8 Posts found for Source: Farnam Street

No incentive system turns mediocre into extraordinary.

Content: Quotation | Author: Shane Parrish | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

[Don’t] treat all decisions uniformly. I think the most obvious axis to break them down on are degree of reversibility and magnitude. Things with low reversibility and great impact and magnitude, those ones you do want to really deliberate over and try to get right.

Content: Quotation | Author: Patrick Collison | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Decision Making, Management, Organizational Behavior

I’ve always had the view that how successful you are is really a function of how you deal with failure. If you deal with failure well and you persist, you have a high probability of being successful.

Content: Quotation | Author: Bill Ackman | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

Someone defined horse sense as the good judgment horses have that prevents them from betting on people. But we have to bet on people — and I place my bets more often on high motivation than on any other quality except judgment. There is no perfection of techniques that will substitute for the lift of spirit and heightened performance that comes from strong motivation, The … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: John W. Gardner | Source: Farnam Street | Subject: Organizational Behavior

People who are more creative also tend to be more playful, unconventional, and unpredictable, and all of this makes them harder to control. No matter how much we say we value creation, deep down, most of us value control more. And so we fear change and favor familiarity. Rejecting is a reflex.

[…]

When the same tests are applied to decision-makers and authority figures in business, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Kevin Ashton, Shane Parrish | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources, Innovation, Organizational Behavior

We tend to measure performance by what happens when things are going well. Yet how people, organizations, companies, leaders, and other things do on their best day isn’t all that instructive. To find the truth, we need to look at what happens on the worst day.

Content: Quotation | Author: Shane Parrish | Source: Farnam Street | Subject: Management

In the presence of externalities, society’s interest in a market outcome extends beyond the well-being of buyers and sellers who participate in the market; it also includes the well-being of bystanders who are affected indirectly…. The market equilibrium is not efficient when there are externalities. That is, the equilibrium fails to maximize the total benefit to society as a whole.

Content: Quotation | Author: Gregory Mankiw | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics

Genius is always recognized in hindsight, with the benefit of positive results in mind. We “cherrypick” the good results of divergent thinkers, but forget that we use the results to decide who’s a genius and who isn’t. Thus, tolerating divergent, genius-level thinking requires an ability to tolerate failure, loss, and change if it’s to be applied prospectively.

Content: Quotation | Author: Shane Parrish | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Innovation, Organizational Behavior