95 Posts Found

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The packaging of big ideas can sometimes add as much value as the content itself.

Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Teaching, Thought

Darwin paid particular attention to disconfirming evidence. Objectivity maintenance routines are totally required in life if you’re going to be a great thinker. There, we’re talking about Darwin’s special attention to disconfirming evidence and also about checklist routines. Checklist routines avoid a lot of errors. You should have all this elementary wisdom and then you should go through a mental checklist in order to use … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: USC School of Law Commencement – May 13 | Subjects: Decision Making, Thought

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

As intellectual historian Crane Brinton pointed out in his book Ideas and Men: The Story of Western Thought, fields of study such as philosophy, religion, and politics generate “noncumulative” knowledge as opposed to the scientific domain, where knowledge is “cumulative” and progress is genuine. The real problem with arts or noncumulative fields of study is that, unlike the sciences, they never prune their trees of … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Thought

Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.

Content: Quotation | Source: Various | Subjects: Miscellaneous, Thought

Most claims of originality are testimony to ignorance and most claims of magic are testimony to hubris.

Content: Quotation | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Creativity, Thought

People tend to overvalue advice when the problem they’re addressing is hard and to undervalue it when the problem is easy.

Another advice-related bias I’ve found compels people to overvalue advice that they pay for.

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Decision Making, Thought

As adults, when we try to solve a problem, we often ask, “What does this mean?” We try to pull the answer from our knowledge bank, just like finding the solution in an encyclopedia. Solve the problem the way it has been solved in the past. This can be useful, but it provides a limited set of possibilities. This is about replication and regurgitation. An … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: 24/7 Innovation | Subjects: Innovation, Thought

Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

Content: Quotation | Source: USTelecom dailyLead | Subjects: Decision Making, Thought

The final act of business judgment is of course intuitive. … But the big work behind business judgement is in finding and acknowledging the facts and circumstances concerning technology, the market, and the like in their continuously changing forms.

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

Nothing substitutes depth of analysis and there’s proven value in the methodical and incremental process of specialization – it’s what education, career paths, scientific research, and technological innovation are built on – but generalism is the hidden talent, the missing link. With so much complex information, that is fragmented in so many ways and developing faster and faster, it is increasingly important to have generalists … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Skills, Thought

Business thinking starts with an intuitive choice of assumptions. Its progress as analysis is intertwined with intuition. The final choice is always intuitive. If that were not true, all problems of almost any kind would be solved by mathematicians with nonquantitative data.

The final choice in all business decision is, of course, intuitive. It must be. Otherwise it is not a decision, just a conclusion, a … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Decision Making, Thought

Most of us prefer being precisely wrong rather than vaguely right.

Content: Quotation | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Personality / Behavior, Thought