Institutional Transformation Quotes

Government is on a collision course with the future

In a large bureaucracy, you cannot exercise the transformation of any situation without coopting bureaucracy.

We will use new technology to hard-wire the kind of [transparency] reform and accountability into the culture of government so that it can’t be undone in the next administration.

While bringing about reforms and improving institutions, we have to be cautious that while shaking the tree to remove the bad fruit, we do not bring down the tree itself.

America does not need another political campaign based on denial and avoidance of some of our real problems. It needs a crusade to reform and renew our country, its institutions and political system.

The church ... is not just to bandage the victims under the wheel, but to put a spoke in the wheel itself.

I'll say that technology will make revolutions start happening faster, but it'll make them harder to finish. Technology can't create leaders and cause institutions to appear.

I'm committed to structural changes.

The Arab spring was not as radical as the French or Iranian revolutions. It did not pull out the deeply entrenched roots of the state. Instead, it was satisfied to replace the top of the pyramid with newly elected, but inexperienced, leaders.

Neither one of us believe that you can fix the culture from within by just throwing money and people at the system. There has to be a systemic change within the system.

I think one of the major themes in 'Escape Fire,' really, if you break it down, is that huge institutions, the military, the Safeway Corporation and others, are being forced to change.

This is what a crisis does: It makes you question the status quo. That doesn't mean that after a crisis we move into some kind of utopia. But it is an opportunity for political change.

The Middle East was once an economically advanced region of the world, as measured by standard of living, technology, agricultural productivity, literacy or institutiontopmeal creativity. Only China might have been even more developed. Subsequently, however, the Middle East failed to match the institutional transformation through which western Europe vastly increased its capacity to pool resources, coordinate productive activities and conduct exchanges.

Capitalism had been more revolutionary than any previous social system. It had swept away without scruples old institutions and modes of thought, if they were found to stand in its way.

We are at the precipice of great transformation within our culture and government.

I wasn't trying to change the laws or slow down the machine. Maybe I should have. My critics say that I was not revolutionary enough. But they forget that I am a product of the system. I worked those desks, I know those people and I still have some faith in them, that the services can be reformed.

From an evolutionary standpoint you can't just wipe everything out and start over, and I don't think you can do it in the school system either.

A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution.

Our institutions have a potent digestion, and may in time convert and assimilate to good all elements thrown in, however originally alien.

Hollywood is full of very liberal people, but it still has an infrastructure that needs to be broken.

Put not your trust in new leaders, better systems, new organisations or regulatory reorganisation. They may well be good and necessary, but will to some degree fail.

If institutions don't grow, they... well, I don't know what happens to them, because they always grow. I suppose the point is that we forget about the ones that don't.

Politicians know that structural reforms - to increase competition, foster innovation, and drive institutional change - are the way to tackle structural impediments to growth. But they know that while the pain from reform is immediate, gains are typically delayed and their beneficiaries uncertain.