selection made by Coert Visser

Abraham Lincoln

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Source:  Dale Carnegie, auteur van How to Win Friends and Influence People p71

Aeschylus

Words are the physicians of a mind diseased

Source: De Shazer (1994). Words were originally magic

Anonymous

When you insist, I resist

Anders Ericsson

In virtually every aspect of human activity there have been increases in the efficiency and level of performance.

 The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance

Anders Ericsson

The length of experience has been frequently found to be a weak correlate of job performance beyond the first two years.

 The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance

Anders Ericsson

Elite performers are typically introduced to their realm of excellence in a playful manner at a young age.

 The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance

Anders Ericsson

Effective improvement of performance requires the opportunity to find suitable training tasks that the performer can master sequentially - typically the design of training tasks and monitoring of the attained performance is one by a teacher or a coach. Deliberate practice presents performers with tasks that are initially outside their current realm of reliable performance, yet can be mastered within hours of practice by concentrating on critical aspects and by gradually refining performance through repetitions after feedback.

 The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance

Anders Ericsson

Even the well-known fact that more "talented" children improve faster in the beginning of their music development appears to be in large part due to the fact that they spend more time in deliberate practice each week.

 The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance

Anders Ericsson

The key challenge for aspiring expert performers is to avoid the arrested development associated with automaticity and to acquire cognitive skills to support their continued learning and improvement. By actively seeking out demanding tasks -often provided by teachers and coaches - that force the performers to engage in problem solving and to stretch their performance, the expert performers overcome the detrimental effects of automaticity and actively acquire and refine cognitive mechanisms to support continued learning and improvement.

 The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance

Anders Ericsson

The performers will gradually acquire mechanisms that increase their ability to control, self-monitor, and evaluate their performance in representative situations from the domain and thus gain independence from the feedback of their teachers.

 The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance

Anders Ericsson

Until most individuals recognize that sustained training and effort is a prerequisite for reaching expert levels of performance, they will continue to misattribute lesser achievement to the lack of natural gifts, and will thus fail to reach their own potential.

 The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance

Anders Ericsson

At the highest levels of expert performance, the drive for improvement will always involve search and experimentation at the threshold of understanding, even for the masters dedicated to redefining the meaning of excellence in their fields.

 The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance

Anonymous

Intelligence is not only between the ears but also between the noses

Source: Mark McKergow (2003), personal communication

Anonymous

If you're coming to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, let us work together.

Source: Ronald Bassman (1999)

anonymous medical school professor

Every lecture I give ... I talk about eugentics, that I don't know what a good gene is. I say you might think that a gene which protects you from malaria is a good gene. But if you [had such a gene], and so did your partner, you have a 1 in 4 chance of having a baby with a debilitating, often fatal disease, sickle cell disease... So a good gene became a bad gene. 

Source: Good Work, (2001). Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi  & Damon. 

Albert Einstein

The important thing is to not stop questioning

Albert Schweizer

Of all the will toward the ideal in mankind only a small part can manifest itself in public action. All the rest of this force must be content with small and obscure deeds. The sum of these, however, is thousand times stronger that the acts of those who receive wide public recognition. The latter, compared to the former, are like the foam on the waves of a deep ocean

Source: Badaracco, J. (2002). Leading Quietly.

Albert Schweizer

Each patient carries his own doctor inside him. They come to us not knowing that truth. We are at our best when we give the doctor who resides within each patient a chance to go to work.' 

Source: Quoted by Fred Charatan, British Medical Journal, june 2004

Alfie Kohn

In general we act on the environment as much as we are acted on by it.

Source: Kohn, A (1993)

Alfie Kohn

There is a time to admire the grace and persuasive power of an influential idea, and there is a time to fear its hold over us...At the point when objections are not answered anymore because they are no longer raised, we are not in control: we don't have the idea; it has us.

Source: Kohn, A (1993)

Alfie Kohn

Why is it important that excellence be recognized?

Source: Kohn, A (1993)

Alfie Kohn

Excellence is often the product of cooperation, and even individual achievement typically is built on the work of other people's earlier efforts.

Source: Kohn, A (1993)

Ambrose Red Moon

Moed is niet de afwezigheid van angst, maar het inzicht dat iets anders belangrijker is dan angst.

Source: Lore, N (2006). Baanbreker

Aristotle

We zijn wat we herhaaldelijk doen

Source: Lore, N (2006). Baanbreker

Aristotle

 ... each man judges well the things he knows ...

Source: The Nicomachean Ethics I.3

Aristotle

... the end aimed at is not knowledge but action.

Source: The Nicomachean Ethics I.4

Aristotle

Source: The Nicomachean Ethics I.4

Aristotle

Source: The Nicomachean Ethics I.12

Aristotle

Source: The Nicomachean Ethics II.1

Aristotle

Source: The Nicomachean Ethics II.2

Aristotle

Source: The Nicomachean Ethics III.1

Aristotle

Source: The Nicomachean Ethics III.3

Aristotle

Source: The Nicomachean Ethics VI.1

Aristotle

Source: The Nicomachean Ethics X

Aristotle

Source: The Nicomachean Ethics VI.2

Aristotle

Source: The Nicomachean Ethics VI.3

Aristotle

Source: The Nicomachean Ethics VI.3

Barry Duncan

..any change can provide possibilities for problem resolution

Barry Schwartz 

The phrasing of questions or choices can have profound, and often counterintuitive, effect on the way people make decisions

When words decide

Barry Schwartz 

Research on the effects of language on choice suggests that people do not always strictly possess preferences and values but rather construct them when they are asked a question or give a choice

When words decide

Barack Obama

Life is not obliged to work out as you’d planned (page 3).

Source: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Barack Obama

I began to harbor doubts about the path I had chosen; I began feeling the way I imagine an actor or athlete must feel when, after years of commitment to a particular dream, after years of waiting tables between auditions or scratching out hits in the minor leagues, he realizes that he’s gone just about as talent or fortune will take him. (page 4),

Source: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Barack Obama

Eventually, my rejection of authority spilled into self-indulgence and self-destructiveness (page 30),

Source: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Barack Obama

Finding the right balance between our competing values is difficult. Tensions arise not because we have steered a wrong course, but simply because we live in a complex and contradictory world. (page 56).

Source: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Barack Obama

The blood of slaves reminds us that our pragmatism can sometimes be moral cowardice. (page 98)

Source: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Barack Obama

Our dominance isn’t inevitable. (page 142)

Source: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Barack Obama

We should be guided by what works. (page 159)

Source: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Barack Obama

Religion was an expression of human culture, she would explain, not its well-spring, just one of the many ways – and not necessarily the best way- that man attempted to control the unknowable and understand deeper truths about our lives. (page 204)

Source: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Barack Obama

Of course organized religion doesn’t have a monopoly on virtue, and one need not be religious to make moral claims or appeal to a common good. (page 214)

Source: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Barack Obama

Perhaps I just find the ways of the human heart to various and my own life too imperfect, to believe myself qualified to serve as anyone’s moral arbiter. (page 336)

Source: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Baruch Spinoza

I have labored carefully not to mock, lament, or denounce human actions, but to understand them

Source: Tractatus Politicus

Benjamin Disraeli

Change is inevitable in a progressive country. Change is constant. 

Source: Speech at Edinburgh, 29 October 1867, in The Times 30 October 1867

Bertrand Russell

I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn’t wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.

Source: Michael Canfield, A very short essay on doubt

Blaise Pascal

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the minds of others.

Source: Duncan, b. & Miller, S. (2000). The Heroic Client

Brett Steenbarger

Brian Bacon

Where your attention goes, your energy flows and life grows

Brian Greene

What is reality? We humans only have access to the internal experiences of perception and thought, so how can we be sure they truely reflect an external world? ... the reality we observe .... may have little to do with the reality, if any, that's out there. Nevertheless, because observations are all we have, we take them seriously.

Source: Greene (2004), The fabric of the cosmos. 

Brian Greene

The boldness of asking deep questions may require unforeseen flexibility if we are to accept the answers. 

Source: Greene (1999), The elegant universe. 

Bruce Barton

Sometimes, when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things - a chance word, a tap on the shoulder, or a penny dropped on a newsstand- I am tempted to think there are no little things. 

Source: Badaracco (2002). Quiet leadership.

Bruce Lee

Research your own experience, absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is specifically your own

Bruce Lee

I cannot teach you. I can only help you explore yourself

Basics of Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee's philosophy of Martial Arts

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

Carol S. Dweck

People are, to a large extent, in charge of their own intelligence. Being smart - and staying smart- is not just a gift, not just a product of their genetic good fortume. It is very much a product of what they put into it. It means that being smart is a long process of self-development and self-discovery

Source: Dweck, C.S. (2002) Beliefs that make samrt people dumb. in: Sternberg (2002) Why Smart people can be so stupid).

Carol S. Dweck

Once people believe that their intelligence is a potential that can be developed, they start focusing, not on the short-term outcomes that might make them look good, but on the effort and the strategies that will lead to learning and long-term achievement

Source: Dweck, C.S. (2002) Beliefs that make smart people dumb. in: Sternberg (2002) Why Smart people can be so stupid).

Carol Dweck

What has intrigued me most in my 30 years of research is the power of motivation. Motivation is often more important than your initial ability in determining whether you succeed in the long run. In fact, many creative geniuses were not born that way. They were often fairly ordinary people who became extraordinarily motivated. By motivation, I mean not only the desire to achieve but also the love of learning, the love of challenge, and the ability to thrive on obstacles. These are the greatest gifts we can give our students.

Dweck, C. (2000) in a E-interview with Gary Hopkins, Education World

Carol Dweck

We all have interests that can blossom into abilities.

Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset.

Carol Dweck

We are all exquisitely attuned to messages telling us what is valued. I think we go around all the time looking, trying to understand, 'Who am I in this setting? Who am I in this framework?' So that when a clear message comes, it can send a spark.

Source: Coyle, D. (2009). The talent code, p136

Charles Darwin

There seems to be a sort of fatality in my mind leading me to put at first my statement or proposition in a wrong or awkward form. Formerly I used to think about my sentences before writing them down; but for several years I have found that it saves time to scribble in a vile hand whole pages as quickly as I possibly can, contracting half the words; and then correct deliberately. Sentences thus scribbled down are often better ones than I could have written deliberately.

Source: Charles Darwin's autobiography

Charles Darwin

With such moderate abilities as I possess, it is truly surprising that I should have influenced to a considerable extent the belief of scientific men on some important points.

