change is impossible should probably get out.”
“At senior levels in most organizations, people have large egos. But unless they also have a realistic sense of their weaknesses and limitations, unless they can appreciate complementary strengths in others, and unless they can subjugate their immediate interests to some greater goal, they will probably contribute about as much to a guiding coalition as does nuclear waste.”
“Because management deals mostly with the status quo and leadership deals mostly with change, in the next century we are going to have to try to become much more skilled at creating leaders.”
“Bureaucratic cultures can smother those who want to respond to shifting conditions.”
“Changing behavior is less a matter of giving people analysis to influence their thoughts than helping them to see a truth to influence their feelings.”
“Communicate a sensible vision to employees: If employees have a shared sense of purpose, it will be easier to initiate actions to achieve that purpose”
“Communicate for understanding and buy-In. Make sure as many others as possible understand and accept the vision and the strategy. Go beyond stopping resistance to creating more and more people who want to help you.”
“Complacency is almost always the product of success or perceived success.”
“Confront supervisors who undercut needed change: Nothing disempowers people the way a bad boss can.”
“Develop the Change Vision and Strategy. Clarify how the future will be different from the past, and how you can make that future a reality.”
“Effective leaders help others to understand the necessity of change and to accept a common vision of the desired outcome.”
“Employees in large, older firms often have difficulty getting a transformation process started because of the lack of leadership coupled with arrogance, insularity, and bureaucracy.”
“Empower Others to Act. Remove as many barriers as possible so that those who want to make the vision a reality can do so. “
“Good communication does not mean that you have to speak in perfectly formed sentences and paragraphs. It isn’t about slickness. Simple and clear go a long way.”
“Good communication is not just data transfer. You need to show people something that addresses their anxieties, that accepts their anger, that is credible in a very gut-level sense, and that evokes faith in the vision.”
“Great communicators have an appreciation for positioning. They understand the people they’re trying to reach and what they can and can’t hear. They send their message in through an open door rather than trying to push it through a wall.”
“If the culture you have is radically different from an ‘experiment and take-risk’ culture, then you have a big change you going to have to make – and no little gimmicks are going to do it for you.”
“If you cannot describe your vision to someone in five minutes and get their interest, you have more work to do in this phase of a transformation process.”
“In the final analysis, change sticks when it becomes the way we do things around here.”
“Leaders establish the vision for the future and set the strategy for getting there.”
“Leaders establish the vision for the future and set the strategy for getting there; they cause change. They motivate and inspire others to go in the right direction and they, along with everyone else, sacrifice to get there.”
“Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles.”
“Leadership is a set of processes that creates organizations in the first place or adapts them to significantly changing circumstances. Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles”
“Leadership is about setting a direction. It’s about creating a vision, empowering and inspiring people to want to achieve the vision, and enabling them to do so with energy and speed through an effective strategy. In its most basic sense, leadership is about mobilizing a group of people to jump into a better future.”
“Leadership produces change. That is its primary function.”
“Major change is often said to be impossible unless the head of the organization is an active supporter.”
“Make structures compatible with the vision: Unaligned structures block needed action.”
“Management is a set of processes that can keep a complicated system of people and technology running smoothly. The most important aspects of management include planning, budgeting, organizing, staffing, controlling, and problem solving. “
“Management makes a system work. It helps you do what you know how to do. Leadership builds systems or transforms old ones.”
“Most US corporations today are over-managed and under-led. They need to develop their capacity to exercise leadership.”
“Motivation and inspiration energize people, not by pushing them in the right direction as control mechanisms do but by satisfying basic human needs for achievement, a sense of belonging, recognition, self-esteem, a feeling of control over one’s life, and the ability to live up to one’s ideals. Such feelings touch us deeply and elicit a powerful response.”
“Motivation is not a thinking word; it’s a feeling word.”
“Never underestimate the magnitude of the power of the forces that reinforce the status quo.”
“Never underestimate the power of clever people to help others see the possibilities, to help them generate a feeling of faith, and to change behavior.”
