Excellence And Innovation Quotes

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Many of the innovative companies got their best product ideas from customers. That comes from listening, intently and regularly.
Tom Peters (In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies)
In every company which I have done strategic planning, the number-one value people choose is always integrity. The second values may be quality of products and services, caring about people, excellent customer service, profitability , innovation, entrepreneurship, and others. But integrity always comes first.
Brian Tracy (Reinvention: How to Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life)
Don't run with the crowd; fly with the stars.
Matshona Dhliwayo
In peace-armies discipline meant the hunt, not of an average but of an absolute; the hundred per cent standard in which the ninety-nine were played down to the level of the weakest man on parade…. The deeper the discipline, the lower was the individual excellence; also the more sure the performance. – T. E. Lawrence Seven Pillars of Wisdom
T.E. Lawrence (Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph)
Do what no one else can do and you will become what no one else can become.
Matshona Dhliwayo
In contrast, investing time and energy in your relationship with your spouse and children typically doesn’t offer that same immediate sense of achievement. Kids misbehave every day. It’s really not until 20 years down the road that you can put your hands on your hips and say, “I raised a good son or a good daughter.” You can neglect your relationship with your spouse, and on a day-to-day basis, it doesn’t seem as if things are deteriorating. People who are driven to excel have this unconscious propensity to underinvest in their families and overinvest in their careers—even though intimate and loving relationships with their families are the most powerful and enduring source of happiness.
Clayton M. Christensen (The Innovator's Dilemma with Award-Winning Harvard Business Review Article ?How Will You Measure Your Life?? (2 Items))
Power as a beneficial tool for aspiring achievers is primarily made up into four folds; 1. Power to control emotions, 2. Power to make right decisions, 3. Power to stand against depression, 4. Power to excel in innovations.
Israelmore Ayivor
Talent silences your competition; genius deafens them.
Matshona Dhliwayo
An entrepreneur is a leader of excellence, trailblazer and pioneer who constantly brings change to their generation.
Onyi Anyado
Entrepreneur, if you're going to start up, make sure you start up with excellence in mind
Onyi Anyado
If records refuse to be broken, shatter them.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Works from the soul transcend works from the mind.
Matshona Dhliwayo
It's excellence in leadership when everyone wants to manufacture a black shoe and you manufacture a designer black shoe with gold medal on top. Do something new; do something better!
Israelmore Ayivor
Don't go through life with a closed mind. Allow innovations and creativity to flow. We should always challenge ourselves to excel in more ways than one. Be open to ideas or suggestions on how to improve. And, the chances of reaching your goals will increase enormously.
Amaka Imani Nkosazana
Innovation and implementation are important as strategies and excellence.
Anyaele Sam Chiyson (The Sagacity of Sage)
When you marry operating excellence with innovation, you multiply the value of your creativity.
James C. Collins (Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck—Why Some Thrive Despite Them All)
Data has no ego and makes an excellent co-pilot.
Jay Samit (Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation)
Entrepreneur, if you're going to start up, make sure you start up with excellence in mind”.
Onyi Anyado
Far too many managers have lost sight of the basics, in our opinion: quick action, service to customers, practical innovation, and the fact that you can’t get any of these without virtually everyone’s commitment.
Tom Peters (In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies)
And yet it fills me with wonder, that, in almost all countries, the most ancient poets are considered as the best: whether it be that every other kind of knowledge is an acquisition gradually attained, and poetry is a gift conferred at once; or that the first poetry of every nation surprised them as a novelty, and retained the credit by consent which it received by accident at first; or whether, as the province of poetry is to describe Nature and Passion, which are always the same, the first writers took possession of the most striking objects for description, and the most probable occurrences for fiction, and left nothing to those that followed them, but transcription of the same events, and new combinations of the same images. Whatever be the reason, it is commonly observed that the early writers are in possession of nature, and their followers of art: that the first excel in strength and innovation, and the latter in elegance and refinement.