Source: Charles Darwin in The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume 1

Charles Darwin

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge

Charles Darwin

I sometimes think that general and popular Treatises are almost as important for the progress of science as original work.

wrote this in a letter to Thomas Henry Huxley (found this here)

Charles Handy

Paradoxically, as I have suggested, we only really find ourselves when we lose ourselves in something beyond ourselves, be it our love for someone, our pursuit of a cause or a vocation, or our commitment to a group or an institution

Source: Handy, C. (1997). The Hungry Spirit

Charles Horton Cooley

The improvement of society does not call for any essential change in human nature, but chiefly, for a larger and higher application of its familiar impulses.

Source: Cooley, CH (1909). Social Organization. A study of the larger mind.

Charles Morgan

As knowledge increases wonder deepens.

www.squarewise.nl

Charles O´Reilly & Jeffrey Pfeffer

If the same consulting firm that helps one organization implement the hottest new approach then goes to a competitor and implements it there (except they may do it better because they learned a thing or two while helping the first client), how can this offer any real advantage?

Source: O'Reilly, C. & J. Peffer (2000). Hidden Value. 

Charles O´Reilly & Jeffrey Pfeffer

Most fads ignore the boring, mundane details of implementation, but these are the key to actually doing something that others can´t easily imitate

Source: O'Reilly, C. & J. Peffer (2000). Hidden Value. 

Charles O´Reilly & Jeffrey Pfeffer

Thirty years of research in social psychology has documented how increased monitoring can undermine motivation and cause previously engaged people to reduce their effort. It is only a short step from here to the economist´s predicted outcomes of effort aversion and opportunism. This leads to a vicious cycle of tightened controls, more resistance, and greater tension. Seeing this, the economist will say, " see, I told you people can´t be trusted!"

Source: O'Reilly, C. & J. Peffer (2000). Hidden Value. 

Charles O´Reilly & Jeffrey Pfeffer

Success comes from the consistency with which management has articulated and implemented its vision and from the relentless attention to detail in ensuring that all policies and practices support the company´s values

Source: O'Reilly, C. & J. Peffer (2000). Hidden Value. 

Charles O´Reilly & Jeffrey Pfeffer

For people-centered practises to work, a wide spectrum of management practices, ranging from selection tot socialization to compensation, must be tightly aligned with each other. These management practices must then be be focused on building and maintaining core capabilities and on devising a business strategy that capitalizes on the capabilities that have been developed. This is, as we will show, very easy to say and extraordinarily hard to do

Source: O'Reilly, C. & J. Peffer (2000). Hidden Value. 

Chris Difford & Glenn Tilbrook

You have to throw the stone to get the pool to ripple

Source: CD: Cool for Cats, Squeeze (1979)

Cicero

Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide

Claire Raines & Lara Ewing

Knowing what you want to accomplish focuses your attention and guides you in a constructive direction

Source: Claire Raines and Lara Ewing (2006) The Art of Connecting

Claude Steele

I am a psychologist with a psychologist's bias - that of looking inside people for the causes of their behavior and achievements. [...] Psychologists focus on the internal, the psychological.[...] We emphasize things about the actor - characteristics, traits, and so on - that seem like plausible explanations for her behavior. And we deemphasize, as cause of her behavior, the things we can't see very well, namely, the circumstance to which she is adapting.

Whistling Vivaldi

Confucius

It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop

Confucius

to know that one knows what one knows, and to know that one doesn't know what one doesn't know, there lies true wisdom

In: Marcus, G. 2008. Kluge. the haphazard construction of the human mind.

Dale Carnegie

Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous because it wounds a person's precious pride, hurts his sense of importance and arouses resentment.

Source:  Dale Carnegie, auteur van How to Win Friends and Influence People p5

Dale Carnegie

Let's realize that the person we are going to correct and condemn will probably justify himself or herself and condemn us in return; or, like the gentle Taft, wille say: "I don't see how I could have done any differently from what I have.

Source:  Dale Carnegie, auteur van How to Win Friends and Influence People p8

Dale Carnegie

Instead of condemning people let's try to figure out why they do what they do. That's a lot more profitable and intruiging than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. To know all is to forgive all.

Source:  Dale Carnegie, auteur van How to Win Friends and Influence People p17

Dale Carnegie

Source:  Dale Carnegie, auteur van How to Win Friends and Influence People p117

Dale Carnegie

Source:  Dale Carnegie, auteur van How to Win Friends and Influence People p158

Dale Carnegie

Source:  Dale Carnegie, auteur van How to Win Friends and Influence People p170

Daniel Boorstin

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance -- it is the illusion of knowledge

Daniel Coyle

Operating at the edges of your ability, where you make mistakes -makes you smarter

Coyle, D. (2009). The Talent Code

Daniel Coyle

There is, biologically speaking, no substitute for attentive repetition.(p87)

Coyle, D. (2009). The Talent Code

Daniel Coyle

Is it possible to look at two seedlings and tell which will grow taller? The only answer is It's early and they're both growing. p166

Coyle, D. (2009). The Talent Code

Daniel Dennett

You seldom talk anybody out of a position by arguing directly with their premises and  inferences.

Source: Dennet, D. Autobiography (part (1) - from richarddawkins.net

Daniel Tammet

I don't think it serves very much to label someone. 

Source: Scott Barry Kaufman- Conversations on Creativity with Daniel Tammet- Part IV, IQ and Human Intelligence. Daniel Tammet on the limits of IQ testing

Daniel Tammet

Life is going to be complex and the only way we're able navigate our way through it at all is by living as best we can and absorbing those experiences and somehow making intuitive responses in future situations that resemble them in some way. 

Source: Scott Barry Kaufman- Conversations on Creativity with Daniel Tammet- Part IV, IQ and Human Intelligence. Daniel Tammet on the limits of IQ testing

David Cooperrider & Leslie Sekerka

.. inquiry itself can be an intervention. Inquiry is agenda setting, language shaping, affect creating, and knowledge creating. Inquiry is embedded in everything we do as managers, leaders, and agents of change.

Source: Cooperrider & Sekerka (2003)

David Cooperrider & Leslie Sekerka

.. human systems are drawn in the direction of their deepest and most frequent explorations

Source: Cooperrider & Sekerka (2003)

David Cooperrider & Leslie Sekerka

We live in the worlds our inquiries create. 

Source: Cooperrider & Sekerka (2003)

David & Roger Johnson

All of us are smarter than any of us

Source: Kohn, A (1993)

David Maister

Making money by having high standards and never compromising them. What a concept!

Source: Maister, D. (2001). Practise what you preach. 

David Maister

There is a world of difference between being able to solve a client's problem, and being able to help the client solve his or her own problem

Source: Visser, C (2003) interview with David Maister.

David Maister

What is important is what inspires persistence and determination - in other words, what you care about.

Source: Maister, D. (1997). True professionalism

David Maister

The mere act of committing to writing on a regular basis is forcing me to think more clearly, and also more deeply about my work experiences.

Source: Visser, C (2006). The art of blogging. Interview with David Maister part 1.

David Maister

Success comes from doing what you enjoy. If you don't enjoy it, how can it be called success?

Source: Maister, D. (1997). True professionalism

David Maister

People think that marketing is about getting more business. It's not.  Marketing is about getting better business.

Source: Visser, C (2006). The only competitive advantage, Interview with David Maister part 2.

David Maister

My work suggests that the only competitive advantage is something variously described as energy, excitement, enthusiasm, engagement, passion, drive, discipline, determination or ambition.

Source: Visser, C (2006). The only competitive advantage, Interview with David Maister part 2.

David Maister

If a manager has been effective in managing the WHAT and the WHY, he or she does not have to be too specific on the HOW.

Source: Visser, C (2006). The only competitive advantage, Interview with David Maister part 2.

David G. Meyers

What we know, but don´t know we know, affects more than we know

Source: Meyers, D.G. (2002). Intuition: Its Powers and Perils 

David G. Meyers

... it is not happy people who are intensely self-focused, but those bereaved or depressed.

Source: Meyers, D.G. (1992). The Pursuit of happiness.

David Packard, co-founder Hewlett Packard

Why are we here? I think many people assume, wrongly, that a company exists solely to make money. Money is an important part of a company’s existence, if the company is any good. But a result is not a cause. We have to go deeper and find the real reason for our being. As we investigate this, we inevitably come to the conclusion that a group of people get together and exist as an institution that we call a company, so that they are able to accomplish something collectively that they could not accomplish separately - they make a contribution to society, a phrase which sounds trite but is fundamental

David Perkins

While we do well not to trust too little and not to trust too much, it seems better to trust a little too much than a little too little

Source: Perkins, D. (2003). King Arthur's round table.

David Perkins

Our intelligence resides not just in our heads but is distributed throughout the physical, social, and symbolic environment. We function more intelligently with physical (paper and pencil, books), social (thinking with others), and symbolic (verbal advice to yourself, for example) support systems than you do without. The person-solo is the naked brain approach to thinking. The person-plus makes ample and sillful use of [these additional] resources.

Source: Perkins, D. (1994). Where is intelligence? Educational Leadership may 1994, p.105

David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz

Human brains are so complex and individual that there is little point in trying to work out how another person ought to reorganize his or her thinking. It is far more effective and efficient to help others come to their own insights

Source

David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz

Is the answer to all the challenges of change just to focus people on solutions instead of problems, let them come to their own answers, and keep them focused on their insights? Apparently, that’s what the brain wants

Source

David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz

Rather than lecturing and providing solutions, effective coaches ask pertinent questions and support their clients in working out solutions on their own

Source

David Russo (SAS Institute)

We don´t do performance appraisals. Why? Because they´re stupid. Because everybody hates them. Because they take an inordinate amount of time with always a negative result

Source: O'Reilly, C. & J. Peffer (2000). Hidden Value. 

David Siegel

Helpful consultants ask helpful questions. Poor consultants are full of answers.

www.squarewise.nl

Dennis Bakke (AES)

Profits are to a corporation much like breathing is to life. Breathing is not the goal of life, but without breath, life ends

Source: O'Reilly, C. & J. Peffer (2000). Hidden Value.

Derren Brown

Each of us is leading a difficult life, and when we meet people we are seeing only a tiny part of the thinnest veneer of their complex, troubled existences. To practise anything other than kindness towards them, to treat them in any way save generously, is to quietly deny their humanity."

