25 Best Quotes on Managing Change

Successfully Lead in Change Management

“We are all prisoners of our past. It is hard to think of things except in the way we have always thought of them. But that solves no problems and seldom changes anything.”
Charles Handy (b. 1932), British Management Guru

“Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
James Baldwin (1924–1987), American Novelist

“If anything is certain, it is that change is certain. The world we are planning for today will not exist in this form tomorrow.”
Philip Crosby (1926–2001), Expert on Quality Management

“Every new change forces all the companies in an industry to adapt their strategies to that change.”
Bill Gates (b. 1955), Computer Pioneer and Philanthropist

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.”
John F. Kennedy (1917–63), American Head of State

'Leading Change' by John P. Kotter (ISBN 1422186431) “To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.”
Henri Bergson (1859–1941), French Philosopher

“Change masters are – literally – the right people in the right place at the right time. The right people are the ones with the ideas that move beyond the organization’s established practice, ideas they can form into visions. The right places are the integrative environments that support innovation, encourage the building of coalitions and teams to support and implement visions. The right times are those moments in the flow of organizational history when it is possible to reconstruct reality on the basis on accumulated innovations to shape a more productive and successful future.”
Rosabeth Moss Kanter (b. 1943), Harvard Professor of Management

“If you want truly to understand something, try to change it.”
Kurt Lewin (1890–1947), American Psychologist

“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.”
John Kotter (b. 1947), American Management Consultant

“The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.”
Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947), English Mathematician and Philosopher

'Managing Change (Pocket Mentor)' by Harvard Business School Press (ISBN 1422129691) “There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”
Nicolo Machiavelli (1469–1527), Italian Diplomat and Author

“Where there are changes, there are always business opportunities.”
Minoru Makihara (b. 1930), Japanese Executive and CEO of Mitsubishi Corporation

“Change is inevitable – except from a vending machine.”
Robert C. Gallagher, American Humorist

Change Management is about People Management

“The new always carries with it the sense of violation, of sacrilege. What is dead is sacred; what is new, that is, different, is evil, dangerous, or subversive.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980), American writer

“The manager, in today’s world, doesn’t get paid to be a steward of resources, a favored term not so many years ago. He or she gets paid for one and only one thing: to make things better (incrementally and dramatically), to change things, to act – today.”
Tom Peters (b. 1942), American Management Guru

'Managing Change in Organizations: A Practice Guide' by Project Management Institute (ISBN 1628250151) “We cannot become what we need to be, by remaining what we are.”
Max De Pree (b. 1924), American Business Executive

“Change is scientific, progress is ethical; change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy.”
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), British Philosopher, Logician, and Mathematician

“If you can’t change your fate, change your attitude.”
Amy Tan (b. 1952), American Author

“There are companies which are prepared to change the way they work. They realize that nothing can be based on what used to be, that there is a better way. But, 99 percent of companies are not ready, [they are] caught in an industrial Jurassic Park.”
Ricardo Semler (b. 1959), Brazilian Business Executive and Author

“Change Management: The process of paying outsiders to create the pain that will motivate insiders to change, thereby transferring the change from the company’s coffers into those of the consultants.”
Eileen Shapiro, American Management Author

'Lean Change Managment: Innovative Practices For Managing Organizational Change' by Jason Little (ISBN 0990466507) “If an organization is to meet the challenges of a changing world, it must be prepared to change everything about itself except beliefs…. The only sacred cow in an organization should be its basic philosophy of doing business.”
Thomas Watson Jr. (1914–93), American Business Executive

“A change of heart is the essence of all other change and it is brought about by a re-education of the mind.”
Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence (1867–1954), English Women’s Rights Activist

“Organizations need employees who understand that change is the norm and employees who are prepared to learn continuously.”
Beverly Goldberg, American Management Author

“We are living through the most profound changes in the economy since the Industrial Revolution. Technology, globalization, and the accelerating pace of change have yielded chaotic markets, fierce competition, and unpredictable staff requirements.”
Bruce Tulgan (b. 1967), American Business Author

“You can’t move so fast that you try to change the [norms] faster than people can accept it. That doesn’t mean you do nothing, but it means that you do the things that need to be done according to priority.”
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962), American First and Author

