Quotes About Change

All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can vulgerize that society. We can brutalize it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level.

She was married to Jack before she married my father." "Correct." "But she later divorced Jack and married my father." "Also correct." "And you all lived together?" She waved her hand in the air. "It was another time. Have a seat.

You have to realize just because things don't have tangible reality, that doesn't mean they don't exist. Ideas are just as real as people and property. Ideas have changed the world profoundly to an extent most people never approach

Liberals are not all going to say exactly the same at all times; I hope they never will, because they would cease to be Liberals.

It is, of course, quite impossible to make forecasts about the future except on the hypothetical postulate that in all matters where the nature of changes cannot be definitely foreseen and taken into account, the future is assumed to be a continuance of the past.

A revolutionary moment in the world's history is a time for revolutions, not for patching.

Americans must rise up and make all in Washington DC unemployed.

A lunatic is indeed properly one that hath lucid intervals; sometimes enjoying his senses, and sometimes not, and that frequently depending upon the change of the moon.

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.

The National Endowment for Democracy, an agency created by the Reagan administration in 1983 to promote political action and psychological warfare against states not in love with US foreign policy, is Washington's foremost non-military tool for effecting regime change.

I have to start my real life soon, before I die of boredom and frustration.

I discipline churchgoers with godly lessons and sharp words if they do not change their ways. My goal is to open their hearts so that they seek forgiveness.

Genuine beginnings begin within us, even when they are brought to our attention by external opportunities.

The single biggest reason organizational changes fail is because no one has thought about endings or planned to manage their impact on people. Naturally concerned about the future, planners and implementers all too often forget that people have to let go of the present first. They forget that while the first task of change management is to understand the desired outcome and how to get there, the first task of transition management is to convince people to leave home.

It is for these reasons that managing the neutral zone is so essential during a period of enormous change. Neutral zone management isn't just something that would be nice if you had more time. It's the only way to ensure that the organization comes through the change intact and that the necessary changes actually work the way that they are supposed to.

Lacking clear systems and signals, the neutral zone is a chaotic time, but this lack is also the reason the neutral zone is more hospitable to new ideas than settled times. Because the neutral zone automatically puts people into Bessemer's situation, it is a time that is ripe with creative opportunity.

Establish by word and example that this is a time to step back and take stock, a time to question the "usual," and a time to come up with new and creative solutions to the organization's difficulties. Explain how business as usual chokes off creativity and explain why the present is the best possible time to generate and test new ideas. Model this new manner yourself by taking time to step back and question how your own job is done.

The task before you is therefore twofold: first, to get your people through this phase of transition in one piece; and second, to capitalize on all the confusion by encouraging them to be innovative.

Selling problems is, in fact, the investment that pays long-term dividends by making people more ready for particular organizational transitions—and for a world of continuous change in general.

Embrace losses, setbacks, or disadvantages as entry points into new solutions.

And although it may be hard to think about larger issues while you are in the immediate turmoil of a transition, you must finally deal with them if you are to understand not only what is happening, but why, when, and how it is happening. In other words, I am not telling you to stop bailing - just to cast an eye over the map and think about where your little boat is heading.

Successful new beginnings are based on a clear and appropriate purpose. Without one, there may be lots of starts but no real beginnings. In fact, there may be one start after another in a sequence of changes that tires out everyone without solving the underlying problems. Without a beginning, the transition is incomplete. And without transition, the change changes nothing.

Second Law of Organizational Development: the successful outcome of any phase of organizational development triggers its demise by creating challenges that it is not equipped to handle.

Third Law of Organizational Development: in any significant transition, the thing that the organization needs to let go of is the very thing that got it this far. Discovering that law is painful, especially when you feel that you owe everything to the people, the culture, the style of management, or the strategy that "got you this far.