Confessions of a conjurer

Derren Brown

"The single most valuable human trait, the one quality every schoolchild and adult should be taught to nurture, is, quite simply, kindness. Kindness. If you prefer, compassion. Evenbenevolence. It is the quality that makes peoplelovely. If that sounds rather anaemic, it's because it is the opposite of setting goals and learning how to persuade and close deals; the antithesis of self-reliance and get-what-you-want thinking which form the backbone of modern self-improvement. Its simplicity and obviousness mean that we forget it constantly when we try to impress people, yet it is the most impressive trait we can ever show. It has nothing to do with intelligence or witty banter. We make the mistake of thinking we have to be funny and clever among the ranks the funny and clever, or match the more obvious qualities of people we would like to like us, when in fact few of us seek out in other those outward aspects of personality we ourselves emanate. In fact, we tend to be skeptical of others with similar noticeable qualities to ourselves. That clever person will not like us more if we appear clever ourselves. He will like us more if we are kind, and lovely, and personable, and not trying to be anything else. In an attempt to be socially striking, and in all the contrived effort we go to in order to make ourselves remarkable, we miss how simple the answer really is. Meanwhile, we all know people who possess those qualities we wish we had more of - intelligence or wit, for example - yet if they are not also lovely, we struggle to really like them."

Confessions of a conjurer

Donald Campbell

The joint presense of opposing tendencies has a functional survival value. Where each of two opposing tendencies has survival relevance, the biological solution seems to be an ambivalent alternation of expressions of each rather than the consistent expression of an intermediate motivational state. 

Source: Campbell, O.T. (1965). Ethnocentric and other altruistic motives. 

Donald Hebb

If it's not worth doing, it's not worth doing well

Source: http://bit.ly/3fQiMS

Donald Schon

Our knowing is ordinarily tacit, implicit in our patterns of action ..... It seems right to say that our knowing is in our action

Douglas Hofstadter

We roemen individuele stijlen en zien ze niet als iets negatiefs, als een bewijs van innerlijke beperkingen. Het merkwaardige is juist dat mensen die in staat zijn als een kameleon van stijl te verwisselen,geen eigen stijl lijken te hebben en niet meer dan salonartiesten,vermakelijke imitatoren zijn. Mensen met de duidelijkste,frappantste 'beperkingen', als je het zo wilt nomen, bewonderen we het meest.

Bron: Hofstadter, D. (1982). De schijbare paradox van gemechaniseerde creativiteit.

Douglas McGregor

The answer to the question managers so often ask of behavioral scientists - " How do you motivate people?" - is, "You don´t"

Douglas McGregor

What sometimes appear to be new strategies-decentralization, management by objectives, consultative supervision, "democratic leadership" - are usually but old wine in new bottles, because the procedures developed to implement them are derived from the same inadequate assumptions about human nature. Management is constantly becoming disillusioned with widely touted and expertly merchandized "new approaches" to the human side of enterprise. The real difficulty is that these new approaches are no more than different tactics - programs, procedures, gadgets- within an unchanged strategy based on Theory X

Source: McGregor, D. (1960). The human side of enterprise. 

Duncan Watts

Common sense explanations are often characterized by circular reasoning

Source: Watts, D. (2011).  Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer

Duncan Watts

Defaults are a part of the environment in which the decision maker operates, and so affect behavior in a way that is largely invisible to the conscious mind, and therefore largely absent from our commonsense explanations of the behavior

Source: Watts, D. (2011).  Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer

Duncan Watts

The absence of "counterfactual" versions of history tends to have the effect that we tend to perceive what actually happened as having been inevitable

Source: Watts, D. (2011).  Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer

Duncan Watts

The very notion of a well-defined "outcome", at which point we can evaluate, once and for all, the consequences of an action is a convenient fiction. In reality, the events that we label as outcomes are never really endpoints. Instead, they are artificially imposed, milestones. [...] At no point is the story ever really "over". Something always happens afterward, and what happens afterward is liable to change our perception of the current outcome, as well as our perception of the outcomes that we have already explained

Source: Watts, D. (2011).  Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer

Duncan Watts

When we think about the future, we imagine it to be a unique thread of events that simply hasn't been revealed to us yet. In reality no such thread exists -rather the future is more like a bundle of possible threats. [...] Only when we concede that we cannot depend on our ability to predict the future are we open to a process that discovers it

Source: Watts, D. (2011).  Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer

Duncan Watts

Finding out that something doesn't work is also the first step toward learning what does work

Source: Watts, D. (2011).  Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer

Duncan Watts

The real world of human interactions is simply too messy and ambiguous a place ever to be governed by any predefined set of rules and regulations

Source: Watts, D. (2011).  Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer

Duncan Watts

Success leads to prominence and recognition, which leads in turn to more opportunities to succeed, more resources with which to achieve success, and more likelihood of your subsequent successes being noticed and attributed to you. Isolating the effects of this accumulated advantage from differences in innate talent of hard work is difficult. [...] When we try to explain why some individual is rich or successful common sense insists that the outcome arises from some intrinsic quality of the object or person in question […] Whenever we find ourselves describing someone's ability in terms of societal measures of success -prizes, wealth, fancy titles-rather than in terms of what they are capable of doing, we ought to worry that we are deceiving ourselves

Source: Watts, D. (2011).  Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer

Duncan Watts

The very ties that give our lives meaning also constrain us, and it is precisely by constraining us that they give us meaning

Source: Watts, D. (2011).  Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer

Duncan Watts

Many social scientific explanations suffer from the same weaknesses -ex post fact assertions of rationality, representative individuals, special people, and correlation substituting for causations - that pervade our commonsense explanations as well

Source: Watts, D. (2011).  Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer

Duncan Watts

All experience is local

Source: Watts, D. (2003). Six Degrees.

Duncan Watts

In a multitude of systems from economics to biology, events are driven not by any preexisting center but by the interaction of equals. 

Source: Watts, D. (2003). Six Degrees.

Duncan Watts

Starting off simple is an essential stage of understanding anything complex

Source: Watts, D. (2003). Six Degrees.

Elam Nunnally

In life, making money and using power are meaningless, unless you also further the human condition. It doesn’t matter what you work with, as long as you do what you do meaning well.

Source: From the Whirls of a Flowing River - a Conversation with Elam Nunnally. interview by Tapio Malinen

Epictecus

It's not your problem that bothers you. It's all in the way you look at it.

Eric Abrahamson

...for most organizations, change management advice has been too broad and unspecific to help much at all, leading companies to implement sweeping change initiatives with little concrete direction or hands-on tools. 

Abrahamson, E. (2004). Change without Pain, p5 

Eric Abrahamson

Organizations frequently have, in-house, all the existing people, processes, structures, cultures, and social networks they need to bring about change. It relies on discovering and pulling out these existing organizational assets, redeploying them, and recombining them to reach new ends. 

Abrahamson, E. (2004). Change without Pain, p5 

Earl Hunt

Becoming an expert in almost anything requires literally years of work. People will do this only if they have some initial success, enjoy the work, and are supported by the social climate. Expertise is not solely a cognitive affair.

The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance

Frank Kingdomy

Vragen zijn de creatieve uitingen van intelligentie.

xxx

Frank Sulloway

Anecdotes do not make a science.

Source: Science Friction, M. Shermer (2005).

G.K. Chesterton

If you do not understand a man, you cannot crush him. And if you do understand him, very probably you will not

G.I. Gurdjieff

The realization of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom

Galileo Galilei

One cannot teach a man anything. One can only enable him to learn from within himself

Georg Hegel

It is easier to discover a deficiency in individuals, in states, and in Providence, than to see their real import and value.

Source: Duncan (2005). What's right with you.

George Pólya

If you cannot solve the proposed problem, try to solve first some related problem. Could you imagine a more accessible related problem?"

Source: Pólya (1945). How to Solve It

Harry A. Overstreet

Action springs out of what we fundamentally desire.

Source: Overstreet, H. Influencing Human Behavior

Henri Poincaré

Sometimes small differences in the initial conditions generate very large differences in the final phenomena. A slight error in the former could produce a tremendous error in the latter. Prediction becomes impossible; we have accidental phenomena. 

Henry Ford

If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own.

Source:  Dale Carnegie, auteur van How to Win Friends and Influence People p37

Herbert Kelleher (Southwest Airlines)

"Who comes first? the employee, customers, or shareholders?" That´s never been an issue to me. The employees come first. if they´re happy satisfied, dedicated, and energetic, they´ll take real good care of the customers. When the customers are happy, they come back. And that makes the shareholders happy

Source: O'Reilly, C. & J. Peffer (2000). Hidden Value. 

Herbert Kelleher (Southwest Airlines)

Employees will be provided the same concern, respect, and caring attitude within the organization that they are expected to share externally with every Southwest Customer

Source: O'Reilly, C. & J. Peffer (2000). Hidden Value. 

Herminia Ibarra

Change usually happens the other way around: Doing comes first, knowing, second [...] Career transition follows a first-act-and-then-think sequence because who we are and what we do are so tightly connected (p1)

Source: Ibarra, H. (2004) Working Identity

Herminia Ibarra

We are not one self but many selves. [...] It is nearly impossible to think out how to reinvent ourselves, and therefore, it is equally hard to execute in a planned and orderly way. (p2)

Source: Ibarra, H. (2004) Working Identity

Herminia Ibarra

A view of human beings as defined by our "internal states"-our talents, goals, and preferences - is deeply ingrained in the Western world. This view is at the root of conventional approaches for making career decisions: If our "true identity" is inside, deep within ourselves, only introspection can lead to the right action steps and a better-fitting career. [...] Certainly, reflecting on past experiences, future dreams, and current values or strengths is an essential and valuable step. But reflection best comes later, when we have some momentum and when there is something new to reflect on. (p16)

Source: Ibarra, H. (2004) Working Identity

Herminia Ibarra

Identities change in practice, as we start doing new things (crafting experiments), interacting with different people (shifting connections), and reinterpreting our life stories through the lens of the emerging possibilities (making sense). (p16)

Source: Ibarra, H. (2004) Working Identity

Herminia Ibarra

Making important career moves, and ultimately, life changes, requires us to live through long periods of uncertainty and doubt. (p19)

Source: Ibarra, H. (2004) Working Identity

Herminia Ibarra

Our ideas for change change along the way, as we change. (p23)

