Quotes About Progress

When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur…. Don't look for the quick, big improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That's the only way it happens—and when it happens, it lasts.

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.

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

First, you fill the pits. That, in turn, frees you up to focus on the second stage: creating the moments that will make the experience "occasionally remarkable." Fill pits, then build peaks.

When change works, it tends to follow a pattern. The people who change have clear direction, ample motivation, and a supportive environment.

Even in failure there is success.

successful change transformations were more likely to set behavioral goals:

When change happens, it tends to follow a pattern. We've got to stop ignoring that pattern and start embracing it.

ladder your way down from a change idea to a specific behavior, you

the more successful change transformations were more likely to set behavioral goals: 89 percent of the top third versus only 33 percent of the bottom third. For instance, a behavioral goal might be that project teams would meet once a week

Can I ask you a sort of strange question? 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!'?

most often solved by a sequence of small solutions, sometimes

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.

Change begins at the level of individual decisions and behaviors, but that's a hard place to start because that's where the friction is.

Small targets lead to small victories, and small victories can often trigger a positive spiral of behavior.

by disrupting routines, we can create more peaks.

Ooching, in short, should be used as a way to speed up the collection of trustworthy information, not as a way to slow down a decision that deserves our full commitment. 3

Failing is often the best way to learn, and because of that, early failure is a kind of necessary investment.

Transitions should be marked, milestones commemorated, and pits filled. That's the essence of thinking in moments.

What's working, and how can we do more of it?" Sounds simple, doesn't it? Yet, in the real world, this obvious question is almost never asked. Instead, the question we ask is more problem focused: "What's broken, and how do we fix it?

Until you can ladder your way down from a change idea to a specific behavior, you're not ready to lead a switch.

One of IDEO's designers even sketched out a "project mood chart" that predicts how people will feel at different phases of a project. It's a U-shaped curve with a peak of positive emotion, labeled "hope," at the beginning, and a second peak of positive emotion, labeled "confidence," at the end. In between the two peaks is a negative emotional valley labeled "insight.