Here are a few nuggets I’ve found helpful in my recent readings and studies on leadership and change management.

“There is nothing more difficult to 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.” (Machiavelli, The Prince)

“In building a great institution, there is no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no miracle moment. Rather, our research showed that it feels like turning a giant, heavy flywheel. Pushing with great effort – days, weeks and months of work, with almost imperceptible progress – you finally get the flywheel to inch forward. But you don’t stop. You keep pushing, and with persistent effort, you eventually get the flywheel to complete one entire turn. You don’t stop. You keep pushing, in an intelligent and consistent direction, and the flywheel moves a bit faster. You keep pushing, and you get two turns…then four…then eight…the flywheel builds momentum…a hundred…moving faster with each turn…a thousand…ten thousand…a hundred thousand. Then, at some point – breakthrough! Each turn builds upon previous work, compounding your investment effort. The flywheel flies forward with almost unstoppable momentum. This is how you build greatness.” (Collins, Good to Great and the Social Sectors)

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” (Roosevelt, Speech at Sorbonne, Paris, 1910)

“People don’t resist change, they resist being changed” and “See managing change as akin to steering a boat across turbulent waters – work with the wind.” (Beckhard and Harris, Organisational Transition – Managing Complex Change)

Change formula (created by Beckhard, Harris and Gleicher and improved by Dannemiller and Jacobs):

Change = (A x B x C) > D

Where:

A = dissatisfaction with the status quo (evidence of the need for change)

B = a desirable future (painting a picture/vision of how things could be)

C = a practical pathway (confidence in the likelihood of getting there, concrete steps that can be taken towards the vision)

D = the cost of changing (resistance)

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