Recommended Books on Change Management

Nine Elements of Organizational Performance

Nine Elements of Organizational Performance

  • Motivation: Inspiring and encouraging employees to perform and stay
  • Coordination and Control: Measuring and evaluating business performance and risk
  • Innovation: Generating a flow of ideas so that the organization is able to adapt
  • Leadership Team: Ensuring leaders shape and inspire the actions of others to drive better performance
  • Direction: Articulating where the organization is heading and how to get there, and aligning people
  • External Orientation: Engaging in constant two-way interactions with customers, suppliers, or other partners
  • Work Environment and Values: Shaping employee interactions and fostering a shared understanding of values
  • Capabilities: Ensuring internal skills and talent to support strategy and create competitive advantage
  • Accountability: Designing structures/reporting relationships and evaluating individual performance to ensure accountability and responsibility for business results

How Amtrak Deals with Daylight Time Changes

Amtrak

When the clocks go forward an hour in Spring, Amtrak trains just run an hour behind and try to make up for the delay during the rest of the trip. In Fall, when the clocks go back an hour, Amtrak simply stops its trains in the station immediately after the time change, wait one hour for the time to “catch up.”

From the notes section on the Amtrak timetable:

Amtrak operates according to prevailing local time, either standard time or daylight saving time. At the spring time change (second Sunday in March), Amtrak trains traveling overnight will become one hour late and will attempt to make up the time. At the fall time change (first Sunday in November), Amtrak trains traveling overnight will normally hold at the next station after the time change then depart on time. Arizona does not observe daylight saving time. Please observe footnotes in schedules for trains serving Arizona to determine your departure or arrival time.

Apparently, Amtrak has followed this procedure since it began operations in 1971. This Chicago Tribune article from 29-Oct-1985 states,

R. Clifford Black, Amtrak’s manager of corporate communications in Washington, conceded that “it’s a rather confusing procedure unless you spend a lot of time pondering it, and not many people do.”

Asked why Amtrak must brake for time when planes do not circle in the air for an hour, Black answered: “There aren’t that many planes flying at night. They can adjust their departure times, and they don’t make numerous intermediate stops like trains do.”

In contrast, airlines and air traffic management primarily operate on UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) and simply adjust their published arrival and departure schedules where UTC times are translated into local times. Pilot and crew schedules are changed accordingly. When time changes in Spring or Fall, there are always passengers and crew members who forget to change their clocks. Consequently, in Fall, some people arrive to the airport too early. In Spring, people arrive late and miss their flights.

Top Performers Make Corporate Values Visible and Champion Them

Most companies have precise corporate values, usually containing strong positive cultures and corporate philosophies. Corporate values can help companies engage consumers and employees. It is a company’s values that help bring about the kind of business behavior that the company needs to achieve it’s strategic and operative objectives.

Organizational changes—especially those are strategic—require a completely new array of attitudes, behaviors, and mindsets. The attitude of compliance—doing what’s been told—cannot bring about widespread organizational progress. To enable employees to assume responsibility, implement initiative and be directly accountable for the organization’s success, they need to be continuously reminded of corporate values. Far from mere words on a piece of paper, companies expect employees understand that “living our values” as part of the fundamental performance objectives for employees. Top performers intentionally connect values and operations and their management practices are effective in fostering values that bear influence on their performance assessment.

GE Corporate Values

General Electric Logo During the Jack Welch era, when General Electric (GE) first started considering assembling a list of core values that would set GE apart from the completion, over 5,000 employees who took training at GE’s famed Crotonville training center hammered out a values statement over a three-year period as part of their training classes. These values were so important to the company that General Electric put them on laminated cards that employees were required to carry with their identification badges.

All of us … always with unyielding integrity …

  • Are passionately focused on driving customer success
  • Live Six Sigma Quality … ensure that the customer is always its first beneficiary … and use it to accelerate growth
  • Insist on excellence and are intolerant of bureaucracy
  • Act in a boundaryless fashion … always search for and apply the best ideas regardless of their source
  • Prize global intellectual capital and the people that provide it … build diverse teams to maximize it
  • See change for the growth opportunities it brings … e.g., digitization
  • Create a clear, simple, customer-centered vision … and continually renew and refresh its execution
  • Create an environment of “stretch,” excitement, informality and trust … reward improvements … and celebrate results
  • Demonstrate … always with infectious enthusiasm for the customer … the “4-Es” of GE leadership: the personal Energy to welcome and deal with the speed of change … the ability to create an atmosphere that Energizes others … the Edge to make difficult decisions … and the ability to consistently Execute

GE Corporate Values, Version 2007

GE Corporate Values, 2007 Version