Change Management is important for business professionals, teams, and organizations. Included in the quotes below are deep insights about how to apply change management strategies in business.
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. –Anatole France
Resistance at all cost is the most senseless act there is. –Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Slowness to change usually means fear of the new. –Philip Crosby
Change before you have to. –Jack Welch
People don’t resist change. They resist being changed! –Peter Senge
If you want to make enemies, try to change something. –Woodrow Wilson
The key to change … is to let go of fear. –Rosanne Cash
Our only security is our ability to change. –John Lilly
If you don’t like something, changit is the only thing that has brought progress. –Charles Kettering
Culture does not change be it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. –Maya Angelou
The world hates change, yet because we desire to change it. Culture changes when the organization is transformed – the culture reflects the realities of people working together everyday. –Frances Hesselbein
The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence – it is to act with yesterday’s logic. –Peter Drucker
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. –Niccolo Machiavelli
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. –John P. Kotter
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
Change has a bad reputation in our society. But it isn’t all bad – not by any means. In fact, change is necessary in life – to keep us moving, to keep us growing, to keep us interested. Imagine life without change. It will be static, boring, dull. –Dr. Dennis O’Grady
Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times. –Niccolo Machiavelli
Your success in life isn’t based on your ability to simply change. It is based on your ability to change faster than your competition, customers and business. –Mark Sanborn
Change is hard because people overestimate the value of what they have and underestimate the value of what they may gain by giving that up. –James Belasco and Ralph Stayer
Change your thoughts and you change your world. –Norman Vincent Peale
If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. –Lao Tzu
If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. –Anonymous
The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude. –Oprah Winfrey
The price of doing the same old thing is far higher than the price of change. –Bill Clinton
Each of us has the opportunity to change and grow until our very last breath. Happy creating. –M F Ryan
The measure of intelligence is the ability to change. –Albert Einstein
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. –Leo Tolstoy
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often. –Winston Churchill
I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination. –Jimmy Dean
People change. I wouldn’t like to be accountable for the interviews I’ve done, or the person I was when I was 20, 21. –Robbie Williams
Become a student of change. It is the only thing that will remain constant. –Anthony D’Angelo
The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new. –Socrates
Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. –Barack Obama
Change is the law of life, and those who look only to the past and present are certain to miss the future. –John F. Kennedy
Things don’t have to change the world to be important. –Steve Jobs
Money and success don’t change people; they merely amplify what is already there. –Will Smith
One child, one teacher, one pen, and one book can change the world. –Malala Yousafzai
There is nothing permanent except change. –Heraclitus
Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future. –Walt Disney
Our ability to adapt is amazing. Our ability to change isn’t quite as spectacular. –Lisa Lutz
Change is inevitable—except from a vending machine. –Robert C Gallagher
People are very open-minded about new things, as long as they’re exactly like the old ones. –Charles F. Kettering
Give me the strength to change the things I can, the grace to accept the things I cannot, and a great big bag of money. –Anonymous
It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory. –W. Edwards Deming
Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. –John Kenneth Galbraith
If you’re in a bad situation, don’t worry it’ll change. If you’re in a good situation, don’t worry it’ll change. –John A. Simone, Sr.
Changing is what people do when they have no options left. –Holly Black
By changing nothing, nothing changes. –Tony Robbins
All great changes are preceded by chaos. –Deepak Chopra
Things do not change; we change. –Henry David Thoreau
My theory on life is that life is beautiful. Life doesn’t change. You have a day, and a night, and a month, and a year. We people change – we can be miserable or we can be happy. It’s what you make of your life. –Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum
When in doubt, choose change. –Lily Leung
Your life does not get better by chance; it gets better by change. –Jim Rohn
The key to change is to let go of fear. –Rosanne Cash
Few things are more important during a change event than communication from leaders who can paint a clear and confidence-inspiring vision of the future. –Sarah Clayton
They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. –Andy Warhol
I’ve learned that for many people, change is uncomfortable. Maybe they want to go through it, and they can see the benefit of it, but at a gut level, change is uncomfortable. –Mitchell Baker
Change cannot be put on people. The best way to instill change is to do it with them. Create it with them. –Lisa Bodell
It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change. –Charles Darwin
You can’t build an adaptable organization without adaptable people–and individuals change only when they have to, or when they want to. –Gary Hamel
People will try to tell you that all the great opportunities have been snapped up. In reality, the world changes every second, blowing new opportunities in all directions, including yours. –Ken Hakuta
Learn to adjust yourself to the conditions you have to endure, but make a point of trying to alter or correct conditions so that they are most favorable to you. –William Frederick Book
I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better. –Georg C. Lichtenburg
Powerful and sustained change requires constant communication, not only throughout the rollout but after the major elements of the plan are in place. The more kinds of communication employed, the more effective they are. –DeAnne Aguirre
As dealing with change becomes a regular activity, leading it becomes a skill to hone, an internal capacity to master. –Arnaud Henneville
The reality is that the only way change comes is when you lead by example. –Anne Wojcicki
