|
The most common source of mistakes in management decisions is the emphasis on finding the right answer rather than the right question. Peter Drucker Error avoids inquiry, truth welcomes it. Not to know is bad, not to want to know is worse! Nigerian Proverb Good questions outrank easy answers. Paul Samuelson The real social revolution of the last 30 years. Is the switch from a life that is largely organized for us once we’ve opted into it to a world in which we are all forced to be in charge of our own destiny. Charles Handy Where Are You In Comfort Zone? Avoiding Uncomfortable Thoughts? Thinking of Uncomfortable Actions? Doing Uncomfortable Actions? Care more than others think wise. Risk more than others think safe. Dream more than others think practical. Expect more than others think possible. Howard Schultz Why dialogue? While part of what we perceive comes through our senses from the object before us, another part (and it may be the larger part) always comes out of our own mind. William James Do... or do not; There is no try. Yoda As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world—that is the myth of the atomic age—as in being able to remake ourselves. Mahatma Gandhi The function of the arts is to bring order out of chaos, coherence out of the endless static, the gibberish of the stars and to render people capable of thinking metaphorically. Edward Albee Assumptions are decisions—usually unconscious ones—which determine how you make other decisions. The question is whether you will give up the assumption to achieve your goal or leave the assumption unchallenged and fail to achieve your goal. Will Phillips The challenges in your life are designed for your growth. Sincere efforts to appreciate challenges, creates slack or space between you and your striving in the challenge. Its like lifting your head out of the water in a hard swim to breath fresh air. This gives you more inner control and more power to manage your energy especially on those "off" days and "off" moments. Lindsay Wagner If you are going through hell—keep going! Winston Churchill Your ability to think well is diminished when fear, frustration or anxiety are present. This is why smart people do stupid things. Bullying ahead during fear, anxiety or inner turmoil does not address the diminished thinking capacity. You must switch gears, and calm the inner mind first. Will Phillips I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Sandy Artega Company comes from the French words: co pan. Which means: ‘To break bread together.’ What have you and your employees done lately to break bread together? Will Phillips What makes the difference between a good movie and a bad movie, is getting everyone involved to make the same movie. Francis Ford Coppola Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. Anais Nin As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday and employees will receive their cards in two weeks. Fred Dales What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter. Dilbert Email is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business. Electric Boat Company This project is so important, we can't let things that are more important interfere with it. United Parcel Service Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule. No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We've been working on it for months. Now, go act busy for a few weeks and I'll let you know when it's time to tell them. 3M Corporation My boss spent the entire weekend retyping a 25-page proposal that only needed corrections. She claims the disk I gave her was damaged and she couldn't edit it. The disk I gave her was write-protected. CIO of Dell Computers Quote from the Boss: Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say. Citrix Corporation My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday. When I told my Boss, he said she died on purpose so that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday. He said, "That would be better for me. FTD Florists We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees. AT&T This is to inform you that a memo will be issued today regarding the memo mentioned above. Microsoft One day my Boss asked me to submit a status report to him concerning a project I was working on. I asked him if tomorrow would be soon enough. He said, If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited until tomorrow to ask for it! Hallmark Greeting Cards The DIRT Method for removing process problems in relationships, meetings, and teams. Conscientiously Detect process problems. Everyone present is responsible for using the DIRT Method. Courageously Interrupt the content agenda. Call "Time Out" to interrupt. Collectively Resolve the problem. Discuss and define the problem. Search for solutions. Carefully Track the implementation. Who will do what differently? Who will monitor the implementation? Will Phillips Before the battle plans are everything, as soon as the battle is joined plans are useless. Dwight Eisenhower A great person remains great only as long as he can remain naïve and astonished and can examine with a vivid curiosity the minutest, as well as the most enormous of the workings of nature and humanity. As soon as he becomes conscious of his importance, has grown up, the game is over. Ford Maddox Ford If the success or failure of this planet and of human beings depended on how I am and what I do, how would I be, what would I do? If humanity does not opt for integrity, we are through completely. It is absolutely touch and go. Each one of us could make a difference. R Buckminster Fuller Life is about what you get to do not what you got to do. Tony Robbins If you have no fear, you have no dreams. Bert Rutan Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to Sterility. Pablo Picasso You can push your team only so far as they could trust you not to betray their interests. Vince Lombardi Work together; break together. Listen to one another. Tough issues on the table. Don't monopolize air time. Happiness is the absence of discord; Joy is the welcoming of discord is the basis of higher harmonies. If you think you can, or if you think you can’t, you're right. Henry Ford Hire right Train light. Sleep tight! To be successful, you have to have your heart in your business, and your business in your heart. Thomas Watson Sr If success were guaranteed, what might you attempt? Leaps on his horse and rides off in all directions. Stephen Leacock The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. Albert Einstein Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. Carl Jung As you go forward in your