119 Quotes by John P. Kotter

The rate of change is not going to slow down anytime soon. If anything, competition in most industries will probably speed up even more in the next few decades.

In an ever changing world, you never learn it all, even if you keep growing into your 90s.

Managers are trained to make incremental, programmatic improvements. They aren't trained to lead large-scale change.

The vast majority of large scale change efforts fail. Which means that the probability that you have actually experienced a failure, and your people know that and are pessimistic, therefore, about trying something again, is very high.

The world has 6 billion people and counting. We need to help 500 million people become better leaders so that billions can benefit.

I'm impatient. Typically people think they know all about change and don't need help. Their approach tends to be more management-oriented than leadership-oriented. It's very frustrating.

Low lights signal to our senses that the workday may be over and it's time for sleep, making it hard for an audience to pay careful attention. When we stand behind a big wooden podium, it can feel as if there's a shield between us and the audience.

We are always creating new tools and techniques to help people, but the fundamental framework is remarkably resilient, which means it must have something to do with the nature of organizations or human nature.

Kotter International is about leading large-scale change, not just managing it.