651 Posts Found

What do self-respecting entrepreneurs do when subjected to new regulations? They learn the regulations backward and forward and then vow never to start another business that falls within the scope of those regulations. And so off the entrepreneur goes to find a new way.

The new entrepreneur often seeks ways to innovate outside the scope of the newly established regulations. In the beginning, all that … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Richard Foster | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Economics, Entrepreneurship, Government

Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.

Content: Quotation | Author: Warren Buffett | Source: The New York Times | Subjects: Investing, Wisdom

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Theodore Roosevelt | Sources: History as Literature, Hold this Thought | Subjects: Achievement, Action, Leadership, Success / Failure

Over the years, I have found that most executives are smart and hardworking, and want to do the right thing. But they are terrible at critical thinking and analytical rigor — usually because they confuse the factors that lead to high performance with attributions based on that performance. They confuse drivers and results. We see this in everything from corporate culture to leadership to employee … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Phil Rosenzweig | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Thought, Trends / Analysis

In a world where trust is more perishable than ever—where one negative experience can color a buyer’s perceptions forever—businesses must figure out how to effectively capitalize on the trust they have built while at the same time protecting their hard-won reputations. They must also learn how to harness the democratization of information—particularly the Web-based input and unfiltered opinions of self-anointed “experts” and dissatisfied customers—to help … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Karen Crennan, Marcia A. Halfin, Paul F. Nunes | Source: Outlook Journal (Accenture) | Subjects: Reputation, Trust

In Toyota’s view, you don’t have a problem without a standard. Someone might tell his or her boss, “We’re not meeting our delivery date” or “Our meetings are not happening on time.” And the boss would say, “What is the standard? What would be acceptable lateness?” or “Why is lateness a problem? What is the result of lateness?” As long as the standards are clear, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jeffrey Liker | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Best Practices, Problems / Solutions

Each member of society can have only a small fraction of the knowledge possessed by all, and each is therefore ignorant of most of the facts on which the working of society rests…civilization rests on the fact that we all benefit from knowledge which we do not possess. And one of the ways in which civilization helps us to overcome that limitation on the extent … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Friedrich A. Hayek | Source: 800-CEO-READ (8CR) | Subject: Knowledge

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.

Content: Quotation | Author: Albert Einstein | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Innovation, Thought

Wise men say, and not without reason, that whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who have been, and ever will be, animated by the same passions and thus they must necessarily have the same results.

Content: Quotation | Author: Niccoló Machiavelli | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Future, History

Design legend Paul Rand once said that design is the method of putting form and content together. This implies that content is as important as form. Design is not a purely visual exercise. The results are visual, but the entire process of design is not.

Some would argue that creativity is a sudden flash of insight, something which just happens magically while one, perhaps, takes their … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Stephen Hay | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Creativity, Design

Opportunists are humble enough to realize that the random forces of nature are more powerful than themselves. That these random forces often conspire to make things ridiculously easy just as often as they conspire to create hurricanes and earthquakes. Most people realize that a lot depends on being in the right place at the right time. Very few realize that this situation is not the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Venkatesh Rao | Source: ribbonfarm | Subjects: Achievement, Creativity, Opportunity

The creation of a theory is, at first principles, a statement of cause-and-effect relationships. Such statements, when true, are enormously powerful. Without them, we are limited to observing merely that “one thing follows another,” so when we see something new, our ability to predict the outcome is severely curtailed. When facing circumstances we’ve not already mastered, absent a theory all we can rely on is … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Michael E. Raynor | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Management, Thought

In the Information Age, information was a relatively scarce resource that conferred competitive advantages on those who obtained it. In the Knowledge Era, by contrast, information is virtually free. We often feel we’re drowning in the stuff. In theory, the true competitive advantage stems from turning all this information into useful knowledge. It’s a nice theory, as far as it goes. The truth, however, is … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: American Management Association (AMA) | Subjects: Decision Making, Information, Knowledge

There are only two ways of spreading light—to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.

Content: Quotation | Author: Edith Wharton | Subjects: Miscellaneous, Wisdom

Don’t fall in love with ideas. By ideas I mean: systems, marketing approaches, technologies, partnerships, whatever. Because as soon as you as you fall in love with one approach, you lose sight of other possibilities. …Every right idea eventually becomes the wrong idea.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Guy Kawasaki, Roger Von Oech | Source: Sun Microsystems | Subjects: Creativity, Innovation, Thought

It’s not that I am so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.

Content: Quotation | Author: Albert Einstein | Source: Bruce Lynn Blog | Subjects: Intelligence, Problems / Solutions

The average person in the U.S., even if he or she doesn’t illegally download music or movies, violates copyright laws so many times a day, according to John Tehranian, a law professor at the University of Utah, that if he or she were sued for just one day’s worth of violations, the damages would amount to about $12.45 million. It involves everything from forwarding an … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Matt Mason | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Information, Intellectual Property, Knowledge

From the author’s point of view, the threat really isn’t piracy; it’s obscurity.

Content: Quotation | Author: Matt Mason | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Attention, Intellectual Property, Knowledge

There is no point in trying to assess people’s abilities without first finding out what they care about. The same goes for trying to assess things such as “leadership potential” or “creativity” out of context. One has always to ask, in relation to what?

Content: Quotation | Author: Robert J. Thomas | Source: 800-CEO-READ (8CR) | Subjects: Human Resources, Leadership, Personal Development, Potential

Humans do not make rational, logical decisions based on information input, instead they pattern match with either their own experience, or collective experience expressed as stories. It isn’t even a best fit pattern match, but a first fit pattern match. The human brain is also subject to habituation, things that we do frequently create habitual patterns which both enable rapid decision making, but also entrain … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: David Snowden | Subjects: Decision Making, Organizational Behavior, Thought