241 Posts Found

In many cases, what looks like risk-taking doesn’t take courage at all; it’s just unrealistic optimism. Courage is a willingness to take the risk once you know the odds; optimistic overconfidence means you are taking the risk because you don’t know the odds. There’s a big difference.

Content: Quotation | Author: Daniel Kahneman | Source: Rotman Magazine | Subjects: Personality / Behavior, Risk Management

Reputation…lubricates reciprocity, and reciprocity, say evolutionary psychologists, is how humans manage to mesh self-interest and the public good, identity and community.

Content: Quotation | Author: Howard Rheingold | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Personality / Behavior

The degree to which individuals are subject to outside influences is a function of their freedom to move, which in the case of career influences, depends very much on the labor market. In the study of coercive persuasion I learned how powerful the group can be. But in an open society I learned that individuals are equally powerful, if they can choose their own settings. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Edgar H. Schein | Source: European Business Forum (EBF) | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Personality / Behavior

One of the pet phrases I have is “The road to self-insight runs through other people.” Other people can often give us invaluable feedback that can really correct an illusion that we’re suffering from.

One of my favorite, but most chilling, findings is from a study that surveyed surgical residents. They were asked about their surgical skills, and then they were given the standardized board exam. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: David Dunning | Source: Gallup Management Journal | Subjects: Judgement, Knowledge, Learning, Personality / Behavior

Ambitious people don’t like failing or looking stupid. As the social scientist Chris Argyris (one of the fathers of organizational-learning theory) put it, smart people have trouble learning because it involves so much floundering and failure.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Clint Kilts, Roderick Gilkey | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Ambition, Learning, Personality / Behavior, Success / Failure

We mortals are changeable. Alas, I must say more apt to change our minds when right than wrong. Wrong, we are stubborn indeed. Right, we are prone to vacillate and let opportunity escape.

Content: Quotation | Author: George S. Clason | Source: The Richest Man in Babylon | Subjects: Opportunity, Personality / Behavior

The lesson of nearly thirty years of research into the psychology of economic decision-making is that the ways we feel about money — having it, making it, losing it — seldom add up. As hundreds of experiments since the 1970s have confirmed, we are haunted by the prospect of loss. Our perceptions are easily skewed according to how a problem is presented. We turn blind … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Economics, Personality / Behavior

“Learning goals” inspire a different chain of thoughts and behaviors than “performance goals.” Students for whom performance is paramount want to look smart even if it means not learning a thing in the process. For them, each task is a challenge to their self-image, and each setback becomes a personal threat. So they pursue only activities at which they’re sure to shine-and avoid the sorts … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Stanford University | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Personality / Behavior

In thinking of the mind as a set of cognitive capacities, it helps to distinguish the ethical mind from the other four minds that we particularly need to cultivate if we are to thrive as individuals, as a community, and as the human race. The first of these, the disciplined mind, is what we gain through applying ourselves in a disciplined way in school. Over … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Ethics, Personality / Behavior

People are very open-minded about new things – as long as they’re exactly like the old ones.

Content: Quotation | Source: Unknown | Subjects: Change Management, Personality / Behavior

Women have three basic things that help them cope with stress. First is collaboration–working as a team. Second, harmony–working together in cooperation. Third, communication–sharing so that everyone knows what’s going on inside everyone else. These processes actually cause women’s bodies to produce a hormone, which is their best way to deal with stress. The best stress-protection mechanism for men is testosterone. It makes them feel … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: MBA Jungle | Subjects: Personality / Behavior, Women in Business

The data that we observe, whether personally or organizationally, is selected, filtered, and interpreted through our assumptions and beliefs. To a great degree we “see what we believe” and are unable to perceive data that lies outside our existing mental models. Our current way of thinking, whether it be personal or collective, governs our perception of reality and thus holds great influence in our ability … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Personality / Behavior, Thought

Complaining about my father’s vagaries would be like complaining that Yogi Berra doesn’t make sense when he talks. When someone’s flaws are also their defining and most seductive characteristics, you just have to accept the consequences.

Content: Quotation | Source: Inc. Magazine | Subjects: Human Resources, Personality / Behavior

Since bullshit need not be false, it differs from lies in its misrepresentational intent. The bullshitter may not deceive us, or even intend to do so, either about the facts or about what he takes the facts to be. What he does necessarily attempt to deceive us about is his enterprise. His only indispensably distinctive characteristic is that in a certain way he misrepresents what … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Communication, Personality / Behavior

When we have an intention to learn, we step out of the need to be right. A learning orientation motivates us to seek to understand – rather than to judge – the other person.

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Learning, Personality / Behavior

Let’s face it: The world is a hierarchical place. Some people have more power than others, and they don’t want their judgments questioned by lower-level individuals who happen to own a keyboard. Some people know more than others. Some people are better writers than others. Even when we allow people to freely express their online opinions, some opinions end up being more important than others. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Optimize Magazine | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Personality / Behavior

Lord Acton said we should judge talent at its best and character at its worst. For example, if you write one great book and ten bad ones, you still count as a great writer, or at least, a better writer than someone who wrote eleven that were merely good. Whereas if you’re a quiet, law-abiding citizen most of the time but occasionally cut someone up … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Human Resources, Personality / Behavior

Our brains are hard wired to do three things: match patterns, resist or fight any threats to survival, and respond first with emotion over logic.

…Unless an organization accepts and addresses this reality, managing change with an emphasis on logic not emotion will not diminish resistance to organizational change.

Content: Quotation | Source: CEO Refresher | Subjects: Change Management, Personality / Behavior

So far, the single most important discovery in happiness research is the idea of hedonic adaptation. Put simply, we take things for granted after a while. Experiences are so much harder to get used to because they are unique events. When you buy a car, for a few months you cherish it, but within a year you’re totally used to it.

The more you can do … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subject: Personality / Behavior

The shortest distance between two people is solving a common puzzle.

Content: Quotation | Source: The Virtual Handshake | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Personality / Behavior