Marvin Bower Quotes

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

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

Any company faces big challenges during transformation. People are accustomed to going ahead on the existing track. Even when they know there are problems, the first reaction is to protect the old way.

Competence is the enemy of change!

There are people and interests that do not want change. It is not in their interest for this system to change.

Senior military officers will not accept defense reform unless it is forced upon them.

As if governed by Newton's First Law of Motion, an institution will resist any change in its current direction.

In an organization that is unwilling to change, find the opportunity to talk and interact with people - figure out why they don't want to change. It could be habits. It could be people's personal equities and reputations are defined by the role they're in or the process they've mastered.

John Akers once said that changing IBM's culture was more difficult than getting elephants to dance. Of course it's really difficult, as Lou Gerstner also found out years later. The title of his own book is Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? He and his top executives were change masters at IBM. All organizations, especially the larger ones, will always need change masters. Dissatisfaction with the status quo and efforts to improve it should be encouraged rather than discouraged. Regrettably, that is often not the case.

This extraordinary arrogance that change must start at the top is a way of guaranteeing that change will not happen in most companies.

Competent people are the most resistant to change

People don't want to change. It's hard for people to change and it's hard for businesses to change. If I was running an oil company, I would be resistant to change too.

Organizational changes to fix the problems usually create new vulnerabilities in the process of fixing the old ones.

The last thing we need to do now is reorganize and create a new department.

The danger to the state lies not in the intrusion of new thought but in the effort to stubbornly maintain the old state thought.

There is nothing like proposals for intelligence reform to activate the anti-bodies of the affected agencies.

When push comes to shove, the status quo is a very powerful force.

Most governments and people want reform. It’s the prospect of change that makes reform rare.

These reforms will not be popular with everybody—especially those who are doing just fine under the present system.

In the absence of a crisis, the status quo in Washington is more or less set in cement, as advocacy groups and turf-conscious government officials are able to thwart change.

Social stability is ensured, not by the cessation of the demand for change – for the needy and the restless will never cease to cry for it – but by the fact that change in its progress must at last hurt some class of men who are strong enough to arrest it.

If you want to really change something, do not try to fight the existing reality. create a new reality.

As much as people say they love change, they love it when you change - not when you want them to change. Even when it comes to processes they don't like, they're afraid of change.

You can't delegate turning a company around.

When a change in how some element of one's business is conducted becomes an order of magnitude larger than what that business is accustomed to, then all bets are off.