651 Posts Found

Today the average college student or corporate worker considers themselves a “multitasker.” …They end up with a huge list of things that fracture their attention. This isn’t wrong in any way — for the most part it’s admirable — but there is an old saying: to a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To a chronic multitasker, everything is a task. Soon, the things … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Stephen R. Covey | Subjects: Attention, Organizational Behavior, Personality / Behavior

Reason can answer questions, but imagination has to ask them.

Content: Quotation | Author: Ralph Gerard | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Innovation, Problems / Solutions

In business, unlike in nature, the fittest often survive by helping create the environment that favors them.

Content: Quotation | Author: David Newkirk | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Competition, Management, Observations, Strategy

What makes economic forecasting so difficult is that, ultimately, it is a call on the behavior of people. It is the willingness or not of consumers to spend, executives to invest and create jobs, savers and money managers to buy stocks and bonds and so on that determines the direction of everything that matters about the economy. Unfortunately for the economic forecaster, behavior is driven … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: John McCallum | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Economics, Future

Some thoughts for executives on how to use an economic forecast: First, the economy involves myriad variables and interrelationships of varying measurability and complexity. Not every business depends for its prosperity on the same variables and relationships. Executives should know the key economic drivers of their business and focus on forecasting them. Having said that, economic growth is big for almost everyone; a rising tide … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: John McCallum | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Economics, Future

In hiring and managing individual employees, it’s important to understand what is difficult to change (talent) and what is more easily changed or acquired (knowledge and skills). Once you hire someone, you are largely stuck with their talents, whereas you can still impart new skills and knowledge. Without a clear understanding of these two different aspects of ability, you will have an incomplete picture of … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Jim Asplund, John Fleming | Source: Gallup Management Journal | Subjects: Human Resources, Knowledge, Management, Personal Development, Training & Development

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

Knowledge management is not just about making information, news or content readily available—even content indexed by performance need; this form of knowledge sharing and content management is too passive. What a flat organization needs is actionable knowledge, and the best kind of such knowledge will likely come from another part of a company: “I know what you’re trying to do; here’s what we did, and … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Craig Mindrum, Ph.D., David Smith | Source: Outlook Journal (Accenture) | Subjects: Knowledge, Learning

Thou shalt not’ might reach the head, but it takes ‘Once upon a time’ to reach the heart.

Content: Quotation | Author: Philip Pullman | Source: The Atlantic Monthly | Subjects: Persuasion, Storytelling

For executives trying to make sense of a rapidly changing business environment, superiority in pattern recognition is perhaps the greatest competitive advantage that can be developed.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Clint Kilts, Roderick Gilkey | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Personal Development, Skills, Strategy

If you are really serious about creating innovative options, you couldn’t do better than to turn to Buddhist thinking. In Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Shunryu Suzuki describes the Zen mind as one that is open, allowing for both doubt and possibility, and one that has the ability to see things as fresh and new. As he observed, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Clint Kilts, Roderick Gilkey | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Innovation, Personal Development, Thought

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

To access the energy of the human spirit, people need to clarify priorities and establish accompanying rituals in three categories: doing what they do best and enjoy most at work; consciously allocating time and energy to the areas of their lives—work, family, health, service to others—they deem most important; and living their core values in their daily behaviors.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Catherine McCarthy, Tony Schwartz | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Personal Development, Productivity / Work Tips, Time Management, Work

The most effective way people can change a story is to view it through any of three new lenses, which are all alternatives to seeing the world from the victim perspective. With the reverse lens, for example, people ask themselves, “What would the other person in this conflict say and in what ways might that be true?” With the long lens they ask, “How will … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Catherine McCarthy, Tony Schwartz | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Decision Making, Storytelling, Thought

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

Luck waits to come to that man who accepts opportunity.

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

Lyle’s Law of Certitude: The more certain you are that you are correct, the more imperative it is to consider that you might be wrong.

Content: Quotation | Author: Lyle D. Feisel | Source: Tau Beta Pi | Subjects: Decision Making, Thought

Using your authority to beat people down in your company may help you in the short term, but it isn’t good for morale. Most savvy, sophisticated executives are natural wooers because they understand that one of the most important things to people is their self-esteem, and it’s counterproductive to force people to go along with your idea rather than convince them of its merits. When … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Persuasion, Power / Authority

The Plural of Anecdote is Not Data.

Content: Quotation | Source: Feld Thoughts | Subjects: Knowledge, Trends / Analysis

The essence of a good reputation is not in trying to conjure up a good story to hide substandard performance, but in sensitizing management to the need to adjust performance so the deeds speak for themselves. It boils down to deeds versus declarations. A record of responsible deeds is the organization’s insurance policy when and if something goes wrong.

Content: Quotation | Source: Emerald Now | Subjects: Reputation, Social Responsibility (ESG)