You can’t change the world alone – you will need some help – and to truly get from your starting point to your destination takes friends, colleagues, the good will of strangers and a strong coxswain to guide them. –William H. McRaven
Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge. –Eckhart Tolle
Companies that change may survive, but companies that transform thrive. Change brings incremental or small-scale adaptations, while transformation brings great improvements that ripple through the future of an organization. –Nick Candito
Change hurts. It makes people insecure, confused, and angry. People want things to be the same as they’ve always been, because that makes life easier. But, if you’re a leader, you can’t let your people hang on to the past. –Richard Marcinko
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. –Buckminster Fuller
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy, for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter into another. –Anatole France
You must welcome change as the rule but not as your ruler. –Denis Waitley
To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly. –Henri Bergson
Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches, letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights. –Pauline R. Kezer
The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind. –Friedrich Nietzsche
Those who expect moments of change to be comfortable and free of conflict have not learned their history. –Joan Wallach Scott
The business changes. Technology changes. The team changes. The team members change. The problem isn’t change, per se, because change is going to happen; the problem, rather, is the inability to cope with change when it comes. –Kent Beck
You cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. –C. S. Lewis
Change does not change tradition. It strengthens it. Change is a challenge and an opportunity, not a threat. –Prince Philip of England
There is nothing wrong with change. if it is in the right direction. –Winston Churchill
Great companies start because the founders want to change the world, not make a fast buck. –Guy Kawasaki
Change is inevitable, progress is a choice. –Dean Lindsay
You cannot go on indefinitely being an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. –CS Lewis
Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position. –Mahatma Gandhi
We are beginning to resemble extinct dinosaurs who suffered from too much armour and too little brain. –W Sloane Coffin
Expecting things to change without putting in any effort, is like waiting for a ship at the airport. –Bright Vibes.
Yesterday, I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today, I am wise, so I am changing myself. –Rumi
Cinderella is proof that a new pair of shoes can change your life. –Quotes Gram
Almost everything worthwhile carries with it some sort of risk, whether it’s starting a new business, whether it’s leaving home, whether it’s getting married, or whether it’s flying into space. –Chris Hadfield
Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there. –Will Rogers
The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow. –Rupert Murdoch
Progress is impossible without change and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. –George Bernard Shaw
Maybe sometimes people did not actually change. Maybe you just never knew who they really were. –Unknown
For people who had curve balls thrown at them, it is easier to digest change and digest change in other people. Change only scares the small-minded. –Casey Affleck
People change over the years, and that changes situations for good and for bad. –Bobby Knight
The sinkhole of change is communication and motivation. It’s where change projects go to die. –Nancy Rothbard
If you want to truly understand something, try to change it. –Kurt Lewin
The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic. –Peter Drucker
Understand that commitment to a major change is always expensive, and that you either pay for achieving it or pay for not having it. –Daryl Conner
You don’t change a culture by talking, you change it through action. –Mario Moussa
Adults are much more likely to act their way into a new way of thinking than to think their way into a new way of acting. –Richard Pascale
Culture isn’t just one aspect of the game. It is the game. –Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.
Organizations are communities of human beings, not collections of human resources. –Henry Mintzberg
There is nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency something that should not be done at all. –Peter Drucker
Whatever got you here may well prevent you from getting there. –Marshall Goldsmith
I’m not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. –John Lennon
Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts. –Arnold Bennett
Change has its enemies. –Robert Kennedy
He who rejects change is the architect of decay. –Harold Wilson
We cannot change anything until we accept it. –Carl Jung
Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer. –Shunryu Suzuki
In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy. –J. Paul Getty
Future shock is the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time. –Alvin Toffler
Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better. –Sydney J. Harris
When it becomes more difficult to suffer than to change… you will change. –Robert Anthony
If you feel like it’s difficult to change, you will probably have a harder time succeeding. –Andrea Jung
I shall not change my course because those who assume to be better than I desire it. –Victoria Woodhull
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. –Thomas Jefferson
After an argument, silence may mean acceptance or the continuation of resistance by other means. –Mason Cooley
The path of least resistance is the path of the loser. –H. G. Wells
Resistance to the organized mass can be effected only by the man who is as well organized in his individuality as the mass itself. –Carl Jung
I developed a resistance to authority. Not to discipline, I learned that. But to authority. I like to think for myself. And I like to cause trouble. –Hal Holbrook
Paralyze resistance with persistence. –Woody Hayes
We live in a moment of history where change is so sped up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing. –R. D. Laing
The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance. –Nathaniel Branden
The world changes in direct proportion to the number of people willing to be honest about their lives. –Armistead Maupin
People want change but not too much change. Finding that balance is tricky for every politician. –Eleanor Clift
Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. –Steve Jobs
The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one. –Martin Luther King, Jr.
