651 Posts Found

Questions are places in your mind where answers fit. If you haven’t asked the question, the answer has nowhere to go. It hits your mind and bounces right off.

Content: Quotation | Author: Clayton M. Christensen | Source: Inc. Magazine | Subjects: Innovation, Thought

Data is heavy. It wants to go down, not up, in an organization. In other words, most employees, just by the nature of their responsibilities, don’t want to provide data to their bosses. When there’s a problem, they want to solve it and tell the people above them that they solved it. Information about problems thus sinks to the bottom, out of the eyesight and … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Clayton M. Christensen | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Decision Making, Information, Knowledge, Management, Organizational Behavior

A good theory is really a fundamental statement of causality, and it ought to be as applicable to a business unit as it is to a nation, or vice versa.

Content: Quotation | Author: Clayton M. Christensen | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Business Rules, Thought

Allocation choices can make your life turn out to be very different from what you intended. Sometimes that’s good: Opportunities that you never planned for emerge. But if you misinvest your resources, the outcome can be bad. As I think about my former classmates who inadvertently invested for lives of hollow unhappiness, I can’t help believing that their troubles relate right back to a short-term … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Clayton M. Christensen | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Career, Life, Wisdom

As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use.

Content: Quotation | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Decision Making, Thought

In modern times we have become increasingly preoccupied with prediction, and blind to the value of antifragility. As a result, iatrogenic damage (harm caused by well-meaning interventions) has become ubiquitous. Antibiotics spawn superbugs; the propping up of dictators leads to violent revolution; and the construction of permanent structures on impermanent shorelines becomes a sure prescription for mass destruction.

Content: Quotation | Authors: David K. Hurst, Nassim Nicholas Taleb | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Future

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few. Always begin, again and again.

Content: Quotation | Source: LifeHacker | Subjects: Achievement, Innovation, Potential, Problems / Solutions

At some point, people have enough money to have financial security, live a comfortable, adventuresome lifestyle, and fulfill most of their aspirations in life. It is a mark of emotional and spiritual maturity to be able to say, “I have enough.” Past a certain point, it is not healthy to want more; actually, it is a kind of sickness.

Content: Quotation | Authors: John Mackey, Rajendra Sisodia | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Ambition, Career, Motivation

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook

Content: Quotation | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subject: Wisdom

As we moved from the industrial economy to the knowledge economy over the past 25 years, the nature of critical issues changed from complicated to complex. Complicated issues can be solved with logic and by drawing on past experience. It’s simply a matter of simplifying, organizing and applying solutions that have worked in a similar situation. Complex issues, on the other hand, are more ambiguous, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Claude Legrand, David S. Weiss | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Innovation, Problems / Solutions

Understanding how the invisible hand of time is driving customer behavior will provide massive opportunities to innovate for new value and capture customer loyalty in the Inattention Economy. But the innovations around time and attention aren’t just limited to new products and services. Building a strategy that will carry you forward requires continually thinking about customer filters and attention ecosystems.

We all are going to be … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Adrian C. Ott | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Attention, Marketing / Sales, Strategy

All the governance structures in the world can be boiled down to three types. The open system is consensual and unregulated until it hits a point of action, and then an authority, chosen by the group, decides. A representative democracy is an open system. In the closed system, authority rests with position—the closer you are to the top of the hierarchy, the more authority you … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: David Kantor | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Decision Making, Government, Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

Expensive solutions to any kind of problem are usually the work of mediocrity.

Content: Quotation | Author: Ingvar Kamprad | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Problems / Solutions

It’s always so attractive to be able to do good at somebody else’s expense. That the real problem of our government. Government is a way by which every individual believes he can live at the expense of everybody else.

Content: Quotation | Author: Milton Friedman | Subject: Government

Being right, knowing how to define things, understanding the difference between what is true and false: None of this is the point. What is important is to understand the results of events, not the events themselves. Real intelligence lies not in the individual, but in the evolutionary process — the ongoing process of trial-and-error. In this process, options (essentially, the freedom to experiment with uncertainty) … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Decision Making, Wisdom

The highest compliment, I’ve come to understand, is, ‘Oh, that’s obvious.’ “I used to get really mad about that, but now I understand that’s the goal — to take a complex problem and make it seem really clear and obvious.

Content: Quotation | Author: Michael E. Porter | Source: FORTUNE | Subjects: Communication, Problems / Solutions, Trends / Analysis

Those who conscientiously attempt to keep abreast of current thought, even in restricted fields, by close and continuous reading might well shy away from an examination calculated to show how much of the previous month’s efforts could be produced on call. Mendel’s concept of the laws of genetics was lost to the world for a generation because his publication did not reach the few who … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Vannevar Bush | Subjects: Education, Information, Knowledge, Learning

I believe that a life of integrity is the most fundamental source of personal worth. I do not agree with the popular success literature that says that self-esteem is primarily a matter of mind set, of attitude—that you can psych yourself into peace of mind. Peace of mind comes when your life is in harmony with true principles and values and in no other way. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Stephen R. Covey | Subjects: Integrity, Life, Personal Development, Wisdom

The most important skill for the next generation of knowledge worker is not learning what to do but rather determining what not to do, and instead focusing on key objectives. It’s only as we embrace the incredible volume of noise in our work and our lives that we can silence it—or at least reduce it to a dull roar. Ignore the noise. Conquer the critical. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Rory Vaden | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Career, Knowledge, Personal Development, Skills

There’s no such thing as information overload, there’s only filter failure.

Content: Quotation | Author: Clay Shirky | Subject: Information