Explore Quotes by John P. Kotter

Sometimes it doesn't hurt to talk around a little and see what lights people's eyes up and what makes them cloud over.

I am always looking for stories that will shed light on how companies define themselves - for better or for worse. When shared with others, such stories can have an enormous impact on how well we move forward in the changing world around us.

Every organization goes through a lifecycle where they eventually lose their initial speed or agility at a strategic level.

I am often asked about the difference between 'change management' and 'change leadership,' and whether it's just a matter of semantics. These terms are not interchangeable.

Those in leadership positions who fail to grasp or use the power of stories risk failure for their companies and for themselves.

If you're overbooked, you can't manage pressing problems or even recognize they're pressing until too late.

We started Kotter International to improve leaders' ability to deal with big, important transformations in organizations - and in their lives.

It's very difficult to innovate without requiring people to do something different. And whenever you require people to do something different, you're talking about change.

Innovation is kind of a sub-piece of change.

Globalization is going to bring us closer and closer together across nations and technology you can't stop.

More and more I'm finding that I'm reading history, I'm reading biography, I'm reading autobiography for a sense of people who've been able to provide leadership. I don't read leadership books anymore.

The dry academic tomes I wrote very early in my career were earnest reflections of the research I conducted, the analysis I applied and the conclusions I drew. And they had few readers, mostly other academics. I learned along the way and started including more and more stories in my work.

If people think the boss is manipulating them to get them to work harder, it backfires.

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

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.

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.

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.

Many years ago, I think I got my first insight on how an incredibly diverse team can work together and do astonishing things, and not just misunderstand each other and fight.

All organizations start with a structure that looks like a dynamic solar system. They can be very fast, agile. They attract people who play around with crazy ideas.

Leadership is always about change: it's not about mobilising people to do what they've always done well to continue to do it well.

True urgent leadership doesn't drain people. It does the opposite. It energizes them. It makes them feel excited.