Dianne Feinstein Quotes

If I can impact an executive and his or her team, I can help to change the culture of an organization.

When I came into the CEO office, I basically changed the entire management team. We knew that we had to change the company, so we needed a new set of leaders.

So here's the question: Without a change in leadership, why would the next four years be any different from the last four years?

We started Kotter International to improve leaders' ability to deal with big, important transformations in organizations - and in their lives.

A critical question to ask when bringing in a new CEO to take the reins of a company you started is: Do you want someone who will maintain company culture or reinvent it?

At IBM, if we kept our same leadership for 36 years, we'd be bankrupt.

I recognize we will pay more attention when we have different leadership.

I think we're ready for succession. We just must try to do it right.

I think there's always an adjustment when somebody new is runnings things, from the top down.

Any time you have a change of leadership in an organization, everything kind of shifts.

Occasionally, you see presidents come in and provide a clear change in direction of leadership.

In business, sometimes you have to change the CEO in order to change the direction of the company.

It's generally much easier to kill an organization than to change it substantially.

Back 12 years ago, when Dr. Mathews was president here, we had a plan that when I got ready to quit, we'd bring a certain guy in and he'd take over that day and I'd leave. But as time wore on, I realized that wouldn't have been good at all.

We need leadership. We don't need a doubling down on the failed politics of the past.

Many leaders of big organizations, I think, don't believe that change is possible. But if you look at history, things do change, and if your business is static, you're likely to have issues.

All companies of any size have to continue to push to make sure you get the right leaders, the right team, the right people to be fast acting, and fast moving in the marketplace. We've got great leaders, and we continue to attract and promote great new leaders.

So in one leap we had gone from being a friendly society to something almost professional.

To me, it's really important to drive change through a team because one person, while the buck has to stop with somebody, the company is just too big for one person.

What is clear is that business leaders must commit to champion change - to be transparent about their goals for change, to align their incentives systems to drive the change, and to make sure their work environments are flexible in a way that allows men and women who choose to work to be able to achieve all of their potential.

CEOs resign when the internal dynamics of the company and the external dynamics of the company actually come together to say it is appropriate. When the internal dynamics ask you whether you have a replacement. I think the transition from CEOships have also become cartoonish.

If longevity is the best index to measure a company, a basic requirement is the ability of the corporation to generate new and new leaders.

Over the next few years the boardrooms of America are going to light up with hot flashes.

If you go through some big corporate change, it's just not going to be the same. If we sold to Yahoo, they would have done something different; if you want to continue your vision of the company, then don't sell because there's inevitably going to be some change.

It appears that PepsiCo views structural change as a sign of weakness, an admission of failure, and an untenable break with past traditions.