Transformation
Helping people and organizations adapt when the world changes.
Leaders who emphasize transformation notice when established ways of working stop fitting, retire what no longer works, and help others through the change. They accept a dip in performance to reach a better way of working.
Quotes are tagged by what they are about, not by who said them. A quote here is not a rating of the speaker.
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.
Verified sourceThe Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination · Watch at 11:41 · Harvard Gazette
11:41 of 23:51All quotes from this speech →
And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
Verified sourceThe Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination · Watch at 12:24 · Harvard Gazette
12:24 of 23:51All quotes from this speech →
Surprisingly, naivety is helpful. Experience can be a cage, inhibiting and hard to escape from. And today, the world changes so quickly that freedom from experience can be an asset.
Verified sourceAddress to the Class of 2022 at the Opening of the Dyson STEAM Building · Watch at 5:47 · Dyson on YouTube
No setback that comes our way doesn't look like an opportunity.
Verified source2024 Commencement Address at Caltech · Watch at 1:16:59 · Caltech on YouTube
My ability to handle setbacks and see the opportunities just around the corner, I consider to be my superpowers.
Verified source2024 Commencement Address at Caltech · Watch at 1:22:52 · Caltech on YouTube
We learned that we were not just a chip or a technology company. Nvidia was really a company at the intersection of technology and art.
Verified source2009 Commencement Address at Oregon State University · Watch at 3:22 · Oregon State University on YouTube
Somewhere in the years ahead, you're going to walk into another room where you have absolutely no idea what you're doing. You've done this before. Go figure it out.
Verified source2026 Commencement Address at MIT · Watch at 14:27 · Massachusetts Institute of Technology on YouTube
A change in the world that seems so clear you're sure someone else will do it. But they won't. You will.
Verified source2017 Commencement Address at Harvard University · Watch at 8:21 · Harvard University on YouTube
Change starts local. Even global changes start small, with people like us.
Verified source2017 Commencement Address at Harvard University · Watch at 27:41 · Harvard University on YouTube
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
Verified source2005 Stanford Commencement Address · Watch at 6:55 · Steve Jobs Archive on YouTube
6:55 of 14:26All quotes from this speech →
I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.
SourceIncluded in Portrait-Life of Lincoln (1910) by Francis T Miller · via Wikiquote
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.
SourceSecond State of the Union address (1862) · via Wikiquote
Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.
SourceAttributed to Andrew S. Grove in · via Wikiquote
Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.
SourceBusiness @ The Speed of Thought (1999) · via Wikiquote
Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.
SourceThe Road Ahead (1995) · via Wikiquote
Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.
SourceSoros on Soros (1995) · via Wikiquote
If in the opinion of the People, the distribution or modification of the Constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.
SourceFarewell Address to the People of the United States · National Archives on Founders Online
We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth New Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times.
SourceLetter to Major General Philip Schuyler · Mount Vernon Ladies' Association on George Washington's Mount Vernon
Strategic retreat, sacrifice, deciding what to give up is at the core, the very core of success.
Source2023 Commencement Address at National Taiwan University · Watch at 19:00 · Alive Industries on YouTube
Every industry will be revolutionized, reborn, ready for new ideas, your ideas.
Source2023 Commencement Address at National Taiwan University · Watch at 19:39 · Alive Industries on YouTube
We learn never to see failure as the opposite of success. Each failure is just another learning moment, a humility moment, a character strengthening moment.
Source2026 Commencement Address at Carnegie Mellon University · Watch at 6:26 · Carnegie Mellon University on YouTube
My career started at the beginning of the PC revolution. Your career starts at the beginning of the AI revolution.
Source2026 Commencement Address at Carnegie Mellon University · Watch at 7:22 · Carnegie Mellon University on YouTube
History shows that societies that retreat from technology do not stop progress. They only surrender the opportunity to shape it and to benefit from it.
Source2026 Commencement Address at Carnegie Mellon University · Watch at 11:43 · Carnegie Mellon University on YouTube
We should not teach fear of the future. We should engage it with optimism, responsibility and ambition.
Source2026 Commencement Address at Carnegie Mellon University · Watch at 12:08 · Carnegie Mellon University on YouTube
AI is not likely to replace you, but someone using AI better than you might.
Source2026 Commencement Address at Carnegie Mellon University · Watch at 15:18 · Carnegie Mellon University on YouTube
Turn your wounds into wisdom.
SourceCNN interview (2011) · via Wikiquote
When I think about my career, my successes are built on learning from failures.
SourceBoy Genius Report: "When I think about my career, my successes are built on learning from failures: Microsoft CEO Satya… · via Wikiquote
For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Source2005 Stanford Commencement Address · via jamesclear.com
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.
