200 Inspiring Leading Change Quotes By John P. Kotter (2023)

1. “Managers are trained to make incremental, programmatic improvements. They aren’t trained to lead large-scale change.” — John P. Kotter

2. “Management makes a system work. It helps you do what you know how to do. Leadership builds systems or transforms old ones.”

3. “Most people don’t lead their own lives – they accept their lives.”

4. “A guiding coalition with good managers but poor leaders will not succeed. A managerial mindset will develop plans, not vision; it will vastly undercommunicate the need for and direction of change; and it will control rather than empower people.”

5. “Leadership produces change. That is its primary function.”

6. “Create a New Culture. Hold on to the new ways of behaving, and make sure they succeed, until they become strong enough to replace old traditions. Better still, make all of these steps a central part of the way you live to help you adapt to an ever faster changing world. Consider: Are we putting those who have helped make change happen in leadership roles? Have the scouts been rewarded? How can we institutionalize change, like adding scouting to the school curriculum?”

7. “In its most basic sense, leadership is about mobilizing a group of people to jump into a better future.”

8. “Sensing the difficulty in producing change, some people try to manipulate events quietly behind the scenes and purposefully avoid any public discussion of future direction.”

9. “Most US corporations today are over-managed and under-led. They need to develop their capacity to exercise leadership.”

10. “We need to remind the birds of what they have heard, and remind them all the time. The meeting this morning was brief. Some of the colony were not here. The message is radical. We need much more communication—every day, everywhere.”

11. “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.” — John P. Kotter

12. “Great leadership does not mean running away from reality. Sometimes the hard truths might just demoralize the company, but at other times sharing difficulties can inspire people to take action that will make the situation better.”

13. “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.” — John P. Kotter

14. “Without short-term wins, too many employees give up or actively join the resistance.”

15. “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.”

16. “A great change leader creates other change leaders.”

17. “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.” — John P. Kotter

18. “I’m impatient. 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.” — John P. Kotter

19. “The central issue is never strategy, structure, culture, or systems. The core of the matter is always about changing the behavior of people.” — John P. Kotter

20. “Leaders establish the vision for the future and set the strategy for getting there.” — John P. Kotter

21. “A leader needs enough understanding to fashion an intelligent strategy.”

22. “Developing a good vision is an exercise in both the head and the heart, it takes some time, it always involves a group of people, and it is tough to do well.”

23. “Commercial organisations that operate responsibly have benefitted by increased revenues of 682% compared to 166% for those that don’t.”

24. “Whenever structural barriers are not removed in a timely way, the risk is that employees will become so frustrated that they will sour on the entire transformational effort.”

25. “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. If such a person is the central player in the coalition, you can usually kiss teamwork and a dramatic transformation good-bye.”

26. “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.”

27. “The dramatic meeting, Louis’s “we are not an iceberg” speech, Buddy’s storytelling about the seagull, the countless ice-posters, and the talking circles began to have the desired effect. Many birds, though hardly all, came to see and accept what they had to do. Complacency, fear, and confusion continued to decrease. What had started out with a threat had turned, at least in a number of bird heads and hearts, into an opportunity. Optimism and excitement grew. Communicating the new vision of a nomadic life, of a very different future, was for the most part remarkably successful.”

28. “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.” — John P. Kotter

29. “Successful transformation is 70 to 90 percent leadership and only 10 to 30 percent management.”

30. “Many years ago, I think I got my first insight on how an incredibly diverse team can work together and do astonishing things, and not just misunderstand each other and fight.” — John P. Kotter

31. “Empowering people to effect change • 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. • Make structures compatible with the vision: Unaligned structures block needed action. • Provide the training employees need: Without the right skills and attitudes, people feel disempowered. • Align information and personnel systems to the vision: Unaligned systems also block needed action. • Confront supervisors who undercut needed change: Nothing disempowers people the way a bad boss can.”

32. “In the final analysis, change sticks when it becomes the way we do things around here.” — John P. Kotter

33. “Effective leaders help others to understand the necessity of change and to accept a common vision of the desired outcome.” — John P. Kotter

34. “One of the most common ways to overcome resistance to change is to educate people about it beforehand.”

35. “In successful transformations, the president, division general manager, or department head plus another five, fifteen, or fifty people with a commitment to improved performance pull together as a team. This group rarely includes all of the most senior people because some of them just won’t buy in, at least at first. But in the most successful cases, the coalition is always powerful—in terms of formal titles, information and expertise, reputations and relationships, and the capacity for leadership. Individuals alone, no matter how competent or charismatic, never have all the assets needed to overcome tradition and inertia except in very small organizations. Weak committees are usually even less effective.”

