In the 1970s I worked on 'culture change' programmes. What a fool I was. I learned how behaviour is a product of the system. Change the system and behaviour changes. Culture change is free. If you work on the people in a command and control system it gets ugly.

John Seddon

Good ideas alter the power balance in relationships.  That is why good ideas are always initially resisted.

Hugh MacLeod

As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Most change programs fail because they our based on thinking our way to new action.
Humans are programmed for the opposite.
We act our way to new thinking.

L. David Marquet

Humans are allergic to change. They love to say, 'We've always done it this way.' I try to fight that.

Adm. Grace Hopper

A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows.

William James

Rule 1 for humans: The easier it is for people to do something, the more they will do it.
Corollary to rule 1: If you want people to do more of something make it easier, not harder.
Fix the environment, not people.

L. David Marquet

The easiest thing is to react. The second easiest is to respond. But the hardest thing is to initiate.

Seth Godin

Change almost never fails because it's too early. It almost always fails because it's too late.

Seth Godin

The real problem when working with a consultant, a therapist or a coach isn't that we don't know what to do. The real problem is that we don't want to change our mind.

Seth Godin

Remarkable visions and genuine insights are always met with resistance.

Seth Godin

The largest enemy of change and leadership isn't 'no', it's a 'not yet'.
'Not yet' is the safest, easiest way to forestall change.

Seth Godin

Let’s go invent tomorrow instead of worrying about what happened yesterday.

Steve Jobs

Culture does not change because we desire to change it. Culture changes when the organization is transformed; the culture reflects the realityes of people working together every day.

Frances Hesselbein

Change is the end result of all true learning.

Leo Buscaglia

If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less.

Eric Shinseki

Change is uncomfortable and hard as hell. When leaders expect others to change without participating + holding themselves accountable  - it’s almost impossible. When leaders show up and model the vulnerability required for transformation change - it’s often unstoppable.

Brené Brown

Of het beter wordt als het anders wordt, weet ik niet, maar dat het anders moet wil het beter worden, weet ik wel.

Georg Lichtenberg

You cannot control innovation; you need to liberate innovation.

Woody Zuill

Whether or not you have change management in your job description, your job involves change.

Esther Derby

When people are operating within their comfort zone, you can expect open minds and action; when they are pushed outside their comfort zone, expect hesitance and resistance.

Eli Goldratt

When people are operating within their comfort zone, you can expect open minds and action; when they are pushed outside their comfort zone, expect hesitance and resistance.

Eliyahu M. Goldratt

Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig. I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

Epictetus

Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two.

Octavio Paz

Slow and steady wins the race.

Aesop

It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.

Niccolò Machiavelli

All that is not information, not redundancy, not form and not restraints - is noise, the only possible source of new patterns.

Gregory Bateson

The reality is that today’s organisations were simply never designed to change proactively and deeply.

Gary Hamel

If you can't solve a problem, then there is an easier problem you can solve. Find it.

George Polya

Don't be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I cannot say whether things will get better if they change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.

Georg Lichtenberg

Neither stability nor change have any intrinsic value. The worth of stability is in the goodness it preserves, while the worth of change is in the goodness it brings about.

Don Ely

People don’t determine their future.
They determine their habits, which determine their future.

John C. Maxwell

Yes, we need to start with a purpose, a direction, a target. From there we experiment to move towards it. And learn along the way.

Katie Anderson

It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking, than think your way into a new way of acting.

Jerry Sternin

In tijden van snelle verandering kan ervaring  je grootste vijand zijn.

J. Paul Getty

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

John F. Kennedy

The hardest thing for competitors to emulate is a fundamental change.

Eliyahu M. Goldratt

When people are operating within their comfort zone, you can expect open minds and action; when they are pushed outside their comfort zone, expect hesitance and resistance.

Eliyahu M. Goldratt

When the why gets stronger, the how gets easier.

Jim Rohn

Entrepreneurs deal with change by not trying to create hierarchies

John P Kotter

I often make the mistake of only asking what people want rather than observing what they need.

Jurgen Appelo

Change is difficult. It’s hard, and people avoid it when we can, but change eventually happens when the consequences of standing still look worse than the consequences of taking a chance on change. It’s time for all of us to change — standing still is not an option, and we can only imagine the disruptions ahead.

Denis Pombriant

If a process of ongoing improvement is to be effective, we must first of all find — What to Change.

Eliyahu M. Goldratt

Automation is good, so long as you know exactly where to put the machine.

Eliyahu M. Goldratt

Experiments don’t come with a guarantee of success, unless learning is the goal.

Esther Derby

Patterns are a symptom, not a cause, and there is seldom only one cause.

Esther Derby 

I feel the most important point in common  between sports and work is the continuing need for practice and training. It is easy to understand a theory with the mind. The problem is to remember it with  the body. The goal is to know and do instinctively. Having the spirit to endure the training is the first  step on the road to winning.

Taiichi Ohno

The problem with transformation is never a lack of ideas; it’s a lack of a change in behavior

Barry O'Reilly