“Never underestimate the power of the mind to disempower.”
“No vision issue today is bigger than the question of efficiency versus some combination of innovation and customer service.”
“Nothing undermines change more than behavior by important individuals that is inconsistent with the verbal communication.”
“One of the most common ways to overcome resistance to change is to educate people about it beforehand. Communication of ideas helps people see the need for and the logic of a change. The education process can involve one-on-one discussions, presentations to groups, or memos and reports.”
“One of the most powerful forms of information is feedback on our own actions.”
“Overcoming complacency is crucial at the start of any change process, and it often requires a little bit of surprise, something that grabs attention at more than an intellectual level. You need to surprise people with something that disturbs their view that everything is perfect.”
“People change what they do less because they are given an analysis that shifts their thinking than because they are shown a truth that influences their feelings.”
“Producing major change in an organization is not just about signing up one charismatic leader. You need a group – a team – to be able to drive the change. One person, even a terrific charismatic leader, is never strong enough to make all this happen.”
“Provide the training employees need: Without the right skills and attitudes, people feel disempowered.”
“The central issue is never strategy, structure, culture, or systems. The core of the matter is always about changing the behavior of people.”
“The need to adapt is nothing new; after all, Benjamin Franklin said, When you are finished changing, you are finished. What is new is how often we need to change, the pace at which we need to move, and the complexity and volatility of the context in which we are operating.”
“The rate of change is not going to slow down anytime soon. If anything, competition in most industries will probably speed up even more in the next few decades.”
“The simple insight that management is not leadership is better understood today, but not nearly as well as is needed. Management makes a system work. It helps you do what you know how to do. Leadership builds systems or transforms old ones.”
“The typical goal that binds individuals together on guiding change coalitions is a commitment to excellence, a real desire to make their organizations perform to the very highest levels possible. Reengineering, acquisitions, and cultural change efforts often fail because that desire is missing. Instead, one finds people committed to their own departments, divisions, friends, or careers.”
“There’s a lot of evidence that’s come up in the last decade that to sustain any effort to make some big changes that are needed you have to shift the emphasis from hazard to opportunity. You have to think more in positive terms. And this helps a group of people not to burn out, not to focus just on themselves, but to stay motivated and focused on the group.”
“Tradition dies a hard death. Culture changes with as much difficulty in penguin colonies as in human colonies. But with this colony, culture did change.”
“Typically people think they know all about change and don’t need help. Their approach tends to be more management-oriented than leadership-oriented. It’s very frustrating.”
“We are always creating new tools and techniques to help people, but the fundamental framework is remarkably resilient, which means it must have something to do with the nature of organizations or human nature.”
“We keep a change in place by helping to create a new, supportive, and sufficiently strong organizational culture.”
“We know that leadership is very much related to change. As the pace of change accelerates, there is naturally a greater need for effective leadership”
“We learn best – and change – from hearing stories that strike a chord within us.”
“We throw people into launching and supporting change initiatives and projects and we just assume that life and past experiences have been a good teacher for everybody to pick up today’s relevant insights and skills. But we have seen again and again that this is not necessarily true when you have to change more often and in bigger ways. Life—which means the past—can be a pretty bad teacher.”
“When people fail to develop the coalition needed to guide change, the most common reason is that down deep they really don’t think a transformation is necessary or they don’t think a strong team is needed to direct the change. Skill at team building is rarely the central problem.”
“Whenever smart and well-intentioned people avoid confronting obstacles, they disempower employees and undermine change.”
“Whether dealing with threats from low-cost competitors or opportunities for growth from innovative products or acquisitions, organizations today need greater speed and flexibility, sometimes much greater, not just to deal with extraordinary events like COVID-19, but to deal with the shifting reality of our present and future. “
“Without conviction that you can make change happen, you will not act, even if you see the vision. Your feelings will hold you back.”
“Without credible communication, and a lot of it, the hearts and minds of others are never captured.”
“Without short-term wins, too many employees give up or actively join the resistance.”