36. “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.” — John P. Kotter

37. “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.”

38. “Grandfather Louis became the colony’s number one teacher. He was asked again and again by the younger birds to tell them the story of the First Great Change. He was initially reluctant, fearing that he would sound like an old-timer boasting about past successes—real or imagined. But eventually, he saw the importance of telling the chicks more about the specific steps the colony had taken, and were taking, to cope with change and the various acts of leadership by many that had helped the colony move forward. Although Louis never said so explicitly, he felt the most remarkable change of all was in how so many members of the colony had grown less afraid of change. The army of volunteers was now an irresistible force of change.”

39. “Human beings are sometimes slaves to the ugly and weak sides of human nature,” he told employees. “However, if you set high goals for yourselves and every day continue to reflect on them, step by step you will be more focused and make yourself a better human being, becoming a happier person for it.”

40. “In a change effort, culture comes last, not first.” — John P. Kotter

41. “A good rule of thumb in a major change effort is: Never underestimate the magnitude of the forces that reinforce complacency and that help maintain the status quo.”

42. “transformation is a process, not an event”

43. “Leadership is different from management, but not for the reasons most people think.”

44. “Major change is often said to be impossible unless the head of the organization is an active supporter.”

45. “Great leaders understand that historical success tends to produce stable and inwardly focused organizations, and these outfits, in turn, reinforce a feeling of contentment with the status quo.”

46. “We need to become less like an elephant and more like a customer-friendly Tyrannosaurus rex”

47. There is a rare person that I’ve met who is playing a leadership role and helping his or her company make big strategic adjustments to deal with an increasingly turbulent world in which the organizations are always ready; they’re just not.

48. “Effective leaders help others to understand the necessity of change and to accept a common vision of the desired outcome.”

49. “Question: Is there one takeaway you want readers to carry with them? JK: Yes. In these turbulent times, sufficient leadership, not just from the top couple of people, is very important, far too rare, and it does not have to be that way. It often starts with only one person not looking away or waiting for something to happen, but seizing opportunities to act where others see problems, fault or threat. Why couldn’t that one person be you, or anyone reading this interview right now?”

50. “There is no business that I’ve found yet that from the right direction that you can’t see something that people can get excited about.”

51. “Outsiders have the intuitive ability to continually view problems in fresh ways and to identify ineffective practices and traditions.” — John P. Kotter

52. “There was always some tension between those who thought their role was to keep things in order and those who were urgent about producing necessary changes. But most penguins intuitively understood that you needed both to thrive in this new era.”

53. “The vast majority of large scale change efforts fail. Which means that the probability that you have actually experienced a failure, and your people know that and are pessimistic, therefore, about trying something again, is very high.” — John P. Kotter

54. “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.” — John P. Kotter

55. “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.”

56. “Anyone in a large organization who thinks major change is impossible should probably get out.” — John P. Kotter

57. “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. More broadly, the need to adapt rapidly is equally important for society to resolve threats like climate change or food security, as well as to continue capitalizing on opportunities for progress toward a more equitable and prosperous world.”

58. “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. 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”

59. “Empower Others to Act. Remove as many barriers as possible so that those who want to make the vision a reality can do so. Encourage others to remove barriers and make true innovation happen.”

60. “Most US corporations today are over-managed and under-led. They need to develop their capacity to exercise leadership.” — John P. Kotter

61. “Great vision communication usually means heartfelt messages are coming from real human beings.” — John P. Kotter

62. “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.”

63. “Management is about coping with complexity.”

64. “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.”

65. A great change leader creates other change leaders.

66. “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.”

67. “Great leaders understand that historical success tends to produce stable and inwardly focused organizations, and these outfits, in turn, reinforce a feeling of contentment with the status quo.” — John P. Kotter

68. “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.”

69. “What's really driving the boom in coaching, is this: as we move from 30 miles an hour to 70 to 120 to 180......as we go from driving straight down the road to making right turns and left turns to abandoning cars and getting motorcycles...the whole game changes, and a lot of people are trying to keep up, learn how not to fall.”

