Strategic Change Quotes

Remember: you cannot build a better mouse trap by fixing the old one - NewCo demands active ownership, and that activity is not the sum of doing multiple jobs but, instead, the sum of implementing paradigm-shifting changes that create new industries and solutions.

Leaders are people who ‘walk ahead,’ people genuinely committed to deep changes, in themselves and in their organizations.

I think my biggest achievement was being part of a team of outstanding, entrepreneurial military leaders and civilians who helped change the way in which America fights by transforming a global special operations task force - Task Force 714 - that I commanded.

Designing and implementing a strategy for change is a waste of time until you have discovered and embraced the current reality. If you don't know where you really are, it is impossible to get where you need to be.

We've navigated a lot of change at Campbell's. The best thing for me to be able to do is to discuss that change with people.

I think it's the sign of a leader to step up and say, you know, when something's not working to have the guts to reverse it. And the worst thing you can do is to let that mistake linger.

I am trying to re-shape and improve my central position.

When I came into the CEO office, I basically changed the entire management team. We knew that we had to change the company, so we needed a new set of leaders.

Famous pivot stories are often failures but you don't need to fail before you pivot. All a pivot is is a change is strategy without a change in vision. Whenever entrepreneurs see a new way to achieve their vision - a way to be more successful - they have to remain nimble enough to take it.

The game has gotten a lot faster. I was anticipating changes as far back as when I first came into the league, when the spacing was changing, and big guys were playing in different spaces on the floor. But when that change actually happens, and it happens so quickly, it's just amazing.

The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament.

The fight against terrorism will not be over tomorrow or next month, or even next year. The fight will endure for years to come, and as the threat changes, so too must we adapt to these transformations.

When a change in how some element of one's business is conducted becomes an order of magnitude larger than what that business is accustomed to, then all bets are off.

You have to adapt your policies to changing circumstances.

You want to grow. To compete effectively - - even if you weren't going to grow, just to maintain your position - - you look at who you're competing with. And everyone you're competing with is changing to get better, sometimes dramatically.

Sometimes, you have a hunch and then you find numbers that substantiate that, it makes either the staff or the players say, 'OK, let's fix that.'

For organisations, flexibility is a must to cope with fluctuations in demand and remain competitive, and people must be able to develop adaptable attitudes to quickly embrace evolving business conditions, new business opportunities, and shifting strategies.

Effective leaders help others to understand the necessity of change and to accept a common vision of the desired outcome.

George W. Bush has much to evaluate: he has presided over the most sweeping redesign of U.S. grand strategy since the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

To get an Army that's already fighting a war to change in stride to a total different military strategy on the ground - and to get everybody on the same page - was accomplished by the sheer force of Dave Petraeus' will.

There is change by necessity or adaptation, and there is contrived change or novelty.

The Department of Defense took 40 years to get where it got.

I spent some time studying Toyota, because how could a loom maker - they made looms. That was their business for 50 years, 35 years - and then they decided to go into the car business after everyone else was in the car business.

When businesses go through hard times, through down markets, what do they do is they challenge every basic assumption of how they operate. They innovate. They create disruption for a while that leads them to even greater heights when the economy turns around.

Major organizational changes create uncertainty. But the point is to move quickly - faster than you are comfortable - because in hindsight, you will always wish you had made changes even sooner.