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"There are four fundamental forces that pursue competing values and pull us and all the constituents in our situations in different directions: Collaborate, Create, Compete and Control. These forces drive or thwart growth in dyadic oppositions: Collaborate vs. Compete and Create vs. Control. The paradox of growth is that it is born from the tension and constructive conflict of these opposing forces and their agents."
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"I am passionate about great crimes and the criminals who commit them. But, I often wonder if the long arm of our law, the finest justice system in the world, is at times deeply corrupt, especially with regard to the most recent financial meltdown of 2008. ...
[S]everal fistfuls of ... corrupt, devious, deceptive, crooked, manipulative titans of the financial industry have somehow completely avoided any liability, responsibility or accountability for the crimes they committed—as have their accomplices in Washington, D.C.
It seems that bad behavior has become an acceptable business practice. If you get caught, you only pay a fine. If you get away with it, you win. What kind of system is that?"
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"Ever since the Enlightenment, Western civilization has been on the wrong track. Eager to put the superstitions of the Dark Ages behind him, the French philosopher Rene Descartes famously declared, "I think, therefore I am." But the truth is that over the past 25 years, the breakthroughs in brain science have systematically documented the greater reality that thought and emotion can't be artificially separated and that, in fact, the capacity for emotion proceeded thought in evolutionary terms and continues to do so with every deliberation and act an employee makes. There is no such thing as objectivity. ... Trust is a feeling. Hope is a feeling. Loyalty is a feeling. As companies struggle to emerge from the Great Recession, now is not the time for half-measures like polite (but empty) focus groups, or for the fear that executives may have regarding exposure to the honest feelings of their employees that serves as justification for not pursuing progress. Executives who exhort employees to accept change and sacrifice their own comfort zones must surely be ready to do so themselves."
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"Most of what you need to know about success in life is personal in nature. I've learned, through my own experience and that of the people I've worked with, that people need each other to have fulfilling work, successful careers and meaningful lives. Regardless of your cultural background, your age group, or your social status, your need to get along with people is fundamental to your happiness. No matter how much technical skill you have in your particular field of expertise, no matter how smart you are, how capable you are, how gifted you are, if you don't know how to connect, relate and communicate with people, there's little hope for you.
Whether the times are great, or the economy is in the tank, the people who do the best, who prosper and advance, are the people who know how to connect with other people and have it matter. Whether you are a homemaker, a parent, a business owner, a manager, a waiter or a postal worker, your skill with other people determines everything. And when you have the skill to build relationships and networks of relationships, the world is your oyster, and all options are open for you. Being able to click is just a matter of knowing what to do, why to do it, and how to do it."
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"32,000 years ago, our most ancient ancestor drew a beautiful bull on the wall of a cave in a place we now call France. That bull is the oldest known human sketch ever found. In the sweep of recorded human history, it is the beginning of the "whoosh." 27,000 years later, another ancient ancestor created Hieroglyphics by drawing a similar bull on a muddy brick, and written language was born. From that moment on, pictures were doomed. Yes, humanity's five-thousand-year love affair with words has given us so much—but at what hidden cost? Over the millenia, we have gradually purged our visual mind from our understanding of language, communications, and intelligence. Just when we need pictures the most, we no longer have the ability to think visually. It's time to bring our visual mind back."
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