70. “Leadership is about coping with change” — John P. Kotter

71. “Low lights signal to our senses that the workday may be over and it’s time for sleep, making it hard for an audience to pay careful attention.” — John P. Kotter

72. “In many cases, clever design of educational experiences can deliver greater impact at one-half or less the cost of conventional approaches. I also think that training can easily become a disempowering experience if the implicit message is “shut up and do it this way” instead of “we will be delegating more, so we are providing this course to help you with your new responsibilities.”

73. “The next season, the scouts found a still better iceberg, larger and with richer fishing grounds. And though it was tempting to declare that the colony had been subjected to enough change, and should stay forever on their new home, they didn’t. They moved again. It was a critical step: not becoming complacent again and not letting up.”

74. “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.”

75. “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.”

76. “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.”

77. Make the leap of faith that it is possible to deal with this, that I can be a better change leader than I have in the past and get on with it.

78. “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.”

79. “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.”

80. “A higher rate of urgency does not imply ever-present panic, anxiety, or fear. It means a state in which complacency is virtually absent.”

81. “This is true even in organizations that are very focused on analysis and quantitative measurement, even among people who think of themselves as smart in an MBA sense.”

82. “One cannot manage change. One can only be ahead of it.”

83. “Over the years I have become convinced that we learn best - and change - from hearing stories that strike a chord within us ... Those in leadership positions who fail to grasp or use the power of stories risk failure for their companies and for themselves.”

84. “Whenever smart and well-intentioned people avoid confronting obstacles, they disempower employees and undermine change.”

85. “Tales with a little drama are remembered far longer than any slide crammed with analytics.”

86. “Establishing a sense of urgency is crucial to gaining needed cooperation.”

87. “In a change effort, culture comes last, not first.”

88. “Managers are trained to make incremental, programmatic improvements. They aren’t trained to lead large-scale change.”

89. “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.”

90. “Great leaders motivate large groups of individuals to improve the human condition.”

91. “This iceberg is not who we are. It is only where we now live. We are smarter, stronger, and more capable than the seagulls. So why can’t we do what they have done, and better? We are not chained to this piece of ice. We can leave it behind us. Let it melt to the size of a fish. Let it break into one thousand pieces. We will find other places to live that are safer . . . and better! When necessary, we will move again. We will never have to put our families at risk from the sort of terrible danger we face today. We will prevail!”

92. “Systematically targeting objectives and budgeting for them, creating plans to achieve those objectives, organizing for implementation, and then controlling the process to keep it on track – this is the essence of management.”

93. “Buddy was offered a number of more important jobs. He turned them all down, but helped the Leadership Council find other good candidates. His lack of ambition came to be seen as great humility. The birds loved him even more.”

94. “A leader needs enough understanding to fashion an intelligent strategy.” — John P. Kotter

95. “Imagine the following. Three groups of ten individuals are in a park at lunchtime with a rainstorm threatening. In the first group, someone says: “Get up and follow me.” When he starts walking and only a few others join in, he yells to those still seated: “Up, I said, and now!” In the second group, someone says: “We’re going to have to move. Here’s the plan. Each of us stands up and marches in the direction of the apple tree. Please stay at least two feet away from other group members and do not run. Do not leave any personal belongings on the ground here and be sure to stop at the base of the tree. When we are all there . . .” In the third group, someone tells the others: “It’s going to rain in a few minutes. Why don’t we go over there and sit under that huge apple tree. We’ll stay dry, and we can have fresh apples for lunch.” I am sometimes amazed at how many people try to transform organizations using methods that look like the first two scenarios: authoritarian decree and micromanagement. Both approaches have been applied widely in enterprises over the last century, but mostly for maintaining existing systems, not transforming those systems into something better. When the goal is behavior change, unless the boss is extremely powerful, authoritarian decree often works poorly even in simple situations, like the apple tree case. Increasingly, in complex organizations, this approach doesn’t work at all. Without the power of kings and queens behind it, authoritarianism is unlikely to break through all the forces of resistance. People will ignore you or pretend to cooperate while doing everything possible to undermine your efforts. Micromanagement tries to get around this problem by specifying what employees should do in detail and then monitoring compliance. This tactic can break through some of the barriers to change, but in an increasingly unacceptable amount of time. Because the creation and communication of detailed plans is deadly slow, the change produced this way tends to be highly incremental. Only the approach used in the third scenario above has the potential to break through all the forces that support the status quo and to encourage the kind of dramatic shifts found in successful transformations. (See figure 5–1.) This approach is based on vision—a central component of all great leadership.”

96. “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. 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.”

