Ed Norton Quotes

We moved like angels washing themselves. We moved like two birds on fire. — Anne Sexton, from “How We Danced” in “The Death of the Fathers,” The Norton Anthology of American Literature, ed. Baym et al, 5th edition, Volume 2, (New York and London: W. W. Norton & Co., 1998)

The phenomenon of music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the co-ordination between man [sic] and time." Igor Stravinsky, quoted in DeLone et. al. (Eds.) (1975). Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0130493465, Ch. 3. from Igor Stravinsky' Autobiography (1962). New York: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., p. 54.

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.

Performance measure. Throughout this book, the term performance measure refers to an indicator used by management to measure, report, and improve performance. Performance measures are classed as key result indicators, result indicators, performance indicators, or key performance indicators. Critical success factors (CSFs). CSFs are the list of issues or aspects of organizational performance that determine ongoing health, vitality, and wellbeing. Normally there are between five and eight CSFs in any organization. Success factors. A list of 30 or so issues or aspects of organizational performance that management knows are important in order to perform well in any given sector/ industry. Some of these success factors are much more important; these are known as critical success factors. Balanced scorecard. A term first introduced by Kaplan and Norton describing how you need to measure performance in a more holistic way. You need to see an organization’s performance in a number of different perspectives. For the purposes of this book, there are six perspectives in a balanced scorecard (see Exhibit 1.7). Oracles and young guns. In an organization, oracles are those gray-haired individuals who have seen it all before. They are often considered to be slow, ponderous, and, quite frankly, a nuisance by the new management. Often they are retired early or made redundant only to be rehired as contractors at twice their previous salary when management realizes they have lost too much institutional knowledge. Their considered pace is often a reflection that they can see that an exercise is futile because it has failed twice before. The young guns are fearless and precocious leaders of the future who are not afraid to go where angels fear to tread. These staff members have not yet achieved management positions. The mixing of the oracles and young guns during a KPI project benefits both parties and the organization. The young guns learn much and the oracles rediscover their energy being around these live wires. Empowerment. For the purposes of this book, empowerment is an outcome of a process that matches competencies, skills, and motivations with the required level of autonomy and responsibility in the workplace. Senior management team (SMT). The team comprised of the CEO and all direct reports. Better practice. The efficient and effective way management and staff undertake business activities in all key processes: leadership, planning, customers, suppliers, community relations, production and supply of products and services, employee wellbeing, and so forth. Best practice. A commonly misused term, especially because what is best practice for one organization may not be best practice for another, albeit they are in the same sector. Best practice is where better practices, when effectively linked together, lead to sustainable world-class outcomes in quality, customer service, flexibility, timeliness, innovation, cost, and competitiveness. Best-practice organizations commonly use the latest time-saving technologies, always focus on the 80/20, are members of quality management and continuous improvement professional bodies, and utilize benchmarking. Exhibit 1.10 shows the contents of the toolkit used by best-practice organizations to achieve world-class performance. EXHIBIT 1.10 Best-Practice Toolkit Benchmarking. An ongoing, systematic process to search for international better practices, compare against them, and then introduce them, modified where necessary, into your organization. Benchmarking may be focused on products, services, business practices, and processes of recognized leading organizations.

Ekman, P. (2009). Telling lies: Clues to deceit in the marketplace, politics, and marriage (4th ed.). New York: Norton. [A great deal of information about lying and its detection.]

Iron Man‘s success more than made up for that July’s Incredible Hulk. The result of Marvel’s most difficult production right up to the present, the second Hulk film starred Ed Norton, who proved a terrible fit for Maisel and Feige’s philosophy that studio executives should be the ultimate creative authority. Undeniably one of the best actors of his generation, Norton is also famous in Hollywood for being “difficult” and highly opinionated, refusing to allow artistic choices he disagrees with and seeking to rewrite scripts he doesn’t like, which is what he did on The Incredible Hulk. The clashes intensified in post-production, and the director, Louis Letterier, sided with Norton over the studio. They both learned who has the ultimate power at Marvel, though, when Feige took control of editing. He excised many of the darkest scenes, including a suicide attempt meant to portray how much the scientist Bruce Banner wants to rid himself of the curse of transforming into the Hulk when he’s mad. The resulting movie was still darker and more dramatic than any other Marvel Studios production and not different enough from the Hulk movie of 2003. It grossed only $263 million at the box office and barely broke even, the worst performance for any Marvel Studios film to date. The Incredible Hulk never got a sequel, but the character has returned in Avengers films, played by the easygoing Mark Ruffalo. The usually cheerful Feige stated that the decision to recast the role was “rooted in the need for an actor who embodies the creativity and collaborative spirit of our other talented cast members.

It begins with the soft despair of aloneness. Not loneliness, aloneness, staring at the wilderness within ourselves. It begins with the wild places hidden in the corners of our hearts. IT ENDS WITH … it never ends. There is no map for this wilderness, no end to the exploration—for how else do we measure anything but against ourselves, over and over and over again? — Cheryl Merrill, from “Wild Life,” Brief Encounters: A Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction, eds. Judith Kitchen and Dinah Lenney (W. W. Norton & Co., 2015)

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