Quotes About Change

Good ideas are often adopted quickly. When all retailers adopt centralized checkout as a "best practice," it's no longer a competitive advantage for anyone.

Make the change small enough that they can't help but score a victory.

Because day-to-day change is gradual, even imperceptible, it's hard to know when to jump. Tripwires tell you when to jump.

If you want a reluctant Elephant to get moving, you need to shrink the change.

For individuals' behavior to change, you've got to influence not only their environment but their hearts and minds.

if people are facing a daunting task, and their instinct is to avoid it, you've got to break down the task. Shrink the change. Make the change small enough that they can't help but score a victory.

Everything can look like a failure in the middle." A similar sentiment is expressed by marriage therapist Michele Weiner-Davis, who says that "real change, the kind that sticks, is often three steps forward and two steps back." If failure is a necessary part of change, then the way people understand failure is critical.

Finding bright spots, then, solves many different problems at once. That's no surprise; successful change efforts involve connecting all three parts of the framework: Rider, Elephant, and Path.

The growth mindset, then, is a buffer against defeatism. It reframes failure as a natural part of the change process. And that's critical, because people will persevere only if they perceive falling down as learning rather than as failing.

It changed their attitude from reactive and critical to active and creative.

Habits are behavioral autopilot, and that's why they're such a critical tool for leaders. Leaders who can instill habits that reinforce their teams' goals are essentially making progress for free. They've changed behavior in a way that doesn't draw down the Rider's reserves of self-control.

How can you create a habit that supports the change you're trying to make? There are only two things to think about: (1) The habit needs to advance the mission, as did Pagonis's stand-up meetings. (2) The habit needs to be relatively easy to embrace. If it's too hard, then it creates its own independent change problem. For

Suppose that you go to bed tonight and sleep well. Sometime, in the middle of the night, while you are sleeping, a miracle happens and all the troubles that brought you here are resolved. When you wake up in the morning, what's the first small sign you'd see that would make you think, 'Well, something must have happened—the problem is gone!'?

In tough times, the Rider sees problems everywhere, and "analysis paralysis" often kicks in. The Rider will spin his wheels indefinitely unless he's given clear direction. That's why to make progress on a change, you need ways to direct the Rider. Show him where to go, how to act, what destination to pursue. And that's why bright spots are so essential, because they are your best hope for directing the Rider when you're trying to bring about change.

motivation comes from feeling—knowledge isn't enough to motivate change. But motivation also comes from confidence. The Elephant has to believe that it's capable of conquering the change. And there are two routes to building people's confidence so that they feel "big" relative to their challenge. You can shrink the change or grow your people (or, preferably, both).

You can't count on these milestones to occur naturally. To motivate change, you've got to plan for them.

the sequence of change is not ANALYZE-THINK-CHANGE, but

if appropriate, add an element of surprise.

developers understand what's being asked of them but resent being forced to change their beautiful code for the dummies in their audience.

Many people have discovered that, when it comes to changing their own behavior, environmental tweaks beat self-control every time.

What's least commonsensical is that pits can sometimes be flipped into peaks.

Transitions should be marked, milestones commemorated, and pits filled.

To change behavior, you've got to direct the Rider, motivate the Elephant, and shape the Path. If you can do all three at once, dramatic change can happen even if you don't have lots of power or resources behind you.

Kotter and Cohen observed that, in almost all successful change efforts, the sequence of change is not ANALYZE-THINK-CHANGE, but rather SEE-FEEL-CHANGE. You're presented with evidence that makes you feel something. It might be a disturbing look at the problem, or a hopeful glimpse of the solution, or a sobering reflection of your current habits, but regardless, it's something that hits you at the emotional level.