Source: Ibarra, H. (2004) Working Identity

Herminia Ibarra

The kind of knowledge we need to make change in our lives is tacit, not textbook clear; it is implicit, not explicit; it consists of knowing-in-doing, not just knowing. Such self-knowledge has a personal and situational quality. [..] It can be acquired onlyin the process of making change. [...] The test-and-learn model for making change is based on theories suggesting that learning is circular, iterative: we take actions, one step at a time, and respond to the consequences of those actions such that an intelligible pattern eventual starts to form. (p32)

Source: Ibarra, H. (2004) Working Identity

Herminia Ibarra

Even if we manage to get past the paralysis, the true-self approach can mislead us into thinking that the bulk of the work is up-front and diagnostic. After that, implementation is easy. Unfortunately, implementation consumes the bulk of our time and patience in career transition. What really happens in effective change is a necessarily "open-ended, tentative, exploratory, hypothetical, problematic, devious, changeable, and only partially unified" process. (p37)

Source: Ibarra, H. (2004) Working Identity

Herminia Ibarra

In the reinventing process, we make two kinds of changes: small adjustments in course and deep shifts in perspective [...] That is not to say that small steps are inconsequential. In fact, they are often the only way to start tackling career problems that can otherwise overwhelm us. (p67)

Source: Ibarra, H. (2004) Working Identity

Herminia Ibarra

By far the biggest mistake people make when trying to change careers is to delay taking the first step until they have settled on a destination. (p91)

Source: Ibarra, H. (2004) Working Identity

Howard Bloom

The instant of creation marked the dawn of sociality. A neutron is a particle filled with need. It is unable to sustain itself for longer that then minutes. To survive, it must find at least one mate, then form a family. The intitial three minutes of existence were spent in cosmological courting, as protons paired off with neutrons, then rapidly attracted another couple to wed within their embrace, forming the two-proton, two-neutron quartet of a helium nucleus. Those neutron which managed this match gained relative immortality. Those which stayed single simply ceased to be. 

Source: Bloom, H. (2000). Global Brain.

Howard Bloom

..a collective learning machine achieves its feats by using five elements. This quintet of essentials includes: (1) conformity enforcers; (2) diversity generators; (3) inner-judges; (4) resource shifters; (5) intergroup tournaments. 

Source: Bloom, H. (2000). Global Brain.

Howard Gardner, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi  & William Damon

...human beings are programmed twice to be psychologically dependent on being productive: once by the genes and then by the pressure of social expectations

Source: Good Work, (2001). Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi  & Damon. 

Howard Gardner, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi  & William Damon

Creative success requires trial and error, time to make mistakes and correct them -in short, an incubation period during which the new ideas can be safely nurtured.

Source: Good Work, (2001). Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi  & Damon. 

Insoo Kim Berg

..at times, "going slow" seems to get you there faster. 

Insoo Kim Berg

Work with what comes back to you

Source: Insoo Kim Berg (2003) personal communication

Insoo Kim Berg

The smaller, simpler, and more immediate the change the client can make, the better

Insoo Kim Berg

I don't know what is going to unfold. 

Source: Hoyt (2001). Interviews with brief therapy experts

Insoo Kim Berg

Ik train middelmanagers en teamleiders. Ik help ze hun teamleden te managen op een oplossingsgerichte manier. Soms doen we rollenspellen en dan zijn ze geshockeerd. Bijvoorbeeld, we doen een rollenspel waarin een manager praat met een medewerker die te laat op zijn werk verschijnt. En dan zeg ik: ‘Je zult een goede reden hebben om te laat te komen. Hoe kan ik je helpen?’ En dan kan het zijn dat ik zeg: ‘Wat voor ideeën heb je over hoe je dit probleem kunt oplossen?’ Door dit te doen ben ik begrijpend, behulpzaam en tegelijkertijd maak ik mijn verwachtingen duidelijk. En ik blijf dat maar vragen: ‘Wat voor ideeën heb je over hoe je dit kunt oplossen?’ En die middelmanagers zijn dan verbaasd en zeggen soms: ‘Als je dat blijft vragen dan zal die persoon boos worden!’ Maar meestal wordt de medewerker niet boos. Het is zelfs zo dat het kenbaar maken van je verwachting helpt. Soms worden ze boos. Ze kunnen bijvoorbeeld beginnen te klagen. En dat toon ik begrip en dan ga ik verder met: ‘En wat voor ideeën heb je over hoe dat kunt oplossen?’ (Insoo lacht).   “Als je in een organisatie werkt dan heb je te maken met een hiërarchie. Dat is hoe een organisatie werkt. Er is een topmanagent dat besluiten neemt en richting geeft. En middelmanagement voert het uit. En als een medewerker slecht functioneert dan is dat een probleem. Kijk, als een manager verwacht je een prestatie van een medewerker. Dat is het contract dat je met hem hebt. Maar het is bijna nooit nodig om autoritair te doen. Je krijgt een veel productievere conversatie wanneer je die oplossingsgerichte technieken die ik noemde toepast.

Source

Insoo Kim Berg

Always address the person is his or her resources first.

Source: Maurer-Hankovszky & Szabo, 2002. Elements of Solution-focused training methodology

Insoo Kim Berg & Therese Steiner

..all people want to be treated with respect, want to be valued and accepted, loved, and cherished, and made to feel they are making important contributions to society and that their wishes and desires are heard and respected

Isaac Newton

I don't know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

Source: Gardner, J. (2005) How vast is our ignorance,review of TheRoad to Reality By Roger Penrose

Isaac Newton

Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy

J. Meacham

To be wise is not to know particular facts but to know without excessive confidence or excessive cautiousness. To both accumulate knowledge while remaining suspicious of it, and recognizing that much remains unknown, is to be wise

James Clifford

Recent literary theory suggests that the ability of a text to make sense in a coherent way depends less on the willed intentions of an originating author than on the creative ability of the reader.

Source: James Clifford (1988). The predicament of culture: Twentieth century ethnography, literature and art. Cambridge, M.A., Harvard University Press. - Quoted in Words were originally magic, Steve de Shazer, 1994)

James G. March

The development of knowledge may depend on maintaining an influx of the naïve and the ignorant..

Quoted in: Surowiecki, J. (2003). The Wisdom of Crowds

James Surowiecki

Under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often more intelligent than the smartest people in them. Groups do not need to be dominated by exceptionally intelligent people in order to be smart.  

Surowiecki, J. (2003). The Wisdom of Crowds

James Surowiecki

Diversity and independence are important because the best collective decisions are the product of disagreement and contest, not consensus and compromise. An intelligent group, especially when confronted with cognition problems, does not ask its members to modify their positions in order to let the group reach a decision everybody can be happy with. Instead, it figures out how to use mechanisms -like market prices, or intelligent voting systems, to aggregate and produce collective judgments that represent not what any person in the group thinks but rather, in some sense, what they all think. Paradoxically, the best way for a group to be smart, is for each person to think and act as independently as possible. 

Surowiecki, J. (2003). The Wisdom of Crowds

James Surowiecki

..the four conditions that characterize wise crowds: diversity of opinion ..., independence, ...decentralization, .... and aggregation. 

Surowiecki, J. (2003). The Wisdom of Crowds

James Surowiecki

With most things, the average is mediocrity. With decision making, it's often excellence. 

Surowiecki, J. (2003). The Wisdom of Crowds

James Surowiecki

Diversity helps because it actually adds perspectives that would otherwise be absent and because it takes away, or at least weakens, some of the destructive characteristics of group decision making. Fostering diversity is actually more important in small groups and in formal organizations than in [..] larger collectives.. Adding in a few people who know less, but have different skills, actually improves the group's performance. 

Surowiecki, J. (2003). The Wisdom of Crowds

James Surowiecki

..however well-informed and sophisticated an expert is, his advice and predictions should be pooled with those of others to get the most of them.... The value of expertise is, in many contexts, overrated. 

Surowiecki, J. (2003). The Wisdom of Crowds

James Surowiecki

...independence of opinion is both a crucial ingredient in collectively wise decisions and one of the hardest things to keep intact. 

Surowiecki, J. (2003). The Wisdom of Crowds

James Surowiecki

...the fundamental problem with an information cascade is that after a certain point it becomes rational for people to stop paying attention to their own knowledge -their private information- and to start looking instead at the actions of others and imitate them. 

Surowiecki, J. (2003). The Wisdom of Crowds

James Surowiecki

If you want to improve an organization's or an economy's decision making, one of the best things you can do is make sure, as much as possible, that decisions are made simultaneously (or close to it) rather than one after the other. 

Surowiecki, J. (2003). The Wisdom of Crowds

James Surowiecki

..any 'crowd' -whether it be a market, a corporation, or an intelligence agency- needs to find the right balance between the two imperatives: making individual knowledge globally and collectively useful (as we know it can be), while still allowing it to remain resolutely specific and local. 

Surowiecki, J. (2003). The Wisdom of Crowds

James Surowiecki

... the more power you give a single individual in the face of complexity and uncertainty, the more likely it is that bad decisions will get made. 

Surowiecki, J. (2003). The Wisdom of Crowds

James Surowiecki

..the idea that the right answer to complex problems is simply 'ask the experts' assumes that experts agree on the answers. But they don't ...

Surowiecki, J. (2003). The Wisdom of Crowds

James Watson

...You always have to trust there's more good in society or good feelings than bad. Because anything can be misused. 

Source: Good Work, (2001). Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi  & Damon. 

James Zull

To ensure a safe learning environment, you have to make sure to accept all answers, and build on them. We should view students as plants and flowers that need careful cultivation: grow some areas, help reduce others.

Source: The Sharp Brains Guide to Brain Fitness, p 17

James Zull

there is really no upper limit on learning since the neurons seem to be capable of growing new connections whenever they are used repeatedly. I think all of us need to develop the capacity to motivate ourselves. One way to do that is to search for meaningful contact points and bridges between what we want to learn and what we already know. When we do so, we cultivate our neuronal networks.

Source: The Sharp Brains Guide to Brain Fitness, p 18

Jeffrey Pfeffer

People in most companies value knowledge possessed by outsiders more than they do knowledge possessed by members of their own organization....By overlooking the value of the knowledge that´s within your own organization, you´re missing opportunities for internal innovation. And you´re going to spend a lot of time and money either hiring consultants or doing what firms do all the time which is to buy companies for their technology and insights only to devalue or undervalue those resources once they´re inside the organization. 

Source: Pfeffer, J. (2003). Why Your Company Has So Many Consultants, San Jose Business Journal, August 25,

Jeffrey Pfeffer

Economics shares with many other social sciences, including some versions of organization theory, a perspective that sees "all that is real as necessary, al that exists as inevitable, and thus the present mode of production as eternal. 

