John P. Kotter Quotes

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

The best way to establish rapport with people and to win them over to your side is to be truly interested in them, to listen with the intention of really learning about them. When the person feels that you are really interested in getting to know them and their feelings, they will open up to you and share their true feelings with you much more quickly.

Open, honest communication is the best foundation for any relationship, but remember that at the end of the day it's not what you say or what you do, but how you make people feel that matters the most.

When people realize they are being listened to, they tell you things.

The great thing about art on any level is that it can speak to all people if it's achieved properly.

To me, words are like stickpins. I can throw a word at you and it will bounce right off your body. But if I take that little stickpin and wire it to the back of an iron bar called human emotion, I can put that thing right through your heart.

Have a vision; but it's not enough to have a vision, you have to communicate that vision to others. You have to communicate it to people who work with you and for you. You have to communicate it to the world leaders with whom you come in touch.

Why is it that you can sometimes feel the reality of people more keenly through a letter than face to face?

Leadership is about making people feel safe. When someone feels heard, they feel safe.

A good movie humanizes people.

If I were to summarize in one sentence the single most important principle I have learned in the field of interpersonal relations, it would be this: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. This principle is the key to effective interpersonal communication.

Understanding people certainly impacts your ability to communicate with others.

I believe that everybody needs to tell their story - to be heard, to be seen, to be acknowledged, to be understood. We all want that, deep down inside - and writing a book is a great way to make sense of your own experience and to share it with others.

I'm the crazy one who thinks that words reach people.

At a certain age you start becoming brave enough to reveal yourself and it's the revealing of who you are that enables you to dig deeper into different characters. You'll get to a point where you can say: 'I can relate to that', 'I know that', 'I don't have to make that up' and that resonates with people in the audience who can tell that you've been there.

Your purpose is to make your audience see what you saw, hear what you heard, feel what you felt.

Talk to people, not above them.

We want playing our games to entertain people on many different levels. Deeper down, I want to make a connection with the player, and it's the way, to me, of saying to the person playing the game that they're not alone in the world.

I tell people, "It's the hardest thing to explain, but it's the easiest thing to understand." And all anybody really needs to know is, the struggles of life, the joy of life, the excitement and the heartbreak of life is something we can all connect to. And I like to hope that the inclusivity of the show [This Is Us] is something that audiences will relate to.

People ask me why I connected. It was presumptuous of me to say, but I'm Everyman. The difference is I put my thoughts into words.

How has anyone ever understood anyone, except through love, which is wordless?

...to make art is to realize another's sadness within, realize the hidden sadness in other people's lives, to feel sad with and for a stranger.

Your movie should lull people into a place of openness and vulnerability. If it is just a diatribe, it's never going to work.

To write prescriptions is easy, but to come to an understanding with people is hard.