Louis V. Gerstner Jr. Quotes

Reform or die.

Nobody sets out to break new ground. I think change comes when people have no other choice.

Adapt or die.

People only change when it becomes too dangerous to stay the way they are.

Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.

Change is not merely necessary to life - it is life.

I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.

It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.

You must change in order to survive.

Some people don't like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.

We do as much harm holding onto programs and people past their natural life span as we do when we employ massive organizational air strikes. However, destroying comes at the end of life's cycle, not as a first response.

Countries and individuals do not change unless they undergo a trauma.

Adapt or Die

Crisis for others is a source of despair. For me, it's an opportunity to bring reform.

You have to seed internal disruptors. You need sources of internal disruption. They don't guarantee your survival, but you have got to try.

You need a real crisis before you have reforms.

Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no need of change.

We know that leadership is very much related to change. As the pace of change accelerates, there is naturally a greater need for effective leadership.

Americans learn only from catastrophe and not from experience.

Barack knows that we are going to have to make sacrifices; we are going to have to change our conversation; we're going to have to change our traditions, our history; we're going to have to move into a different place.

To change is difficult. Not to change is fatal.

I don't believe that France is capable of reform - at least not in normal times. Fortunately, we are experiencing exceptional circumstances at the moment. It is a moment in which everything is possible.

The large organization has to learn to innovate, or it won't survive.

People only accept change when they are faced with necessity, and only recognize necessity when a crisis is upon them.

Nobody wants to do it - not real change, not soul change, not the painful molecular change required to truly become who you need to be. Nobody ever does real transformation for fun. Nobody ever does it on a dare. You do it only when your back is so far against the wall that you have no choice anymore.