Quotes About Progress

Such conflicts are reminders of the Fourth Law of Organizational Development: whenever there is a painful, troubled time in the organization, a developmental transition is probably going on.

Next, the organization must Recapture the Venture Spirit; that style was natural to the young and just-launched organization, but now it is locked away in the past.

Transitions are the dynamic interludes between one of the seven stages of organizational life and the next. Their function is to close out one phase, reorient and renew people in that time we are calling the neutral zone, and carry people into the new way of doing and being that is the beginning of the next stage.

What is called "innovation" usually represents a new Dream.

But remember: in your communications you need to speak to wherever people are now, not to where you want them to go, and they need your help, not in getting to the destination you want them ultimately to reach, but in taking the next step in the transition they find themselves in because of your big change.

the First Law of Organizational Development is evident: those who were most at home with the necessary activities and arrangements of one phase are the ones who are the most likely to experience the subsequent phase as a severe personal setback. They will talk about it as a "strategic mistake," as "dumb," "unnecessary," and "too expensive.

the outlook, attitudes, values, self-images, and ways of thinking that were functional in the past have to "die" before people can be ready for life in the present.

every previous level of change comes to be called "stability." Seen in this light, what people today call "nonstop change" is simply a new level of what has always existed. It isn't pure chaos—simply a new experience. When people adjust to it, they will look back upon it as "the stability that we used to enjoy.

One of the biggest problems that endings cause in an organization is confusion. Things change, and obviously the organization won't do some of the things it used to do.

One of the most important leadership roles during times of change is that of putting into words what it is time to leave behind. Because talking about making a break with the past can upset its defenders, some leaders shy away from articulating just what it is time to say good-bye to. But in their unwillingness to say what it is time to let go of, they are jeopardizing the very change that they believe they are leading.

Never denigrate the past. Many managers, in their enthusiasm for a future that is going to be better than the past, ridicule or demean the old way of doing things. In doing so they consolidate the resistance against the transition because people identify with the way things used to be and thus feel that their self-worth is at stake whenever the past is attacked.

All transitions are composed of an ending, a neutral zone and a new beginning

In fact, many endings represent the only way to protect the continuity of something bigger.

Given the ambiguities of the neutral zone, it is easy for people to become polarized: some want to rush forward and others want to go back to the old ways.

Yesterday's ending launched today's success, and today will have to end if tomorrow's changes are to take place.

Author says change emphasizes what is happening TO us while transition emphasizes opportunity for growth within.

Beginnings establish once and for all that an ending was real.

Be careful that in urging people to turn away from the past you don't drive them away from you or from the new direction that the organization needs to take. Present innovations as developments that build on the past and help to realize its potential. Honor the past for what it has accomplished

Old weaknesses, previously patched over or compensated for, reemerge in full flower.

every civilization reaches a still point. The progressives can't go forward, and the conservatives can't go back. One demands continual advance, the other longs for yesterday.

Happiness is neither virtue or pleasure nor this thing or that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.

The pure products of Americago crazy—

That which is possible is inevitable.

The descent beckons as the ascent beckoned