97. “Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles.” — John P. Kotter

98. “In an ever changing world, you never learn it all, even if you keep growing into your 90s.” — John P. Kotter

99. “reducing complacency and increasing urgency they had taken exactly the right first step in potentially saving the colony.”

100. “Knocking down barriers to making everyone, even the children, feel empowered was unprecedented in the colony. But the chicks loved it.”

101. Leadership is all about the Softer Stuff.

102. “To some degree, a conflict of interest is involved. Teams aren’t promoted, individuals are, and individuals need unambiguous track records to advance their careers. The argument “I was on a team…” doesn’t sell well in most places today.”

103. “The steps are: establishing a sense of urgency, creating the guiding coalition, developing a vision and strategy, communicating the change vision, empowering a broad base of people to take action, generating short-term wins, consolidating gains and producing even more change, and institutionalizing new approaches in the culture.”

104. “We worry about appearing awkward in a presentation. But up to a point, most people seem to feel more comfortable with less-than-perfect speaking abilities.” — John P. Kotter

105. “Leadership is all about the softer stuff. ”

106. “Leadership produces change. That is its primary function”

107. “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.”

108. “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.”

109. “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.” — John P. Kotter

110. “Leaders establish the vision for the future and set the strategy for getting there.”

111. There is no business that I’ve found yet that from the right direction that you can’t see something that people can get excited about.

112. “The simple insight that management is not leadership (chapter 2) 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.”

113. “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.” — John P. Kotter

114. “Strategies for Influence” explores and shares the BIG IDEAS from the Leaders of Influence that can help you with your Career, Business, and Leadership. Click on any of the links below to explore the Big Ideas that have influenced our work and lives.

115. “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.” — John P. Kotter

116. “So what have you learned in the last decade? JK: The most basic point is that the rate of change continues to go up in most places, in most industries, and in most sectors. As a result, the number of significant initiatives inside organizations has gone up. Initiatives in operations, marketing, sales, finance, anywhere. And that has big implications.”

117. “Never underestimate the magnitude of the power of the forces that reinforce the status quo.”

118. “Question: Recent research is reflected in this new edition? JK: Yes. We have learned, for example, that talking about hazards, like your iceberg is melting, is a great way to catch people’s attention if they’re very complacent. But if you keep hitting them with hazard, hazard, hazard, they panic, and panic doesn’t help people. They start worrying about themselves or their families, not the community, and anxiety can start to wear them down. 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.”

119. “Speed of change is the driving force. Leading change competently is the only answer.”

120. “Because management deals mostly with the status quo and leadership deals mostly with the change, in the next century we are going to have to try to become much more skilled at creating leaders.”

121. “Bureaucratic cultures can smother those who want to respond to shifting conditions.”

122. “Outsiders have the intuitive ability to continually view problems in fresh ways and to identify ineffective practices and traditions.”

123. “A culture truly changes only when a new way of operating has been shown to succeed over some minimum period of time.”

124. “Never underestimate the power of the mind to disempower. ”

125. “The downside of two-way communication is that feedback may suggest that we are on the wrong course and that the vision needs to be reformulated. But in the long run, swallowing our pride and reworking the vision is far more productive than heading off in the wrong direction – or in a direction that others won’t follow.”

126. “Failure here is usually associated with underestimating the difficulties in producing change and thus the importance of a strong guiding coalition.”

127. “Over the years I have become convinced that we learn best – and change – from hearing stories that strike a chord within us … Those in leadership positions who fail to grasp or use the power of stories risk failure for their companies and for themselves.” — John P. Kotter

128. “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.”

129. “At one point, even the Head Penguin suggested that the right step might be to slow down. But Alice wouldn’t hear of it. “We are constantly at risk of losing our courage. Some birds are already suggesting we wait until next winter. Then, if we are still alive, they will say the danger was overstated and that any change is not needed.” It was a good point.”

130. “In a less competitive and slower-moving world, weak committees can help organizations adapt at an acceptable rate. A committee makes recommendations. Key line managers reject most of the ideas. The group offers additional suggestions. The line moves another inch. The committee tries again. When both competition and technological change are limited, this approach can work. But in a faster-moving world, the weak committee always fails.”

131. “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.” — John P. Kotter

132. “Never underestimate the power of the mind to disempower.”

133. “No vision issue today is bigger than the question of efficiency versus some combination of innovation and customer service.”

134. “Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles.”

