28 Great Quotes to Inspire and Manage Change

DANGER_CHANGE_AHEAD_SIGNChange is a continuous and ongoing process.

For organizational teams and for individuals, it is the ability to change and grow and adapt to new circumstances, teammates, challenges that determines our competitive advantage.

This list of 28 great quotes to inspire and help manage change may be useful to remind yourself and your coworkers of the needs and benefits that motivate successful people to not only welcome it, but to become advocates and champions for progress.

 

1. “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

– Leo Tolstoy

2. “Change before you have to”

– Jack Welch

3. “People don’t resist change. They resist being changed!”

– Peter Senge

4. “If you want to make enemies, try to change something”

– Woodrow Wilson

5. “The key to change …… is to let go of fear “

– Rosanne Cash

6. “Our only security is our ability to change”

– John Lilly

7. “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude”

– Maya Angelou

8. “What I like most about change is that it’s a synonym for hope. If you are taking a risk, what you are really saying is, ‘I believe in tomorrow and I will be part of it.’”

– Linda Ellerbee

9. “The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress”

– Charles Kettering

10. “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

11. “The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence – it is to act with yesterday’s logic”

– Peter Drucker

12. “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

13. “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

14. “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

15. “Change has a bad reputation in our society… In fact, change is necessary in life – to keep us moving… to keep us growing… to keep us interested…”

– Dr. Dennis O’Grady

16. 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

17. “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

18. “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

19. “Change your thoughts and you change your world”

– Norman Vincent Peale

20. “Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.”

–Jim Rohn

21. “ If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”

– Lao Tzu

22. “The only difference between a rut and a grave is their dimensions.”

– Ellen Glasgow

23. “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got”

– Anonymous

24. “After you’ve done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully. After five years, look at it with suspicion. And after ten years, throw it away and start all over.”

-Alfred Edward Perlman

25. “In a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.”

– Warren Buffett

26. “You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.”

– Walt Disney

27. “No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.”

– Helen Keller

28. “”In the long history of humankind, those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”

– Charles Darwin

 

Every organization experiences change, and it is during times of change that people often need to be reminded of and reconnected to the significance of the goals that they are working toward and the strengths of the people they are working with to achieve those goals.

You may like the handout available in Sean’s Teamwork Toolbox on the 5 C’s of Successful Change…

If your group needs help navigating the frustration or challenges that change has created and could benefit from the laughter and lessons that a fun team building event, a two hour training workshop, or an entertaining conference message would provide, contact Sean!