Quotes About Evolution

Review policies and procedures to see that they are adequate to deal with the confusing fluidity of the neutral zone. The "rules" under which you operate were set up to govern ongoing operations when things weren't changing as much as they are now.

One of the biggest problems that endings cause in an organization is confusion. Things change, and obviously the organization won't do some of the things it used to do.

One of the most important leadership roles during times of change is that of putting into words what it is time to leave behind. Because talking about making a break with the past can upset its defenders, some leaders shy away from articulating just what it is time to say good-bye to. But in their unwillingness to say what it is time to let go of, they are jeopardizing the very change that they believe they are leading.

Never denigrate the past. Many managers, in their enthusiasm for a future that is going to be better than the past, ridicule or demean the old way of doing things. In doing so they consolidate the resistance against the transition because people identify with the way things used to be and thus feel that their self-worth is at stake whenever the past is attacked.

All transitions are composed of an ending, a neutral zone and a new beginning

Every organizational system has its own natural "immune system" whose task it is to resist unfamiliar, and so unrecognizable, signals. That is not necessarily bad.

In fact, many endings represent the only way to protect the continuity of something bigger.

Given the ambiguities of the neutral zone, it is easy for people to become polarized: some want to rush forward and others want to go back to the old ways.

Yesterday's ending launched today's success, and today will have to end if tomorrow's changes are to take place.

Author says change emphasizes what is happening TO us while transition emphasizes opportunity for growth within.

Be careful that in urging people to turn away from the past you don't drive them away from you or from the new direction that the organization needs to take. Present innovations as developments that build on the past and help to realize its potential. Honor the past for what it has accomplished

Capitalize on the break in normal routines that the neutral zone provides to do things differently and better. In the neutral zone the restraints on innovation are weakened. With everything up in the air anyway, people are more willing than usual to try new things, and should be encouraged to do so.

Whether you do it this way or in some other way, you have to find a few larger patterns that integrate and make sense out of all of the specific changes.

But immune systems carry a price tag: even good germs get filtered out or killed off. The pre-transition immune system choked off creativity in its own manner, and no matter how loose and free the post-transition way of doing things is, its immune system will also make creativity difficult in some different way. It is during the gap between the old and the new that the organization's immune system is weak enough to let a seedbed for novelty form.

This is the contrary of the Darwin that we mainly receive from the Darwinists. The survival of the fittest is supposed to represent the conflict of sovereign individuals, among which the strongest wins and so gets to go on to the next round of the conflict. But in Darwin's day--at least when he was writing 'The Voyage of the Beagle'--'fittest' did not mean strongest. It meant the one that fit best into the network of mutual need

every civilization reaches a still point. The progressives can't go forward, and the conservatives can't go back. One demands continual advance, the other longs for yesterday.

The entire physical universe is essentially a slowed-down molecular training ground designed for the evolution of developing consciousness.

transformation of your mind

Out-of-body exploration provides substantial evidence that we are evolving beyond the dense limits of matter. Is it not possible that some other species may have already achieved this evolutionary leap? I contend that all life-forms are slowly evolving beyond the need for biological form. Eventually we will recognize and consciously explore our multidimensional nature and take our place in the magnificent thought-responsive realities of the universe.

Happiness is neither virtue or pleasure nor this thing or that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.

Weep not that the world changes - did it keep a stable, changeless state, it were cause indeed to weep.

The dinosaurs disappeared because they could not adapt to their changing environment. We shall disappear if we cannot adapt to an environment that now contains spaceships, computers and thermonuclear weapons.

If I continue to endure you a little longer, I may by degrees dwindle into a wife.

How did things get to be this way?