135. “The Professor was disinclined to just talk about life without structure around the conversation to give it some rigor. So he kept his beak shut and let his analytical brain work quietly. Melting iceberg. Fred finds it. Tough sell to a complacent group. Goes to Alice first. Shows her the problem. The ice model. The bottle. The group meeting. Complacency reduced. Louis picks out a potential group to guide the effort. Interesting makeup. Does not appoint. Asks for help. Turning non-team into team with squid and talk. Then somehow end up talking of possibilities and dreams!”

136. “Never underestimate the power of a good story.”

137. “In an ever-changing world, you never learn it all, even if you keep growing into your 90s.”

138. “People are more inclined to be drawn in if their leader has a compelling vision. Great leaders help people get in touch with their own aspirations and then will help them forge those aspirations into a personal vision.” — John P. Kotter

139. “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.” — John P. Kotter

140. “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.”

141. “They’re not going to embrace it as fast as you want, but you’re job is to get the right process, focus and wins and make it happen despite all the challenges, natural barriers and hard wired problems,” Dr. Kotter said.

142. “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.”

143. “Louis began the colony’s assembly by saying, “Fellow penguins, as we meet this challenge—and we definitely will—it is more important than ever to remember who we really are.” The crowd looked blankly at him. “Tell me, are we penguins who deeply respect one another?” There was silence until someone said, “Of course.” Then others said, “Yes.” NoNo was in the middle of the audience trying to figure out what scheme was afoot. It was not obvious yet, which he did not like. Louis continued. “And do we strongly value discipline?” “Yes,” said a dozen or so of the elderly birds. “And do we have a strong sense of responsibility, too?” It was hard to argue with that. It had been true for generations. “Yes,” many now agreed. “Above all, do we stand for brotherhood and the love of our young?” A loud “Yes!” followed. The Head Penguin paused. “And tell me . . . are these qualities that say who we are and what we care about linked to a large piece of ice?” When some not particularly bright birds, caught up in the yes-yes cadence, were again about to say yes, Alice shouted, “NO!”

144. “Pull Together the Guiding Team. Make sure there is a powerful group guiding the change—one with leadership skills, credibility, communications ability, authority, analytical skills, and a sense of urgency.”

145. “In terms of getting people to experiment more and take more risk, there are at least three things that immediately come to my mind. Number one, of course, is role-modeling it yourself. Number two is when people take intelligent, smart risks and yet it doesn't work out, not shooting them. And number three, being honest with yourself. 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.”

146. “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.”

147. “There is a rare person that I’ve met who is playing a leadership role and helping his or her company make big strategic adjustments to deal with an increasingly turbulent world in which the organizations are always ready; they’re just not.”

148. “A culture truly changes only when a new way of operating has been shown to succeed over some minimum period of time.” — John P. Kotter

149. “Alice (backed up with the Professor’s relentless logic) convinced Louis to shake up the Leadership Council. He was reluctant to do anything that would show disrespect for birds who had worked hard for years to help and serve the colony. Making the moves while preserving the dignity of all was not easy.”

150. “In the final analysis, change sticks when it becomes the way we do things around here.”

151. “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.”

152. “In an ever changing world, you never learn it all, even if you keep growing into your 90s.”

153. “People are more inclined to be drawn in if their leader has a compelling vision. Great leaders help people get in touch with their own aspirations and then will help them forge those aspirations into a personal vision.”

154. “Complacency is almost always the product of success or perceived success.”

155. “We offer you the following summary to help you lead change. It shows the Eight Steps to successfully implement change, and asks you to think about these in relation to your situation.”

156. “The central issue is never strategy, structure, culture, or systems. The core of the matter is always about changing the behavior of people.”

157. “Great vision communication usually means heartfelt messages are coming from real human beings.”

158. “I’ve been studying for a long time how people learn. And I think it is pretty clear that our brains are hard-wired for stories. A good story is easy to absorb and remember, especially if it has emotional components. This is probably because that was how humans learned for tens of thousands of years. The leader tells the youngsters the great story about how one from their clan grabbed dinner from the mouth of the saber-toothed tiger and saved the tribe, or how he was eaten by the saber-toothed tiger. A dramatic, interesting story that has important lessons in it.”

159. “We keep a change in place by helping to create a new, supportive, and sufficiently strong organizational culture.”

160. “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.” — John P. Kotter

161. Kotter Quotes On Leading Change, Leading Change [With A New Preface] And The Heart Of Change: Real-Life Stories Of How People Change Their Organizations - Quotes.Pub

162. “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.”