It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. –C. S. Lewis
All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward. –Ellen Glasgow
Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change. –Confucius
For changes to be of any true value, they’ve got to be lasting and consistent. –Tony Robbins
Change in all things is sweet. –Aristotle
Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes. –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
One must change one’s tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one’s superiority. –Napoleon Bonaparte
You’re only as young as the last time you changed your mind. –Timothy Leary
True change takes place in the imagination. –Thomas Moore
Change is such hard work. –Billy Crystal
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
If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts. –Albert Einstein
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. –Charles Darwin
One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others. –Niccolo Machiavelli
In a progressive country change is constant; change is inevitable. –Benjamin Disraeli
If you want to change the culture, you will have to start by changing the organization. –Mary Douglas
It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious. –Henry David Thoreau
Every aspect of Western culture needs a new code of ethics – a rational ethics – as a precondition of rebirth. –Ayn Rand
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. –Martin Luther King, Jr.
You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure , the process is its own reward. –Amelia Earhart
Time is the greatest innovator. –Francis Bacon
Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow. –William Pollard
The thing that lies at the foundation of positive change, the way I see it, is service to a fellow human being. –Lech Walesa
All I want to do is change the world. –W. Clement Stone
Change is inevitable. Change for the better is a full-time job. –Adlai E. Stevenson
If you can change three lives in 10, three lives in a hundred, that’s got to be good, hasn’t it? –Ian Botham
There must be a better way to make the things we want, a way that doesn’t spoil the sky, or the rain or the land. –Paul McCartney
The difference between what we are doing and what we are capable of doing would solve most of the world’s problems. –Mahatma Gandhi
The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. –Amelia Earhart
Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots. –Victor Hugo
Change hurts. It makes people insecure, confused, and angry. People want things to be the same as they’ve always been because that makes life easier. But, if you’re a leader, you can’t let your people hang on to the past. –Richard Marcinko
You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward. –Amelia Earhart
If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living. –Gail Sheehy
People can cry much easier than they can change. –James Baldwin
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. –Margaret Mead
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. –Alan Kay
I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself. –Aldous Huxley
Change is the process by which the future invades our lives. –Alvin Toffler
Future shock is the dizzying disorientation brought on by the premature arrival of the future. –Alvin Toffler
It is always easier to talk about change than to make it. –Alvin Toffler
The future always comes too fast and in the wrong order. –Alvin Toffler
The great growling engine of change – technology. –Alvin Toffler
The next major explosion is going to be when genetics and computers come together. I’m talking about an organic computer – about biological substances that can function like a semiconductor. –Alvin Toffler
The Lesson is, we all need to expose ourselves to the winds of change. –Andy Grove
Unless you are prepared to give up something valuable you will never be able to truly change at all, because you’ll be forever in the control of things you can’t give up. –Andy Law
In fact, people themselves are responsible for making the status quo so resistant to change. We are trapped by our own behavior. –Chris Argyris
Learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. –Eric Hoffer
In times of change, learners inherit the earth. –Erich Fromm
All progress depends on the unreasonable man. –George Bernard Shaw
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. –George Bernard Shaw
In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. –Harry S. Truman
Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better. –Harry S. Truman
Build what you want to see in the world. –Jack Dorsey
An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage. – Jack Welch
If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near. –Jack Welch
Willingness to change is a strength, even if it means plunging part of the company into total confusion for a while. –Jack Welch
Be the change you want to see in your networks. –James H. Fowler
Be the trouble you want to see in the world. –Joey Comeau
If you don’t change direction, you end up where you are headed. –John Gibbons
The truth is that digital transformation is actually not about adapting to new technology at all; it’s about directing an organisation to be more adaptive to change itself. –Lindsay Herbert
Be the compromise you want to see in the world. –Mahatma Gandhi
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. –Margaret Mead
After living with their dysfunctional behavior for so many years, people become invested in defending their dysfunctions rather than changing them. –Marshall Goldsmith
All is connected … no one thing can change by itself. –Paul Hawken
Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you’ve got. –Peter Drucker
The key to change ….. is to let go of fear. –Rosanne Cash
I see light at the end of the tunnel. –Walt Whitman Rostow
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. –Winston Churchill
People who don’t take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. –Peter Drucker
