Quotes About Transition

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.

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.

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

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

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.

In times of change, you may not know what options are available. And this uncertainty leads to decision paralysis as surely as a table with 24 jams.

big changes come from a succession of small changes. It's OK if the first changes seem almost trivial. The challenge is to get the Elephant moving, even if the movement is slow at first.

The Springboard. Denning

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

If you've finished Switch and are hungry for more, visit the book's website: heathbrothers.com

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Ambiguity does, too. In times of change, you may not know what options are available. And this uncertainty leads to decision paralysis

sometimes in times of change, nobody knows how to behave, and that can lead to problems.

And as we'll see, that tendency explains the third and final surprise about change: What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity.

once a small step has been taken, and people have begun to act in a new way, it will be increasingly difficult for them to dislike the way they're acting.

Once you break through to feeling, though, things change.

Identity is going to play a role in nearly every change situation.

Big changes can happen.

So when you hear people say that change is hard because people are lazy or resistant, that's just flat wrong. In fact, the opposite is true: Change is hard because people wear themselves out. And that's the second surprise about change: What looks like laziness is often exhaustion.

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.

Change isn't an event; it's a process.

In his book Unleashing Change, he observed an encouraging dynamic in his change efforts: Once the change started, it seemed to feed on itself.

So if one of your stars leaves, you can simply wish him the best of luck on his new bus. And then grow another star to take his place. May