Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

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.

The paradox of innovation is this: CEO's often complain about lack of innovation, while workers often say leaders are hostile to new ideas.

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

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

Managing bottom-up change is its own art.

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.

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.

Every organization has to prepare for the abandonment of everything it does.

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

The new idea either finds a champion or it dies. No ordinary involvement with a new idea provides the energy required to cope with the indifference and resistance that change provokes.

A leader's job is to look into the future and see the organization, not as it is, but as it should be

Competence is the enemy of change!

Effective leaders help others to understand the necessity of change and to accept a common vision of the desired outcome.

To survive and succeed, every organization will have to turn itself into a change agent

When Colin Powell showed up as Secretary of State in 2001, most State Department employees still didn't even have computers on their desks. When I got there they were not mostly permitted to have handheld devices. I mean, so you're thinking how do we operate in this new environment dominated by technology, globalizing forces? We have to change, and I can't expect people to change if I don't try to model it and lead it.

If you are hired to shake up the system, do it. No one will believe you're the boss until you do one or more of the following: 1. Add a new division; 2. Lop off a present department; 3. Add new people or reassign and reward present employees; 4. Get rid of deadwood; 5. Change the method of accounting; 6. Change lawyers, accountants, or other outside services; 7. Ask a lot of questions, and demand answers by a certain date; 8. Get in touch with key people in your industry or city and arrange personal meetings; 9. Improve working conditions; 10. Update present benefit plans.

Management means, in the last analysis, the substitution of thought for brawn and muscle, of knowledge for folkways and superstition, and of cooperation for force. It means the substitution of responsibility for obedience to rank, and of authority of performance for the authority of rank.

One of the most common ways to overcome resistance to change is to educate people about it beforehand. Communication of ideas helps people see the need for and the logic of a change. The education process can involve one-on-one discussions, presentations to groups, or memos and reports.

Most organizations fail in driving change.

It's better to be in charge of change than to have to react to change.

You must be on top of change or change will be on top of you.

I don't know where we should take this company, but I do know that if I start with the right people, ask them the right questions, and engage them in vigorous debate, we will find a way to make this company great.

Startup success is driven most by the product passion, quality, vision, team-work and persistence of the founding team and the talent that the team attracts.

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

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.