life, you will come across a great chasm. Jump! For it is not as wide as you think. Native American Wouldn’t it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us happen because we really deserve them? JM Straczynski Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong. Lao-Tzu If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? Matthew Making a mistake and then judging yourself harshly is like paying compound interest on a bad investment. Doc Children When you make a mistake: Admit it. Learn from it. Don’t repeat it. Bear Bryant The best way to improve our ratio of successes is to increase our number of failures. Tom Watson I would give nothing for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity. Oliver Wendell Holmes Habit is not to be flung out the window, but coaxed downstairs one step at a time. Mark Twain Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak. Thomas Carlyle They intoxicate themselves with the work, so they won’t see how they really are. Aldous Huxley Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one always knew it, the loss of all that gives one identity, the end of safety. James Baldwin When the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is in sight. Jack Welch We must be the change we wish to see in the world. Mohandas Gandhi We are members of one great body, planted by nature and a mutual love, and fitted for social life. We must consider that we were born for the good of the whole. Seneca All real living is meeting. Martin Buber The vision should be bigger than what you think you can create. Fred Olsen Equality comes in realizing that we are all doing different jobs for a common purpose. That is the aim behind any community. The very name "community" means let’s come together to recognize the unity community. Swami Satchidananda Long-term communities must invariably struggle over the degree to which they are going to be inclusive. Even short-term communities must sometimes make that difficult decision. But for most groups it is easier to exclude than include. Communities do not ask, "How can we justify taking that person in?" Instead the question is, "Is it at all justifiable to keep this person out?" M Scott Peck Modern organizations in the promise of the "good life" have separated us from traditional ties to the land, to our families, to the community, and perhaps more importantly from the connections to our own spirit. In this process, millions of us have been cut off from our hearts’ desire to be part of a larger community of endeavor that is worthy of our best efforts. Juanita Brown Discernment is the process whereby others help you look at all aspects of a decision. They do not make the decision, but help you become aware of the elements you had not considered before. The test of friendship is assistance in adversity, and that, too, unconditional assistance cooperation which needs consideration is a commercial contract and not friendship. Conditional cooperation is like an adulterated cement which does not bind. Mohandas Gandhi Let us put our heads together and see what life we will make for our children. Sitting Bull, Lakota Community is a safe place precisely because no one is attempting to heal or convert you, to fix you, to change you. Instead the members accept you as you are; you are free to be you and being so free, you are free to discard the fences, masks, disguises; free to seek your own psychological and spiritual health. M Scott Peck Community is the only real basis of security. Star Hawk But there are simpler ways for sure. But community is the path of greatest challenge; community presents the opportunity for the most growth; community provides the means for work of the deepest impact. Peter Gibb Help thy brother’s boat across, and lo! thine own has reached the shore. Hindu proverb Some businesses are healthy; others are sick; but most are "not sick". They feel good, but are sick. Paradoxically, getting better and getting worse lead to discomfort. Healthy organizations choose their discomfort. Will Phillips Spend the last day of the year reviewing your personal goals or mission. Spend the first day of the New Year creating or fine tuning your personal mission, and scheduling activities on your calendar to insure the mission is achieved. Try this jointly with your spouse; extend it to your children. In my family participating in this and sharing it is the price of attending the family ski trip. Will Phillips Empowerment is troublesome. The use of power at the top or on the front-line is a crude way to get things done. CEOs intuitively know this and hesitate to empower. We must focus on learning how to influence one another with information rather than power. Will Phillips Action without diagnosis is mismanagement. Will Phillips Our changes are visions of the future. Our plans are the sails to take us there. But travel is impossible until we let go the anchors of the past. And that is where change begins. Here and now with you and me letting go now, not somewhere in the future. Will Phillips If you and your business are not getting demonstrably better, you are getting worse. Businesses and people can’t hover. Will Phillips Act to reach objectives, not to solve problems. Will Phillips At the beginning of every disagreement is a choice. Win or learn? Statements about our view or questions about the others view. Armor my thoughts against intrusion or open my mind to new viewpoints. The choice is mine. Will Phillips Nothing changes until the pain of the way things are exceeds the pain of change. Will Phillips For April 15th. The misery is optional. Will Phillips We must continually learn to unlearn. Much that we have learned, and learn to learn what we have not been taught. Only thus do we and our (business) grow. RD Laing The most common source of mistakes in management decisions is the emphasis on finding the right answer rather than the right question. Peter Drucker Error avoids inquiry, truth welcomes it. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Will Phillips Its never too late to be who you might have been. George Eliot The real social revolution of the last 30 years is the switch from a life that is largely organized for us once we’ve opted into it to a world in which we are all forced to be in charge of our own destiny. Charles Handy The future Belongs to those who can learn, unlearn and relearn. Alvin Toffler Where are you in comfort zone? Avoiding Uncomfortable Thoughts? Thinking of Uncomfortable Actions? Doing Uncomfortable Actions? Or resting comfortably?
|
|
| Copyright © 2004–2005 Roundtables for EXecutives | Email This Page |