Quote Of The Week

Quote of the Week 7 " Leaders who refuse to listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say. " ― Andy Stanley   Often quoted as: " Leaders who don't listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say. "

Quote of the Week 47 “ When you make a commitment, you create hope.   When you keep a commitment, you create trust!” ―  John C. Maxwell , “ Everyone Communicates, Few Connect: What the Most Effective People Do Differently ”, p.236, 2010  When you make a commitment, you create hope. When you keep a commitment, you create trust. — John C. Maxwell (@TheJohnCMaxwell) October 1, 2024  

Quote of the Week 42 “A leader is a person who has people following them, because they want to.” ― Larry Wilson

Quote of the Week 45 " Chance is the only legitimate king in the universe. " ― Napoleon Bonaparte Cited in the book " Empire of Chance  -  The Napoleonic Wars and the Disorder of Things ".

Quote of the Week 31 " The higher you climb, the smaller your world becomes. " ― Esther Crawford   Triggered by Esther's tweet about working with Elon Musk at Twitter: Like seemingly everyone on this app I have plenty of opinions about Twitter > X and figure now is a good time to open up a bit about my experience at the company. I tweeted for years into the void for the love of it like many of you, but after selling my startup to Twitter in… pic.twitter.com/bw7CHhk0Xg — Esther Crawford ✨ (@esthercrawford) July 26, 2023

Quote of the Week 30 " The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers. " ― Peter F. Drucker   Triggered by a discussion about leadership on Wednesday last week where I claimed that "Someone is a true leader when people follow the person voluntarily." just to find out that Peter Drucker has expressed a similar thought well before I ever did: " The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers. To gain followers requires influence but does not exclude the lack of integrity in achieving this ."

Quote of the Week 25 " You can make a short road take forever . " ― Sophocles  (Antigone) " Es braucht viel Zeit, einen kurzen Weg zu gehen . " ―  Sophokles  ( Antigone , 232) " Derlei bedenkend, ging ich müßig langsam.  Und so wird auch ein kurzer Weg zum weiten."   ―  Sophokles  ( Antigone ) "And so, mulling it over, on I trudged, dragging my feet,  you can make a short road take forever."  ―   Sophocles  ( Antigone ) Triggered by the use of the quote in German as banner on a theatre truck:

  Quote of the Week 17 " A ruler who is not wise can never get good advice. " ―  Niccolò Machiavelli See also:  https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/p/the-prince/summary-and-analysis/chapters-2223

Quote of the Week 44 "Trust, engagement, and happiness are outcomes. If you treat them like your inputs, you'll never get them." ― Leandro Herrero   A quote from Herrero's book " The Flipping Point " cited here . " There is a lot of confusion around inputs and outputs in Culture Change. Many organizations agree on broad values and directions for their culture and put things like "Trust, Engagement, and Happiness" in their value statements. But this is the output, the result. The input are behaviours. "

Quote of the Week 34 " Dashboards are astrology for execs . " ― Taylor Murphy Triggered by Taylor 's tweet : dashboards are astrology for execs — Single Source of Taylor (@tayloramurphy) August 16, 2022

Quote of the Week 33 " With great responsibility comes no power . " ― Product Manager's Motto accor ding to Dan Olsen Triggered by the use of the quote in the  Enterprise Product Management presentation by Dan Olsen at Lean Product Meetup on May 11, 2022. Dan also tweeted the same more than five years ago. Spiderman's motto: With great power comes great responsibility. Product manager's motto: With great responsibility comes no power. #prodmgmt pic.twitter.com/cBc7tH5Khe — Dan Olsen (@danolsen) December 7, 2016 The origin of Spiderman's motto dates back to the first century BC according to Wikipedia .

Quote of the Week 32 " A goal without a method is cruel. " ― W.E. Deming Triggered by the use of the quote in Bryan Finster's 2021 " How to Misuse DORA DevOps Metrics " presentation. (See also my  blog article on the topic). From Deming's 5 Rules of Management : 1. Put fun back into work. “The prevailing system of management has crushed fun out of the workplace.” 2. Give people a reason to come to work. “We are here to make another world.” 3. Don’t leave people hanging. “A goal without a method is cruel.” 4. Push responsibility down the line. “Quality is everyone's responsibility.” 5. Encourage and celebrate innovation. “Innovation comes from the producer - not from the customer.”

Quote of the Week 25 " Listen, everyone is entitled to my opinion. " ―  Madonna Use of the quote  triggered by recent actions of a certain self-proclaimed "free speech advocate".

Quote of the Week 24 " You can’t copy your way to the top ." ―  Steven B. Sample ( The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership ) Cited in Contingency Theories for Leadership . Source:  DALL·E mini - a Hugging Face Space by dalle-mini More counter-intuitive lessons from the book : Never make a decision today that can reasonably be put off to tomorrow. Think gray. Don’t form opinions if you don’t have to. Think free. Move several steps beyond traditional brainstorming. Listen first, talk later. And when you listen, do so artfully. Shoot your own horse. Don’t force others to do your dirty work. The best leaders don’t keep up with the popular media and the trades. Know what hill you are willing to die on—and keep its exact location to yourself. Know the all–important difference between being leader and doing leader. You can’t copy your way to the top.

Quote of the Week 23 " To catch up, you have to run faster than the leader. " ―  Mark Akers Full quote taken from the book Indiana (in) Decision  by Mark Aker: " If you are running in a race and are behind the leader,  to catch up, you have to run faster than the leader ." Triggered by Gunter Dueck 's variant of the quote in German: "Wenn man zur Spitze aufschliessen will, muss man schneller laufen als der Erste."

Quote of the Week 18 " Don’t tell people what to do; tell them what you need accomplished, and you’ll be amazed at the results. " ― George S. Patton Triggered by Marty Cagan's use of this variant of the quote in the Silicon Valley Product Group blog article " The Alternative to Roadmaps ". Original quote : " Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results. "

Quote of the Week 12 " There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all. " ― Peter Drucker Triggered by the use of the quote in a review of the book " Ask Your Developer " by Jeff Lawson. In line with a quote cited here before: " What's not worth doing is not worth doing well. " ―  Abraham Maslow

Quote of the Week 34 " What's not worth doing is not worth doing well. " ―  Abraham Maslow Triggered by Scott Barry Kaufman's tweet in the context of the promotion of his book " Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization " on a podcast with Jordan B. Peterson. Originally stated in Maslow's book " Maslow on Management " (original title: " Eupsychian Management ") and later referenced in the book  " The Maslow Business Reader " (pg. 17). The complementary statement to the strive for effectiveness and efficiency to be productive : " Do the right things and do them right. " Spending time and resources on the wrong thing is just a waste.  See also: Source:  " Avoid Doing the Wrong things Righter… But, “By What Method?” ".

Quote of the Week 28 "All perceptions are real, at least to those who own them." ― Joe Folkman Related quotes: "In politics, perception is reality." ― Lee Atwater "Perception is reality. If you are perceived to be something, you might as well be it because that’s the truth in people’s minds." ― Steve Young "Perception is reality, but it may not be actuality, and you have got to be able to keep the difference between that." ― Bill Cowher Triggered by Ron Lichty's use of the quote in many of his  presentations  and the book " Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams " citing Folkman's 1996 book "Turning Feedback into Change!". See also Principle 5 in Folkman's subsequent book " The Power of Feedback ".

Quote of the Week 24 " Realize that you are simultaneously everything and nothing ." ―  Ray Dalio First part of one of the many principles Dalio published in his book " Principles " which is available as e-book in the corresponding free app.  See also Dalio's corresponding blog and LinkedIn article .