Source: Pfeffer J. (1997). New Directions for Organization Theory: Problems and Prospects

Jeffrey Pfeffer

We do not assume that a product design, be it for a piece of software or an automobile, or a service such as some banking service, is perfect or fixed forever.  Instead, we offer the best we can do at that time, while continuing product and service development, continuing to develop new technologies and ideas, and continuing, in other words, to make things better.  In management practice, we have gotten into the “it’s done” frame of mind, and do things everywhere or nowhere.  More testing, more experimenting, is useful.

Source

Jeffrey Pfeffer

Many of the studies of dispositions make virtually no effort to control for plausible situational factors that might also explain the results. An important consequence of failure to control for situational causes is that the unique effects of situations and dispositions become impossible to untangle, and there is the potential for misattributing situational effects to dispositional causes.

Source New direction for Organization theory, p36

Jeffrey Pfeffer & Robert Sutton

Point at solutions instead of at each other

Source: Pfeffer J. and Sutton, R.  (2006). Hard Facts, dangerous half-truths and absolute nonsense.

Jeffrey Sachs

Life doesn't come packaged perfectly.

Source: http://bit.ly/QKcfR

Jeff Hawkins

What we perceive is a combination of what we sense and of our brains' memory-derived predictions....'Prediction' means that the neurons involved in sensing .. become active in advance of actually receiving sensory input. When the sensory input does arrive, it is compared with what was expected....Correct predictions result in understanding....Incorrect predictions result in confusion and prompt you to pay attention....Prediction is not just one of the things your brain does. It is the primary function of the neocortex, and the foundationn of intelligence. 

Source: Hawkins, J. (2004). On intelligence. 

Jeff Hawkins

..the cortex's hierarchical structures stores a model of the hierarchical structure of the real world.  The real world's nested structure is mirrored by the nested structure of your cortex. 

Source: Hawkins, J. (2004). On intelligence. 

Jeff Hawkins

Prediction is the very definition of reality...reliable predictability is an ironclad way of knowing that different events in the world are physically tied together.  

Source: Hawkins, J. (2004). On intelligence. 

Jeff Hawkins

As strange as it sounds, when your own behavior is involved, your predictions not only precede sensation, they determine sensation. thinking of going to the next pattern in a sequence causes a cascading prediction of what you should experience next. As the cascading prediction unfolds, it generates the motor commands necessary to fulfill the prediction. Thinking, predicting, and doing are all part of the same unfolding of sequences moving down the cortical hierarchy. "Doing" by thinking, the parallel unfolding of perception and motor behavior, is the essence of what is called goal oriented behavior.  

Source: Hawkins, J. (2004). On intelligence. 

Jeff Hawkins

Motor behavior and sensory perception are highly interdependent....perception and behavior are almost one and the same......All behavior, whether it is the behavior of a human, a snail, a single-cell organism, or a tree, is a means of exploiting the structure of the world for the benefit of reproduction....At a fundamental level, everyday acts of perception are similar to the rare flights of brilliance.  

Source: Hawkins, J. (2004). On intelligence. 

Jeff Hawkins

Prediction by analogy -creativity- is so pervasive we normally don't notice it.  

Source: Hawkins, J. (2004). On intelligence. 

Jeff Hawkins

Whatever the difference between brilliant and average brains, we are all creative. And through practice and study we can enhance our skills and talents.  

Source: Hawkins, J. (2004). On intelligence. 

Jerry Fletcher

Abstract solutions are of little use in complex situations.

Source: Fletcher, J. (1993). Patterns of high performance, pxiii

Jerry Fletcher

People are like other people when they do ordinary, competent work. They become uniquely themselves when they do their best work

Source: Fletcher, J. (1993). Patterns of high performance, pxiii

Jim Collins

No matter how dramatic the end result, the good-to-great transformations never happened in one fell swoop. There was no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no wrenching revolution. Good to great comes about by a cumulative process -step by step, action by action, decision by decision, turn by turn of the flywheel, that adds up to sustained and spectacular results. 

Source: Collins, J. (2001). Good to Great. 

Jim Collins

We've allowed the way transitions look from the outside  to drive our perception of what they must feel like to those going through them on the inside. From the outside, they look like dramatic, almost revolutionary breakthroughs. But from the inside, they feel completely different, more like an organic development process. 

Source: Collins, J. (2001). Good to Great. 

Jim Collins

Tremendous power exists in the fact of continued improvement and the delivery of results.

Source: Collins, J. (2001). Good to Great. 

Jim Collins

It is only through consistency over time, through multiple generations, that you get maximum results. 

Source: Collins, J. (2001). Good to Great. 

Our words evoke images of what we hope to create and how we expect people to behave

Jim Loehr & Tony Schwartz

Every one of our thoughts, emotions and behaviors has an energy consequence, for better of for worse. 

Jim Stockdale

You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end -which you can never afford to lose- with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they may be. 

Source: Collins, J. (2001). Good to Great. 

Joan Bolker

It´s not inspiration but hard work that produces simple, elegant writing. 

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Erst in der Beschränkung zeigt sich der Meister

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Our desires are the harbringers of the skills and abilities that lie within us.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them become what they are capable of being

John Bargh

Source: Coyle, D. (2009). The talent code, p109

John Dewey

To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness.

John Medina

Most of human learning is controlled forgetting.

?

John Micklethwait & Adrian Wooldridge

The case against management theory has four legs: that it is constitutionally incapable of self-criticism; that its terminology usually confuses rather than educates; that it rarely rises above basic common sense; and that it is faddish and bedevilled by contradictions that would not be allowed in more rigorous disciplines.

Source: Micklethwait, J. & A. Wouldridge (1996). The Witch Doctors

John Ratey

...perception is much more than simply sensing stimuli form the outside world. It is a huge factor in personality development. Even the smallest perception problem can lead to a cascade of changes in a person's psychological life. 

Source: Ratey (2001), A user's guide to the brain, p53

John Ratey

Interacting with other intelligent and interesting people is one of the best ways to keep expanding your networks -in the brain and in society.

Source: Ratey (2001), A user's guide to the brain, p37

John Walter & Jane Peller

We do not believe that people have resources anymore than we believe that people have deficits...We believe that everyone is capable of doing what they need to do to get what they want. 

Source: Walter & Peller (1992). Becoming solution-focused in brief therapy. 

John Weakland

Influence is inherent in all human interaction. We are bound to influence our clients, and they are bound to influence us. The only choice is between doing so without reflection, or even with attempted denial, and doing so deliberately and responsibly. 

Source: Hoyt (2001). Interviews with brief therapy experts

John Wooden

Don't look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That's the only way it happens-and when it happens, it lasts. p170

Source: Coyle, D. (2009). The Talent Code

Joseph Badaracco

Preparation, caution, care and attention to detail are usually the best approach to everyday challenges.

Source: Badaracco (2002). Quiet leadership.

Joseph Badaracco

People who embrace complexity, in the world around them and insde themselves, are more likely to succeed at difficult everyday challenges than individuals who try to airbrush away these stubborn realities. 

Source: Badaracco (2002). Quiet leadership.

Joseph Badaracco

Motives are typically complicated and only partially visible, so it's easy for them to become the focus of endless speculation, interpretation, soul-searching, andnavel gazing. because motives are mixed and complicated, discussions of what they really should be can go on interminably.  

Source: Badaracco (2002). Quiet leadership.

Joseph Badaracco

Effective leaders accept complexities as a fact of life and don't look for shortcuts around them. They understand the saying 'In life, as in war, the shortest route is usually mined'. Hence, they often try to create a buffer zone before they decide or act. 

Source: Badaracco (2002). Quiet leadership.

Joshua Aronson e.a.

... irrespective of the truth - or what psychometricians believe to be the truth- there is very compelling evidence that what a student thinks about intelligence can have a powerful effect on his or her achievement.

Source: Aronson, Fried & Good (2001). Reducing the effects of stereortype threat on African American college students by shaping theories of intelligence.

Joshua Aronson

Source: Blakely Slater, Washington Square News, april 2, 2009. College isn’t for everyone, says author (link)

Karl Weick

It seems useful to consider the possibility that social problems seldom get solved because people define these problems in ways that overwhelm their ability to do anything about them.

Source: Weick, K.E. (1984)

Karl Weick

To be wise is to proceed anyway, knowing that your knowing is fallible and that whatever you do will shape what you face....

Source: Weick, K.E. (1998). The Attitude of Wisdom: Ambivalence as
the Optimal Compromise.

Kay-Yut Chen & Marina Krakovsky

Even so-called best practices may have better alternatives - and only by trying these alternatives do better practices ever emerge

Source: Secrets of the monylab, p5

Kay-Yut Chen & Marina Krakovsky

By always following established best practices, a person or organization will never find out if something else might work better. To innovate adn distinguish yourself from the pack - and to surpass your own personal best - you must take some risks, and to make these risks less risky, you can test out your ideas, keeping what works and abondoning what doesn't.

Source: Secrets of the monylab, p6

Lao-tzu

A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step

Lao-tzu

If I keep from commanding people, they behave themselves. If I keep from preaching at people, they improve themselves. If I keep from meddling with people, they take care of themselves. If I keep from imposing on people, they become themselves.

Source: Duncan (2005). What's right with you

Lao-tzu

Learn from the people / Plan with the people / Begin with what they have / Build on what they know / of the best leaders / When the task is accomplished / The people all remark / We have done it ourselves

Lao-tzu

It is better not to make merit a matter of reward. Lest people conspire and contend.

Source: Kohn (1993). Punished by rewards

Lauren Sosniak

What seems to be important in the home background is the knowledge of learning, and the value placed on it for its own sake, in terms of the enrichment of life, and not just for economic and social rewards.

 The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance

Leo Tolstoy

I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to collegues, which they have proudly taught to others and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives

Source: Jackson & McKergow (2002). The Solutions Focus : The S.I.M.P.L.E Way to Positive Change

Leonardo da Vinci

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication

Louis Pasteur

Laat me je het geheim vertellen dat me naar mijn doel heeft geleid. Mijn kracht ligt puur in mijn vasthoudendheid. 

Source: Lore, N (2006). Baanbreker

Lynda Gratton

To see organizations as potentially fertile grounds for the seeds of democracy to flourish, at a time when many of the flowers of nation-state democracy appear to be wilting. 

