Great leaders understand that historical success tends to produce stable and inwardly focused organizations, and these outfits, in turn, reinforce a feeling of contentment with the status quo.
John P. KotterRead
Overcoming complacency is crucial at the start of any change process, and it often requires a little bit of surprise, something that grabs attention at more than an intellectual level. You need to surprise people with something that disturbs their view that everything is perfect.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Overcoming complacency is essential for initiating change, often needing an unexpected element to shift perspectives.
This quote emphasizes that recognizing and overcoming complacency is vital at the onset of any change initiative. It suggests that simply understanding the need for change is not enough; there must be a surprising element that disrupts the status quo and challenges people's belief that everything is fine, thereby motivating them to embrace the necessary transformation.
Themes
ChangeComplacencySurpriseTransformationMotivation
In practice
Example use cases
In a team meeting where we are discussing new strategies, I might quote this to inspire colleagues to reconsider their comfort zones.
More from John P. Kotter
All quotes →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.
John P. KotterRead
Managers are trained to make incremental, programmatic improvements. They aren't trained to lead large-scale change.
John P. KotterRead
Because management deals mostly with the status quo and leadership deals mostly with change, in the next century we are going to have to try to become much more skilled at creating leaders.
John P. KotterRead
Outsiders have the intuitive ability to continually view problems in fresh ways and to identify ineffective practices and traditions.
John P. KotterRead
Those in leadership positions who fail to grasp or use the power of stories risk failure for their companies and for themselves.
John P. KotterRead
Similar quotes
So much of growing up is an unbearable waiting. A constant longing for another time. Another season.
Sonia SanchezRead
I support anything that broadens the message of gender equality and tempers the stigma of the feminist label. We run into trouble, though, when we celebrate celebrity feminism while avoiding the actual work of feminism.
Roxane GayRead
Most new movements start this way: hundreds or thousands of individuals and groups, working in different fields and different locations, start thinking about change using a common language, without necessarily recognizing those shared values. You just start following your own vector, propelled along by people in your immediate vicinity. And then one day, you look up and realize that all those individual trajectories have turned into a wave.
Steven JohnsonRead
Future generations are not going to ask us what political party were you in. They are going to ask what did you do about it, when you knew the glaciers were melting.
Martin SheenRead
More than ever before in history, individuals can now band together to solve grand challenges. We face enormous problems, but we 'as individuals' have enormous power to solve them.
Peter DiamandisRead
Progress is the attraction that moves humanity.
Marcus GarveyRead