Source2005 Stanford Commencement Address · via jamesclear.com
Discontent is the first necessity of progress.
SourceThe Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison (1948), p. 110 · via Wikiquote
I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.
SourceIn debate in the House of Commons, 4 Nov 1952 · via Wikiquote
My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
As our case is new, we must think and act anew.
It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines or old laws, but to break up both and make new ones.
Upon the subjects of which I have treated, I have spoken as I have thought. I may be wrong in regard to any or all of them; but, holding it a sound maxim that it is better only sometimes to be right than at all times to be wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous, I shall be ready to renounce them.
Leaders have to act more quickly today. The pressure comes much faster.
So give me a turbulent world as opposed to a quiet world and I'll take the turbulent one.
There is at least one point in the history of any company when you have to change dramatically to rise to the next level of performance. Miss that moment - and you start to decline.
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.
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.
It's time to fundamentally change the way that we do business in Washington. To help build a new foundation for the 21st century, we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative. That will demand new thinking and a new sense of responsibility for every dollar that is spent.
A mother deserves a day off to care for a sick child or sick parent without running into hardship - and you know what, a father does, too. It's time to do away with workplace policies that belong in a 'Mad Men' episode.
With the changing economy, no one has lifetime employment. But community colleges provide lifetime employability.
Now we're in the midst of not just advocating for change, not just calling for change - we're doing the grinding, sometimes frustrating work of delivering change - inch by inch, day by day.
Fifty years of isolating Cuba had failed to promote democracy, setting us back in Latin America. That's why we restored diplomatic relations, opened the door to travel and commerce, and positioned ourselves to improve the lives of the Cuban people.
Through every victory and every setback, I've insisted that change is never easy and never quick; that we wouldn't meet all of our challenges in one term, or one presidency, or even in one lifetime.
It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.
We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don't let yourself be lulled into inaction.
We are in the throes of a transition where every publication has to think of their digital strategy.
This is a fantastic time to be entering the business world, because business is going to change more in the next 10 years than it has in the last 50.
Eventually, all companies are replaced.
There is a difference between what technology enables and what historical business practices enable.
In this business, by the time you realize you're in trouble, it's too late to save yourself. Unless you're running scared all the time, you're gone.
I think it's very important to have a feedback loop, where you're constantly thinking about what you've done and how you could be doing it better. I think that's the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.
Some people don't like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.
I think it's very important to have a feedback loop, where you're constantly thinking about what you've done and how you could be doing it better.
The worse a situation becomes the less it takes to turn it around, the bigger the upside.
Throughout the 19th century, when there was a laissez-faire mentality and insufficient regulation, you had one crisis after another. Each crisis brought about some reform. That is how central banking developed.
Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward.
I call Alibaba '1,001 mistakes.' We expanded too fast, and then in the dot-com bubble, we had to have layoffs. By 2002, we had only enough cash to survive for 18 months. We had a lot of free members using our site, and we didn't know how we'd make money. So we developed a product for China exporters to meet U.S. buyers online. This model saved us.
What's dangerous is not to evolve.
What we need to do is always lean into the future; when the world changes around you and when it changes against you - what used to be a tail wind is now a head wind - you have to lean into that and figure out what to do because complaining isn't a strategy.
If your customer base is aging with you, then eventually you are going to become obsolete or irrelevant. You need to be constantly figuring out who are your new customers and what are you doing to stay forever young.
Part of company culture is path-dependent - it's the lessons you learn along the way.
No matter what your mission is, have some notion in your head. Forget the model, whether it's government or nonprofit or profit. Ask yourself the more important question: Is my mission improving the world? Are you sure about it? Seek to disconfirm that all the time. And if you can, change your mission.
We're taking all of the lessons that we have from New Shepard and incorporating them into New Glenn.
Because, you know, resilience - if you think of it in terms of the Gold Rush, then you'd be pretty depressed right now because the last nugget of gold would be gone. But the good thing is, with innovation, there isn't a last nugget. Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.
Lots of companies don't succeed over time. What do they fundamentally do wrong? They usually miss the future.
Especially in technology, we need revolutionary change, not incremental change.
Many leaders of big organizations, I think, don't believe that change is possible. But if you look at history, things do change, and if your business is static, you're likely to have issues.
The idea that everyone should slavishly work so they do something inefficiently so they keep their job - that just doesn't make any sense to me. That can't be the right answer.
You have to be able to accept failure to get better.
Whatever you are studying right now, if you are not getting up to speed on deep learning, neural networks, etc., you lose. We are going through the process where software will automate software, automation will automate automation.
Automation is going to cause unemployment, and we need to prepare for it.