Source: Gratton, L. (2004). The Democratic Enterprise

Lynda Gratton

We have seen that the term democratic Enterprise does not have to be an oxymoron - a company can be both democratic and economically viable. 

Source: Gratton, L. (2004). The Democratic Enterprise

Ludwig Wittgenstein

The aspects of things that are most important to us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. One is unable to notice something because it is always before one’s eyes 

Source: Jackson & McKergow (2002). The Solutions Focus 

Mahatma Gandhi

A 'No' uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.

Source: Ury, W. (2007. The Power of A positive No

Mahatma Gandhi

... our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power which can move the world..... We must learn to respect anger as we do electricity.

Source: Ury, W. (2007. The Power of A positive No

Marcus Buckingham & Donald O. Clifton

You spend your whole life inside the frame of your strengths, so perhaps it is little wonder that after a while you become blind to them

Source: Buckingham, M. & D.O. Clifton (2001). Now, discover your strengths.

Marcel Proust

The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but seeing with new eyes

Marcus Buckingham & Donald O. Clifton

Guided by the belief that good is the opposite of bad, mankind has for centuries pursued its fixation with faut and failing.....This fixation with weakness is deeply routed in our education and upbringing

Source: Buckingham, M. & D.O. Clifton (2001). Now, discover your strengths.

Marcus Buckingham & Donald O. Clifton

Even seemingly negative traits can be called talents if they can be productively applied

Source: Buckingham, M. & D.O. Clifton (2001). Now, discover your strengths.

Malcolm Gladwell

We need to accept our ignorance and say 'I don't know' more often. 

Source: Gladwell, M. (2005) Blink, p71

Marilee Adams

Great results begin with great questions

Marilee Adams

A powerful question alters all thinking and behaving that occurs afterwards

Mark Twain

Blijf uit de buurt van mensen die je omlaag proberen te trekken. Kleine mensen doen dat, maar de echt groten geven je het gevoel dat ook jij groot kan worden.

Mark Twain

To succeed in life you need two things: ignorance and confidence

Mark Twain

It ain´t what you don´t know that gets you into trouble. It´s what you know for sure that just ain´t so

Source: Lore, N (2006). Baanbreker

Martin Seligman & Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 

... a complete science of human behavior should include understanding not only about what is but also what could be.

Source: Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000

Mary Parker Follett

The basis of all cooperative activity is integrated diversity

Matt Ridley

Just as trade between countries is the best recipe for friendship between them, so exchange between enfranchised and empowered individuals is the best recipe for co-operation. We must encourage social and material exchange between equals, for that is the raw material of trust, and trust is the foundation of virtue.

Source: Ridley, M. (1998). the origins of virtue.

Matt Ridley

But what is cause? The causes of human experience include genes, accidents, infections, birth order, teachers, parents, circumstance, opportunity, and chance, to name just the most obvious.[..] I hope to throw the whole notion of "cause" into confusion. 

Ridley, M. (2003). Nature via nurture. 

Matt Ridley

In my experience, scientists are most often wrong when they are being critical of each other. 

Ridley, M. (2003). Nature via nurture. 

Matt Ridley

The old public accounting principle for how to handle a government grant -"use it or lose it"- seems to apply to the mind as well.

Ridley, M. (2003). Nature via nurture. 

Matt Ridley

The "environment" is not some real, inflexible thing: it is a unique set of influences actively chosen by the actor himself or herself. 

Ridley, M. (2003). Nature via nurture. 

Matt Ridley

Is it the gene or the ice cream that causes fatness? Well, it is obviously both. the genes are causing the individual to go out and exposehimself to and environment factor, in this case ice cream. Surely it is bound to be the same in the case of intelligence. The genes are likely to be affecting appetite more than aptitude. They do not make you intelligent; they make you more likely to enjoy learning. Because you enjoy it, you spend more time doing it and you grow more clever. Nature can act only via nurture. It can act only by nudging people to seek out the environmental influences that will satisfy their appetites. The environment acts as a multiplier of small generic differences, pushing athletic children toward the sports that reward them and pushing bright children toward the books that reward them.

Ridley, M. (2003). Nature via nurture. 

Matt Ridley

Genes are enablers and not constrainers. People tend to think about genes as being constraints on what human beings can do. In fact, that's a very misleading way of looking at it. What's happened is that genetic changes are necessary to enable kinds of learning, to enable kinds of nurture, and to enable kinds of experience to get into the organism. In that sense genes are just as important  a part of nurture as they are the story of nurture. When you start to see it that way, you can resolve the old nature versus nurture debate, and yuo can instead start to talk about nature via nurture instead.

Interview with Matt Ridley: the genome changes everything. taken from www.edge.org

Matt Ridley

... behavior affects genes. It doesn't change the code of the gene, and it doesn't change the encoded genome. Sure, you can change your encoded genome by having a mutational accident, by flying in an airplane and having cosmic rays damage your DNA. But what I'm talking about is changing the expression of genes through things you do in your life. The encoded genome is a set of DNA. The expressed genome is the RNA that;s translated fromt it and then made into proteins. That process of expressing the encoded genome is controlled by transciption factors and all these other things that interact with the promoters, which turn the genes on and off and turn the volume of the the genes up and down like thermostat switches, or whatever analogy you want to use. That process is itself at the mercy of the way we behave because you can do things in your life that litterally lead you to alter the expression of genes.

Interview with Matt Ridley: the genome changes everything. taken from www.edge.org

Matt Ridley

... but the one thing I'm absolutely sure of is that if you go and look at the history of the nature-nurture debate-from Galton, through the 20th century, through Lysenko, Skinner, Watson on one side of the fence, and Chomsky, and people on the other side- you find that it's always very useful to pay attention to what people are saying about their own theories. It's very misleading to pay attention to what people are saying about each other's theories. On the whole, people have been pushing each other into extreme positions that they don't occupy, saying, "look, I'm in the middel of the road. He's the guy who's on the verge. He's the extremist.

Interview with Matt Ridley: the genome changes everything. taken from www.edge.org

Michael Marquardt

Scherpzinnige leiders gebruiken vragen om volledige participatie en teamwork aan te moedigen, om innovatie en outside-the-box denken aan te sporen, om anderen zelfredzamer te maken, om relaties met klanten te bouwen, om problemen op te lossen en meer. Recent onderzoek - en de ervaring van een groeiend aantal organisaties - wijst nu naar de conclusie dat de meest succesvolle leiders leiden met vragen en zij gebruiken vragen frequenter. Succesvolle leiders scheppen de condities en omgeving om vragen te stellen en bevraagd te worden. Toen het Center for Creative Leadership 191 succesvolle topmanagers onderzocht, ontdekten haar onderzoekers dat de sleutel tot het succes van de topmanagers was het scheppen van gelegenheden om vragen te stellen en vervolgens vragen te stellen. 

Source

Michael Schermer

All inventions have quirky beginnings. (p53)

Source: Schermer, M. (2007). The mind of the market

Milton Erickson

The problem isn't trying to adapt therapy to that particular [diagnostic] classification, but: What potentialities does the patient disclose to you of their capacity to do this or to do that?

Source: De Shazer (1994). Words were originally magic

Milton Erickson

Every time he made a mistake in his work, what interesed me always was the procedure by which it was corrected - never the details of how he made the error.

Source: O'Hanlon & Wiener Davis (2003) In search of solutions

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

What we pay attention to, and how we pay attention, determine the content and quality of life

Source: Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2003). Good Business.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

In the flow state, action follows upon action according to an internal logic that seems to need no conscious intervention by the actor. He experiences it as a unified flowing from one moment to the next, in which he is in control of his actions, and in which there is little distincion between self and environment, between stimulus and response, or between past, present, and future

Source: Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2003). Good Business.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

To have a good life, it is not enough to remove what is wrong with it. We also need a positive goal, otherwise why keep going? 

Source: Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2003). Good Business.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The best moments [in our lives] usually occur when a person´s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. 

Source: Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2003). Good Business.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Flow tends to occur when a person´s skills are fully involved in overcoming a challenge that is just about manageable

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Every day, the happy person does at least one difficult thing

Source: Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2003). Good Business.

Natan Sharansky

Promoting peace and security is fundamentally connected to promoting freedom and democracy.

Sharansky, N. (2004. The Case for Democracy. 

Natan Sharansky

I am convinced that all peoples desire to be free. I am convinced that freedom anywhere will make the world safer everywhere. 

Sharansky, N. (2004. The Case for Democracy. 

Natan Sharansky

There may be individuals in every society who do prefer war to peace. They may stand to profit from war or their bellicosity may be the product of a fanatical ideology that rejects peace or of systematic brainwashing. But t is highly doubtful that one could find a majority of any people on the planet who would choose death over life..... While the mechanics of democracy make democracies inherently peaceful, the mechanics of tyranny make nondemocracies inherently belligerent. 

Sharansky, N. (2004. The Case for Democracy. 

Natan Sharansky

A regime based on fear must maintain increasingly tight control over its population to remain in power, and such control inevitably triggers a process of decay.  

Sharansky, N. (2004. The Case for Democracy. 

Natan Sharansky

The free world should not wait for dictatorial regimes to consent to reform. 

Sharansky, N. (2004. The Case for Democracy. 

Natan Sharansky

...we must believe not only that all people are created equal but also that all peoples are created equal.

Sharansky, N. (2004. The Case for Democracy. 

Nelson Mandela (1964)

During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which Ihope to live for and to achieve. But if need bee, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

Source: Ury, W. (2007. The Power of A positive No

Nelson Mandela (1994)

the exchange between Mr.  de Klerk and me should not obscure one important fact. I think we are a shining example to the entire world of people drawn from different racial groups who have a common loyalty, a common love, to their common country.... In spite of my criticism of Mr. de Klerk, sir, you are one of those I rely upon. We are going to face the problems of this country together. I am proud to hold your hand for us to go forward.

Source: Ury, W. (2007. The Power of A positive No

Niels Bohr

Everything I say must be understood not as an affirmation but as a question. 

Cited in Capra, 1988, p18

Noel Tichy

Many executives close off learning. In their day-to-day interactions with staff they are usually issuing instructions or making judgments about the ideas or performance of others. By telling rather than asking they are actually making their organizations less smart, less aligned, and less energized every day…. Asking lots of questions opens new doors to new ideas, which ultimately contributes to your competitive edge

Oliver Wendell Holmes

I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity. But I'd give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.

Patrick Kelly (PSS World Medical)

No business goal is worth sacrificing your values

Source: O'Reilly, C. & J. Peffer (2000). Hidden Value. 

