Quotes About Adaptation

Rather than focusing solely on what's new and different about the change to come, make an effort to remind people what's already been conquered.

Big-picture, hands-off leadership isn't likely to work in a change situation, because the hardest part of change—the paralyzing part—is precisely in the details.

Big problems are rarely solved with commensurately big solutions.

When you're at the beginning, don't obsess about the middle, because the middle is going to look different once you get there. Just look for a strong beginning and a strong ending and get moving.

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

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

Big changes can start with very small steps. Small changes tend to snowball. But this is not the same as saying that change is easy.

You can't script every move—that would be like trying to foresee the seventeenth move in a chess game. It's the critical moves that count.

Novelty even changes our perception of time.

In this chapter, we've seen that what looks like a "character problem" is often correctible when you change the environment. The

Simple tweaks of the Path can lead to dramatic changes in behavior.

To change yourself or other people, you've got to change habits

The first thing to realize is that even small environmental tweaks can make a difference

there's a good reason why change can be difficult: The world doesn't always want what you want.

the first surprise about change: What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem.

Switch podcast series.

The growth mindset, then, is a buffer against defeatism. It reframes failure as a natural part of the change process.

The Heart of Change, by John Kotter and Dan Cohen [Business and organizational change].

When your finance professor starts using the word "dude," you must eliminate the word from your vocabulary.

Imagine a gallon jug filled with water with three ice cubes next to it. All of the water in the jug is salt water. The ice cubes are the only fresh water, and humans can only drink the drops that are melting off of each.

You need to create the expectation of failure—not the failure of the mission itself, but failure en route. This

You have to back up your destination postcard with a good behavioral script. That's a recipe for success. What you don't need to do is anticipate every turn in the road between today and the destination. It's not that plotting the whole journey is undesirable; it's that it's impossible.

When the Rider analyzes a problem, he seeks a solution that befits the scale of it. If the Rider spots a hole, he wants to fill it, and if he's got a round hole with a 24-inch diameter, he's gonna go looking for a 24-inch peg. But that mental model is wrong.

In times of change, we need to remind ourselves and others, again and again, of certain basic truths: Our brains and our abilities are like muscles. They can be strengthened with practice.