Leaders are not dogmatic. They are principled and know that change is never easy, but when it's necessary, they must lead.
I try not to be an ideologue about anything. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and I'm willing to evolve.
Traditional TV will have to innovate their TV delivery software in new ways beyond just offering their content in an app in order to change the viewing erosion of TV.
When you turn your team upside down and try to figure out what the culture of the team is, you take the greatest risk a team can take.
The biggest risk is not taking any risk... In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.
My new motto is: When you're through changing, you're through.
The more you adapt, the more interesting you are.
I never stop making sure that what I say is the best of what could be said about a particular thing. It's a constant evolution. If I planted a tree one way yesterday, and somebody tells me of a better way to plant a tree, I think, 'You know, they're right, that's better.' Then I change my way to accommodate the new way of planting trees.
Being human means you will make mistakes. And you will make mistakes, because failure is God's way of moving you in another direction.
I am a woman in process. I'm just trying like everybody else. I try to take every conflict, every experience, and learn from it. Life is never dull.
So go ahead. Fall down. The world looks different from the ground.
Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.
You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.
Treat failure as a lesson on how not to approach achieving a goal, and then use that learning to improve your chances of success when you try again. Failure is only the end if you decide to stop.
In business, if you realize you've made a bad decision, you change it.
We are going to transform Britain's rail system from the worst in the world to the best. If you can do a few things like that, when the body gives out, you can say you've lived a good life.
An important priority for me is a business must get their own house in order. Be or become an agent of positive change in your own enterprise and adopt responsible practices to eliminate the risks that often lie at the root of inequality and poverty.
Believe me, my journey has not been a simple journey of progress. There have been many ups and downs, and it is the choices that I made at each of those times that have helped shape what I have achieved.
Be passionate and bold. Always keep learning. You stop doing useful things if you don't learn. So the last part to me is the key, especially if you have had some initial success. It becomes even more critical that you have the learning 'bit' always switched on.
Every opportunity I got, I took it as a learning experience.
The opportunity ahead for Microsoft is vast, but to seize it, we must focus clearly, move faster, and continue to transform.
At Microsoft, we're aspiring to have a living, learning culture with a growth mindset that allows us to learn from ourselves and our customers. These are the key attributes of the new culture at Microsoft, and I feel great about how it seems to be resonating and how it's seen as empowering.
Longevity in this business is about being able to reinvent yourself or invent the future.
I think reconceptualizing Microsoft as a devices and services company is absolutely what our vision is all about. Office 365 and Azure on the services side are representative of it.
If you don't have a real stake in the new, then just surviving on the old - even if it is about efficiency - I don't think is a long-term game.
We've had great successes, but our future is not about our past success. It's going to be about whether we will invent things that are really going to drive our future.
I want everyone inside of Microsoft to take that responsibility. This is not about top-line growth. This is not about bottom-line growth. This is about us individually having a growth mindset.
There are always going to be people who are experts in security or end-user devices or collaboration or databases. That's not going to go away. But what's the reason all of these professions come together? To help the business transform itself.
Culture change means we will do things differently.
Microsoft has no SQL Server developers. We have only Azure developers.
Culturally, I think we have operated as if we had the formula figured out, and it was all about optimizing, in its various constituent parts, the formula. Now it is about discovering the new formula.
It's not about the failure, it's about learning from the failures. Failure itself cannot be celebrated.
You've got to remember even the Apple regeneration started with colorful iMacs. So let us first get the colorful iMacs. I think with what we're doing with Lumia, we're at that stage. I want to do good devices that people like, and then we will go on to doing the next thing and the next thing.
If you don't jump on the new, you don't survive.
I have a great respect for incremental improvement, and I've done that sort of thing in my life, but I've always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don't know why. Because they're harder. They're much more stressful emotionally. And you usually go through a period where everybody tells you that you've completely failed.
The desktop metaphor was invented because one, you were a stand-alone device, and two, you had to manage your own storage. That's a very big thing in a desktop world. And that may go away. You may not have to manage your own storage. You may not store much before too long.
You want to be the pebble in the pond that creates the ripple for change.
The way we look at manufacturing is this: the U.S.'s strategy should be to skate where the puck is going, not where it is.
In my view the tablet and the PC are different. You can do things with the tablet if you are not encumbered by the legacy of the PC.
I'd rather Apple cannibalize Apple than somebody else cannibalize Apple.
The most important thing is, Do you have the courage to admit that you're wrong? And do you change? The most important thing to me as a CEO is that we keep the courage.
I have a memory, and I can just eliminate mistakes when they come up because I've already made them.
You look at another team's style and how they do it, and you just want to understand how they're doing it and see if you can learn something and maybe implement it into what your team does.
Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future.
Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.
In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.
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