Quotes About Change

As for the thing that changes, although it can be what it will become, it is not yet what it will become. It actually exists right now in this state (an acorn); it will actually exist in that state (large oak tree). But it is not actually in that state now. It only has the potentiality for that state.

each one needs something outside itself to actualize its potentiality for change.

Vast ills have followed a belief in certainty.

Before we can progress in providing answers . . . we have to repent of our questions.

A problem that seems unsolvable always looks different in the light of a new day.

We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto

Like water, it slowed my descent. Like water, it gave me a feeling of buoyancy.

The great joke is that the next time is never like the last time, and yet we can't help readying ourselves for it anyway. This all reminds me of the Mayan conception of the universe.

When a change management fails, leadership change is brought in. A leadership change will always bring in change management

There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come," said Victor Hugo

The committed person doesn't play by the rules of the game. He is responsible for the game. If the rules of the game stand in the way of achieving the vision, he will find ways to change the rules.

Yet, there is a world of difference between compliance and commitment. The committed person brings an energy, passion, and excitement that cannot be generated by someone who is only compliant, even genuinely compliant. The committed person doesn't play by the rules of the game. He is responsible for the game. If the rules of the game stand in the way of achieving the vision, he will find ways to change the rules. A group of people truly committed to a common vision is an awesome force.

reflexive loop":

It took a scenario that he was going to die for Fred to wake up. It took that kind of shock for his life to be transformed. Maybe that's what needs to happen for all of us, for everyone who lives on Earth. That could be what a requiem scenario offers us.

Rather than pushing harder to overcome resistance to change, artful leaders discern the source of the resistance. They focus directly on the implicit norms and power relationships within which the norms are embedded.

If I learned anything … it is the notion that we need to be working on all different parts of the system in order to successfully change the whole system

How can we stop going faster while our ability to see further ahead is decreasing?

We are not preparing children for the world we have lived in but for a future that we can barely imagine.

Without effective local line leaders, new ideas—no matter how compelling—do not get translated into action, and the intentions behind change initiatives from the top can easily be thwarted. Network

Managers must learn to reflect on their current mental models—until prevailing assumptions are brought into the open, there is no reason to expect mental models to change, and there is little purpose in systems thinking. If managers "believe" their world views are facts rather than sets of assumptions, they will not be open to challenging those world views.

Ultimately, the payoff from integrating systems thinking and mental models will be not only improving our mental models (what we think) but altering our ways of thinking: shifting from mental models dominated by events to mental models that recognize longer-term patterns of change and the underlying structures producing those patterns.

Systems thinking is a conceptual framework, a body of knowledge and tools that has been developed over the past fifty years, to make the full patterns clearer, and to help us see how to change them effectively.

it is no surprise that extraordinary leaders, like Mieko Nishimizu and Roger Saillant, often have deep personal stories of moments of awakening, when some old part of them died and a new part emerged.

we dubbed this host of problems the "true believers syndrome" and realized it is a primary reason that promising innovations often fail to spread. The