“As I’ve traveled I’ve had the good fortune to meet and frequently befriend people whose minds have evolved beyond the mean imposed by advertising and commercial entertainment — people whose thinking runs counter to the current of the continuum, people of ideas and fortitude. I greatly admire humans who assume responsibility for their own thinking. . . those who live within coordinates of their own calculation, and who sometimes regard the culturally acceptable as contemptible.” — Jack Loeffler

via Headed Upstream – Google Books.

Lately I resemble these remarks over at Change This:

“When great starts have poor endings, it can leave change pioneers disappointed, hard working organizers disheartened, and skeptics with proof they were correct all along. It makes the next initiative more challenging to launch and the next set of resistors more defiant. However, without needed change the organization risks losing its competitive advantage. Losing its edge makes it harder to attract and retain the best talent and resources, and in today’s economy, the death knell begins.

Planned change takes courage and tenacity. Even organizations with a burning platform, effective leaders, and well-crafted plans can sometimes miss the mark because they fail to recognize early signals that the seeds for derailment are being sown or they fail to realize the power of the signals they are sending via decisions that are unsupportive of the culture change commitment.