Paul McCartney

We don't need anybody else to tell us what is real

Source: Somedays, Flaming Pie, Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney

There are a lot of things that aren't great about modern life, but I still feel there's a lot of stuff that is. And I try to focus on that and try to encourage people to look for the good in each other and address the best.

Source: Interview with Paul McCartney by David Horovitz

Paul Fletovich, Michael Prietula, and Anders Ericsson

There is little transfer from high-level proficiency in one domain to proficiency in other domains - even when the domains seem, intuitively, very similar.

 The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance

Paul Fletovich, Michael Prietula, and Anders Ericsson

Automaticity is central to the development of expertise, and practice is the means to automaticity [...] Through the act of practice (with appropriate feedback, monitoring, etc.), the character of cognitive operations changes in a manner that (a) improves the speed of the operations, (b) improves the smoothness of the operations, and (c) reduces the cognitive demands of the operations, this releasing cognitive (e.g. attentional) resources for other (often higher) functions (e.g. planning, self-monitoring).

 The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance

Peter Block

The way to decrease someone´s dependency on us is to keep clear that their future is in their hands

Peter Drucker

Do not try to change yourself -you are unlikely to succeed. Work to improve the way you perform. 

Peter Drucker

My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions. 

www.squarewise.nl

Peter Drucker

The leader of the past was a person who told. The leader of the future will be a person who asks. 

Source: Marilee adams?

Peter De Jong

We have to be patient. We are not in control of when the change is going to happen.

Remark made during EBTA congres 2004

Peter Senge

All great things must have small beginnings.

Ralph W. Sockman

The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder

Philip Ball

There is a strong tradition in social sciences of creating psychological models of phenomena - that is, trying to understand social behaviour on the basis of individual psychology. ...it makes the unwarranted assumption that social behavior is a straight forward extrapolation of individual behaviour. It seems that this is often not the case at all: that the behaviour of a group - how it organizes itself into insitutions, for example -cannot be deduced or predicted from the predilections of an individual....once individual agents ...start to interact, completely new collective modes of behaviour can aris.  

Source: The Physics of Instiutions

Randy Newman

It's just amazing how fair people can be

Source: Randy Newman, Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bear

Richard Dawkins

If we follow a particular recipe, word for word, in a cookery book, what finally emerges from the oven is a cake. We cannot now break the cake into its component crumbs and say: this crumb corresponds to the first word in the recipe; this crumb corresponds to the second word in the recipe.

Source: Ridley, M. (2003). Nature via nurture. 

Richard Dawkins

... organized complexity can emerge from simple beginnings without any deliberate guidance.

Source: Dawkins (2006). The God Delusion, p116 

Richard Dawkins

... evolution counters one of the oldest ideas we have: the idea that it takes a big fancy smart thing to make a lesser thing....

Source: Dawkins (2006). The God Delusion, p117

Richard Dawkins

We have four good Darwinian reasons for individuals to be altruistic, generous or 'moral' towards each other. First, there is the special case of generic kinship. Second, there is reciprocation: the repayment of favours given, and the giving of favours in 'anticipation' of payback. Following on from this there is, third, the Darwinian benefit of acquiring a reputation for generosity and kindness. And fourth.. there is the particular additional benefit of conspicious generosity as a way of buying unfakeably authentic advertising.

Source: Dawkins (2006). The God Delusion. 

Richard Feynman

I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things but I am not absolutely sure of anything and many things I don't know anything about.... I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things.

Source: BBC, 1981, The pleasure of finding things out

Richard Feynman

I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there

Richard Pascale

Adults are much more likely to act their way into a new way of thinking than to think their way into a new way of acting.

found: Ibarra, H. (2004)Working identiy p2

Richard Wagner

Expertise is not acquired cheaply. It requires intense effort, sustained motivation, and sufficient resources, all applied for a decade or more

Robert Arvey

While we pursue the unattainable, we make impossible the realizable.” 

Brinkerhoff, R.O. (2003). the Success Case Method.

Rita Baily

Source

Robert Axelrod

The foundation of cooperation is not really trust, but the durability of the relationship. Whether the players trust each other or not is less important in the long run than whether the conditions are ripe for them to build a stable pattern of cooperation with each other. 

Axelrod, R. (1984). The Evolution of Cooperation. 

Robert O. Brinkerhoff

Successful practices can go unrecognized for years....

Brinkerhoff, R.O. (2003). the Success Case Method.

Robert Frank

People who are intrinsically motivated to adhere to ethical norms often prosper in competitive environments.

Source: Frank, R. (2004) What price the moral high ground? Pviii

Robert Frank

Firms confront many of the same kinds of social dilemmas that ordinary people do. Purely self-interested persons often cannot make the kinds of commitments necessary to solve these dilemmas, and it turns out that the same is true of purely self-interested firms.

Source: Frank, R. (2004) What price the moral high ground? Px

Robert Frank

While moral behavior can emerge spontaneously in competitive environments, the way we structure those environments strongly affects the amount of moral behavior we actually observe.

Source: Frank, R. (2004) What price the moral high ground? Pxi

Robert Frank

People can often promote their own narrow ends more effectively by pursuing certain goals that are in clear conflict with self-interest. This idea is a special case of the broader notion that people can often improve their lot by making commitments that foreclose valuable options.

Source: Frank, R. (2004) What price the moral high ground? p4

Robert Frank

I now believe that the search for a reliable trading partner is not a quest to identify an indiscriminately trustworthy individual, but rather a process of creating conditions that make us more likely to elicit cooperative tendencies in one another.

Source: Frank, R. (2004) What price the moral high ground? p13

Robert Frank

In the course of social and economic interaction, we confront many problems in which the conscious, direct pursuit of self-interest is self-defeating.

Source: Frank, R. (2004) What price the moral high ground? p111

Robert Frank

The mere possibility of spontaneous, self-sustaining moral behavior is a profoundly optimistic notion. But we must be careful not to become intoxicated by it. In particular, it provides no reason whatever to just sit back and allow events to unfold.

Source: Frank, R. (2004) What price the moral high ground? p186

Robert Frank

Our beliefs about human nature help shape human nature itself

Source: Frank, R. (2004) What price the moral high ground? p54

Robert Frank

In the course of social and economic interaction, we confront many problems in which the conscious, direct pursuit of self-interest is self-defeating.  

Source: Frank, R. (2004) What price the moral high ground?

Robert Frank

Because there are obvious limits to the ability of laws and norms to regulate human behavior, it is an encouraging prospect that pro-social behavior can emerge spontaneously and become self-sustaining. Yet, the mere fact that people can be good in the absence of external rewards and sanctions provides no reason to think that laws, norms, and regulations are unnecessary...I caution against thinking that we need not ferret out and punish wrongdoers aggresively. 

Source: Frank, R. (2004) What price the moral high ground?

Robert Frank

The conflict between individual and group is far more widespread than commonly believed.

Frank, R. (2000). Luxury Fever.

Robert Frank

Both the things we feel we need and the things available for us to buy depend largely - beyond some point, almost entirely- on the things that others choose to buy. 

Frank, R. (2000). Luxury Fever.

Robert Frank

Contrary to popular impressions, the path toward environmental progress lies not in policies that curtail economic growth but in those that stimulate it.

Frank, R. (2000). Luxury Fever.

Robert Fritz

Simplicity takes discipline; it takes saying no to things that might be attractive, interesting, and fascinating. It takes a great deal of considered thought. 

Fritz, R. (2004). Simplify, Simplify, Simplify.

Robert Fritz

It is hard to accomplish real and lasting change when the motivation is to get rid of problems or avoid difficulties. The reverse is also true: it is easier to change when the motivation is to create outcomes you want. It is easier to generate momentum when you are building toward a desired future. It is easier to be in favor of what you want than be against what you don’t want. 

Fritz, R. (2004). Changing the Structure of Eating

Robert Maurer

Whatever question you use, your challenge is to ask it with a gentle and patient spirit.

Source

Robert Sternberg

When you have a creative new idea or program, don't expect people to come running to you. If they do, beware of the poison darts!

Source: Sternberg, R.  (1995). Defying the crowd. 

Robert Sternberg

The traditional model [of intelligence] may be a cause of rather than a potential answer to educational problems, in particular, and societal problems, in general.

Source: Sternberg, R.  (1998). Abilities are forms of developing expertise. Educatinoal Researcher, 27, 11-20 

Robert L. Stevenson

In every part and corner of our life, to lose oneself is to be a gainer, to forget oneself is to be happy.

Source: Meyers, D.G. (1992). The Pursuit of happiness.

Robert Wright

Human history involve[s] the playing of ever more numerous, ever larger and ever more elaborate non-zero-sum games.

Source: Wright (2001). Nonzero : The Logic of Human Destiny

Robyn Dawes

Responsible practitioners should practice with a cautious, open and questioning attitude.

Source: Dawes (1994, P31). House of Cards

Robyn Dawes

Professional psychologists not only claim to have expertise they don't have, they claim to have insight into how people should think, feel and behave..... the profession of psychology has promoted a simplistic philosophy of life. This philosophy maintains that the purpose of life is to maximize one's mental health, which is dependent wholly on self-esteem.

Source: Dawes (1994, P31). House of Cards

Robyn Dawes

To accomplish change, it is not necessary to feel wonderful about ourselves first.

Source: Dawes (1994, P31). House of Cards

Robyn Dawes

We do not have to feel wonderful about ourselves and the world in order to engage in behavior that is peronally and socially beneficial.

Source: Dawes (1994, P293). House of Cards

Roger C. Schank

Terwijl antwoorden minder waard worden, worden vragen meer waard

Source: Brockman, J. (2002). de komende vijftig jaar.

Roger Fisher & Daniel Shapiro

Perhaps the most powerful way to soothe someone's emotions is to appreciate their concerns. People often want you to realize that they are angry or upset - and to see the merit in their concerns. Until you appreciate their experience, the intensity of those emotions is unlikely to diminish.... There are three elements in appreciating someone. You want to understand the other's point of view; find merit in what they are thinking, feeling, or doing; and communicate the merit you see.

Source: Fisher & Shapiro (2005): Beyond Reason

Roger Fisher & Daniel Shapiro

To appreciate does not mean to give in.

Source: Fisher & Shapiro (2005): Beyond Reason

Ronald Bassman

To be effective in the service you provide for a consumer ..., it is imperative that you see the individual, and value that special individual by engaging in a collaborative search to find understanding, meaning, and connectin in this person's unfolding life narrative.