163. “A useful rule of thumb: Whenever you cannot describe the vision driving a change initiative in five minutes or less and get a reaction that signifies both understanding and interest, you are in for trouble.”

164. “We learn best – and change – from hearing stories that strike a chord within us.”

165. “One of the most powerful forms of information is feedback on our own actions.”

166. “Trust helps enormously in creating a shared objective. one of the main reasons people are not committed to overall excellence is that they don’t really trust other departments, divisions, or even fellow executives. They fear, sometimes quite rationally, that if they obsessively focus their actions on improving customer satisfaction or reducing expenses, other departments won’t do their fair share and the personal costs will skyrocket. When trust is raised a common goal becomes much easier.”

167. “Motivation is not a thinking word; it’s a feeling word.”

168. “Many years ago, I think I got my first insight on how an incredibly diverse team can work together and do astonishing things, and not just misunderstand each other and fight.”

169. “What’s really driving the boom in coaching, is this: as we move from 30 miles an hour to 70 to 120 to 180……as we go from driving straight down the road to making right turns and left turns to abandoning cars and getting motorcycles…the whole game changes, and a lot of people are trying to keep up, learn how not to fall.” — John P. Kotter

170. “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.”

171. “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.”

172. “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.”

173. “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.”

174. “Without conviction that you can make change happen, you will not act, even if you see the vision. Your feelings will hold you back.”

175. “The world has 6 billion people and counting. We need to help 500 million people become better leaders so that billions can benefit.” — John P. Kotter

176. “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.”

177. “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.”

178. “I'm impatient. 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.”

179. “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. Consider: What would be the equivalent of becoming nomads and being “free”? Is that better future attractive enough? Do we have a credible path to achieve that goal?”

180. “Neurologists say that our brains are programmed much more for stories than for abstract ideas. Tales with a little drama are remembered far longer than any slide crammed with analytics.” — John P. Kotter

181. “Without credible communication, and a lot of it, the hearts and minds of others are never captured.” — John P. Kotter

182. “Nothing undermines change more than behavior by important individuals that is inconsistent with the verbal communication.”

183. “With the furious pace of change in business today, difficulty to manage relationships sabotages more business than anything else – it is not a question of strategy that gets us into trouble, it’s a question of emotions.”

184. “In terms of getting people to experiment more and take more risk, there are at least three things that immediately come to my mind. Number one, of course, is role-modeling it yourself. Number two is when people take intelligent, smart risks and yet it doesn’t work out, not shooting them. And number three, being honest with yourself. 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.” — John P. Kotter

185. “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.”

186. “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.” — John P. Kotter

187. “Most people don't lead their own lives - they accept their lives.”

188. “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.”

189. “Without short-term wins, too many employees give up or actively join the resistance. Creating”

190. “Still, parents felt a bit awkward. “You don’t share food, except with your children” was a very, very old and established tradition. So the inspired youngsters made it clear that they would be extremely embarrassed unless (1) their parents came to Heroes Day, and (2) each mother and father brought two fish as the cost of admission. As soon as a few parents relented, announcing that they would be bringing fish, others decided they must also. Social pressure works as well in penguin colonies as in human colonies.”

191. “People under pressure to show results will often try to skip phases – sometimes quite a few – in a major change effort.”

192. “A higher rate of urgency does not imply ever-present panic, anxiety, or fear. It means a state in which complacency is virtually absent.” — John P. Kotter

193. “A guiding coalition made up only of managers—even superb managers who are wonderful people—will cause major change efforts to fail.”

194. “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.”

195. “A useful rule of thumb: Whenever you cannot describe the vision driving a change initiative in five minutes or less and get a reaction that signifies both understanding and interest, you are in for trouble. Error”

196. “all the atoms vibrating on the same frequency—which”

197. “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.” — John P. Kotter

198. “Anyone in a large organization who thinks major change is impossible should probably get out.”

199. “Neurologists say that our brains are programmed much more for stories than for abstract ideas. Tales with a little drama are remembered far longer than any slide crammed with analytics.”

200. “Without credible communication, and a lot of it, the hearts and minds of others are never captured.”

201. “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.”

202. “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.” — John P. Kotter

203. “Bureaucratic cultures can smother those who want to respond to shifting conditions. ”

204. “The rate of change is not going to slow down any time soon. If anything, competition in most industries will probably speed up even more in the next few decades.”