Tom DeMarco Quotes

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.

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.

Competent people are the most resistant to change

Kotter International is about leading large-scale change, not just managing it.

[Independent Federal] agencies, like other bureaucracies don’t like being transformed.. They have cultures and they want to preserve those cultures.

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

Those who will not face improvements because they are changes, will face changes that are not improvements.

Most organizations fail in driving change.

In spite of warnings, nothing much happens until the status quo becomes more painful than change.

One of the most difficult things in life for any individual or business is to accept and adopt change.

Change is the norm; unless an organization sees that its task is to lead change, that organization will not survive.

But change must always be balanced with some degree of consistency.

There is resistance to change. There's a resistance to ideas.

Routine is not organization, any more than paralysis is order.

Convincing people to give your way a try will work if you neutralize - and sometimes you have to cauterize - the ones who really are against change. They're the kind of person who, if you tell them it's raining outside, they'll fight you tooth and nail.

People are always telling me that change is good. But all that means is that something you didn't want to happen has happened.

The game doesn't change.

I've seen, all too often in my career, people coming in to lead agencies and organizations and trying to impose change from the top down. Never works. You never have enough time.

Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.

Most people don't like change. They revolt against it unless they can clearly see the advantage it brings. For that reason, when good leaders prepare to take action or make changes, they take people through a process to get them ready for it.

When you have a model that's worked very well, it's very hard to change.

The only sense that is common in the long run, is the sense of change and we all instinctively avoid it.

Some people will never change.

In nature and state, it is safer to change many things than one.

France has chosen to ignore the great transformation of the 21st century and cultivate a [culture of] status quo and rigidity.