Source: Ronald Bassman (1999)

Ronald Reagan

Trust, but verify

Source: Frank, R. (2004) What price the moral high ground?

Ronald Ritchart

What if we viewed smartness as a goal that students can work toward rather than as something they either have or don't?

Source: Ritchart, R. (2002). Intellectual Character

Ronald Ritchart

Inert ability that lies dormant and must be specifically provoked, is not a very useful barometer of intelligence. Instead, we need to look at ability in action.

Source: Ritchart, R. (2002). Intellectual Character

Sam Harris

There are facts about well-being that await our discovery

Salman Rushdie

It's a more important question to ask yourself what you would fight for rather than what you would fight against.

Source: interview on Nova, Dutch television, 19 aug 2005

Samuel Butler

To do great work, a person must be very idle as a well as very industrious.

Source: Meyers, D.G. (1992). The Pursuit of happiness.

Samuel Smiles

An intense anticipation itself transforms possibility into reality+ our desires being often but precursors of the things which we are capable of performing.

Source: Duncan )2005'. What´s right with you

Schneider, Goldstein & Smith

The situation is not independent of the people in the setting; the situation is the people....Structure, process, and culture are the outcome of the people in an organization, not the cause of the behavior of the organization. 

Seneca

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable

Seneca

If you have high expectations of how smoothly life will glide forward every day, you will be routinely disappointed and therefore prone to anger. Lower those expectations, and the world becomes a less frustrating and therefore more delightful place.

in Derren Brown: confessions of a conjurer

Stephen Hawking

I don't demand that a theory correspond to reality because I don't know what it is. Reality is not a quality you can test with litmus paper. All I'm concerned with is that the theory should predict the results of measurements.

Source: Michael Shermer (2005). The key to the Universe. Review of The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose.

Steve de Shazer

Only masters, such as Milton H. Erickson or Insoo Kim Berg, can put aside technique - since the techniques have become second nature to them. This allows them to use their highly trained "intuition" to invent new approaches and techniques. For me, and I suspect for most therapists, techniques are necessary so that I know what to do and when to do it. Without techniques I would not know what to do and thus I would just sit there and do nothing - just as I would if given a cello....For me, at least, it is also a matter of convenience; since I know exactly what I am going to say, I do not need to spend time and energy figuring out how to word the question and thus I am free to be able to watch and listen to the client as I am asking the MQ and am totally ready to be able to watch and listen to the client's response. If I had to figure it out each time, I would lose the ability to watch and listen since I cannot think (talk to myself) and listen at the same time.

Source: BFTC site 

Steve de Shazer

Just take what you've got, no matter how incomplete and inconsistent and even incoherent it appears. You've got what you've got. 

Source: Hoyt (2001). Interviews with brief therapy experts

Steve de Shazer

It's good to know what doesn't work, but it's really helpful to know what does. 

Source: Hoyt (2001). Interviews with brief therapy experts

Steve de Shazer

The danger of reading between the lines is that there might be nothing there. So you've just got to listen to what the client says. 

Source: Hoyt (2001). Interviews with brief therapy experts

Steve de Shazer

A client tells you they've got a problem, then they've got a problem, and you better take it seriously. You also better take it seriously if they tell you they ain't got a problem. 

Source: Hoyt (2001). Interviews with brief therapy experts

Steve de Shazer

I know what I don't want, and that's for anybody to develop some sort of rigid orthodoxies.

Source: Hoyt (2001). Interviews with brief therapy experts

Steve de Shazer

What I see sometimes is the amateurs, so to speak - the beginners, who somehow think more is better and therefore, they give this endless stream of compliments and bore the client silly with them and therefore the client stops taking them seriously. That's one thing I see happen with beginners, in particular. There's just too damn many compliments, and that will drive the client away. 

Source: Hoyt (2001). Interviews with brief therapy experts

Steve de Shazer

...We come to the conclusion that paradoxical interventions were unnecessary for several reasons, the main one being that we aren't trying to stop anything. Paradoxical interventions are designed to stop something.... What we are doing is trying to start something or increase the frequency of something. So there's no need for paradoxical interventions.

Source: Hoyt (2001). Interviews with brief therapy experts

Steve de Shazer

Now, the easiest thing to do with exceptions is to sweep them under the rug and to forget them. 

Source: Hoyt (2001). Interviews with brief therapy experts

Steve de Shazer

..we looked through the looking glass and were shocked by what we saw. At first it was incredible, unbelievable. We were amazed that we made so surprising a discovery, or better, we were amazed that we had invented something so astonishing. What we observed was so somple and obvious and so easy to see, since it was right on the surface and had long been readily available to any observer; yet it had remained hidden away by the objectivity of modern science.

Source: Words were originally magic

Steve de Shazer

You can never know which story is true; you can never know what is really real.  

Source: Words were originally magic

Steve de Shazer

..understanding is not as easy as it looks.

Source: Words were originally magic

Steve de Shazer

I was certain that a rule-based approach would eventually work. And certainly this approach has proved fruitful. Since the, my colleagues and I have been able to construct a rather elegant and strikingly simple yet rather comprehensive model using this approach to theory construction and model building.... ...as part of our project we learned that exceptions are at least as important as the rules, if not more so.

Source: Words were originally magic

Socrates

Let him who would move the world first move himself

the Talmud

We don´t see things as they are, we see things as we are

Timothy Gallwey

It takes a lot of attention to really understand what is being said by another person. Even in the transfer of simple information it has been well established by researchers that people genereally don´t hear what others are saying. We hear what we expect to hear

Source: Gallwey, T. (2001). The inner game of work.

Timothy Gallwey

Focus is the quintessential component of superior performance in every activity, no matter what the level of skill or the age of the performer

Source: Gallwey, T. (2001). The inner game of work.

Timothy Gallwey

Focus follows interest, and interest does not need coercion. A gentle hand on the steering wheel of attention will suffice

Source: Gallwey, T. (2001). The inner game of work.

Timothy Rowe

You can always take any given situation and dissect it, and there´s always a finger pointing in another direction. You begin to realize that it´s useless to even dissect the reasons why something didn´t work out

Source: Gordon, W. (1961). Synectics: the development of creative capacity. 

Tom Rath & Donald O'Clifton

Shine a light on what's right.

Source: Rath. T. & Clifton, D.O. (2004). How full is your buckett?

Umberto Eco

'Als ik iemand schuldig heb bevonden', verklaarde William, 'had die persoon werkelijk zodanige misdaden begaan dat ik hem met een gerust geweten aan de wereldlijke arm kon overdragen'. De abt was even van zijn stuk gebracht. 'Waarom', vroeg hij, 'spreekt u steeds weer over misdaden zonder u over hun duivelse oorsprong uit te laten?' 'Ömdat het redeneren over oorzaak en gevolg een zeer moeilijk zaak is en ik geloof dat alleen God daarin een oordeel kan vellen. Het valt ons al zwaar genoeg verband te leggen tussen een zo duidleijk gevolg als een verbrande boom en de bliksem die hem heeft doen ontbranden; daarom lijkt het teruggaan langs soms zeer lange ketens van oorzaak en gevolg me even dwaas als het pogen een toren te bouwen die tot de hemel reikt.' ...Langs zulke eenvoudige ketens van oorzaken kan mijn brein met een zeker vertrouwen in eigen kracht te werk gaan. Maar hoe kan ik die keten ingewikkelder maken door me voor te stellen dat er bij het veroorzaken van de euveldaad nog een factor in het spel is en ditmaal niet een menselijke maar een duivesle? ik zeg niet dat het niet mogleijk is ... [m]aar waarom moet ik deze bewijzen zoeken?'

Bron: Eco (2003). De naam van de Roos, 47e druk

Umberto Eco

En wat ik toen in de abdij zag ... heeft me tot de overtuiging gebracht dat het vaak de inquisiteurs zijn die ketters kweken. Niet alleen in de zin dat ze ketters zien waar ze niet zijn, maar ook dat ze de etterhaarden van ketterij met zoveel geweld onderdrukken dat velen er juist uit haat tegen hen toe worden aangezet.

Bron: Eco (2003). De naam van de Roos, 47e druk

Vincent van Gogh

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.

Walter Scott

All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education

William Bateson

Treasure your exceptions! When there are none, the work gets so dull that no one cares to carry it further. Keep them always uncovered and in sight. Exceptions are like the rough brickwork of a growing building which tell you there is more to come and shows where the next construction will be. 

William Graham Sumner

Men educated in [the critial habit of thought] ... are slow to believe. They can hold things as possible or probable in all degrees without certainty and without pain

found: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNDZb0KtJDk&feature=recentf

William Isaacs

...the most important parts of any conversation are those that neither party could have imagined before starting.

Source: Isaacs (1999). Dialogue and the art of thinking together.

William James

How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.

William James

The greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it

William James

Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind

William James

If we wish to conquer undesirable emotional tendencies in ourselves we must assiduously, and in the first instance cold-bloodedly, go through the outward motions of those contrary dispositions we prefer to activate.

Source: Meyers, D.G. (1992). The Pursuit of happiness.

William James

Nature implants contrary impulses to act on many classes of things, and leaves it to slight alterations in the conditions of the individual case to decide which impulse shall carry the day. Thus, the greediness and suspicion, curiosity and timidity, coyness and desire, bashfulness and vanity, sociability and pugnacity, seem to shoot over into each other as quickly, and to remain in as unstable equilibrium, in the higher birds and mammals as in man...

Source: James, W. (1890). The Principles of Psychology. 

William James

Our acts of voluntary attending, as brief and fitful as they are, are nevertheless momentous and critical, determining us, as they do, to higher or lower destinies

William James

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help you create the fact

William James

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

William James

I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man's pride.

William Shakespeare (Hamlet)

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so

William of Ockham

It is vain to do more what can be done with fewer

Source: Jackson & McKergow (2002). The Solutions Focus : The S.I.M.P.L.E Way to Positive Change

William of Ockham

Plurality should not be assumed without necessity

Source: Jackson & McKergow (2002). The Solutions Focus : The S.I.M.P.L.E Way to Positive Change

Winston Churchill

Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb

Yvonne Dolan

The questions we ask shape the answers our clients give us. Questions are the key to helping clients begin to change the story; they can subtly shift the way the story unfolds, like a gentle, soothing breeze that one hardly notices. A few well-phrased questoins can express our assumption of client competence.

Source: Berg, IK & Dolan, Y. (2001) Tales of Solutions.