Samuel Johnson (The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia)
Our country is a place where hope can be born and great companies, organizations and non-profits can spring up from an idea birthed on the back of a coffee-shop napkin.
Todd Stocker (Dancing With God: First Year Thoughts on the Loss of My Daughter)
Excellence must be achieved through the eyes of those who judge us; once achieved it can only be maintained with constant innovation.
Tom Collins
Geniuses’ steps take you higher than talent’s leaps.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Sensual feminine women inspire the spirit of excellence, creativity and innovation in both their personal and professional life.
Lebo Grand
Apple isn’t the world’s greatest techno-innovator. Nowhere near it, in fact. Rather, it excels, in contrast, at rehashing other people’s ideas.
Kevin Dutton (The Wisdom of Psychopaths)
In fact, in an agile project, technical excellence is measured by both capacity to deliver customer value today and create an adaptable product for tomorrow.
Jim Highsmith (Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products)
Project leaders must be champions of technical excellence; they must support and advocate technical excellence while maintaining a watchful eye on other project objectives.
Jim Highsmith (Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products)
BUILD THE CREATIVENESS IT'S BEYOND EXPERIENCE OF YOUR CREATIVITY. AND THE SAME FEW THINGS THAT ARE PUT INTO PRACTICE, IT'S AN EXCELLENT SOURCE OF INNOVATION...
JyotiPrakash Borah.
At the end of the day, our organisations are here for people. We must not only be about product innovations, we must also be about innovation in leadership.
Janna Cachola
Societies that value excellence, innovation, entrepreneurship and integrity do well.
Chetan Bhagat (What Young India Wants)
But like all excellent, fulfilling and meaningful relationships, it has also occasionally been frustrating and challenging.
Geoffrey West (Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies)
Entrepreneur, you don't need 20 years of experience in your industry but rather, you do need an idea that will bring disruption over the next 20 plus years. ~
Onyi Anyado (The Doorway to Distinction: 200 Quotes To Inspire You To Reach New Levels Of Excellence)
Excellence requires no major effort. It merely has to become a habit. All this requires is will, an enabling mindset, simple innovation of processes, and an insistence on timeliness. If
Vinod Rai (Not Just an Accountant)
Nearly every innovation or creation and almost all of society and civilization would not exist if women did not effectively insist men achieve some level of excellence before having sex with them.
Myron Gaines (Why Women Deserve Less)
The environment around us is constantly changing, including innovations, friends, employment and moving to a different location; those who accept and excel at adaptation have smoother transitions, while others struggle.
R.J. Intindola
human creativity in the arts, and human innovation in technology—are intimately related. Every advancement in technology, including military technology, remains, foremost, a feat of imagination. This is where humans excel.
Deepak Malhotra (The Peacemaker's Code)
When you come across an excellent invention, what it should tell you is that someone used most of his sleeping time as his thinking time... and he kept doing the same until his good became better and his better became the best!
Israelmore Ayivor (Daily Drive 365)
Innovation was a curious thing. It never failed to amaze him. And yet this place confirmed what they’d long known: that truly disruptive innovation rarely came from the expected sources. They’d had so much more luck investing in eccentric B and C students. The rationale was simple: Those heavily invested in the status quo had difficulty thinking outside of it—and were often tainted by it. Especially when success and peer approval beckoned. One did not accidentally graduate from top-tier schools. One strove to get in and to maintain grades once there, and to do that, one usually needed to be a master at conformity. To excel in all the accepted conventions. No, the truly different thinkers often went unnoticed.
Daniel Suarez (Influx)
Most corporations fail to tolerate the creative fanatic who has been the driving force behind most major innovations. Innovations, being far removed from the mainstream of the business, show little promise in the early stages of development. Moreover, the champion is obnoxious, impatient, egotistic, and perhaps a bit irrational in organizational terms. As a consequence, he is not hired. If hired, he is not promoted or rewarded. He is regarded as “not a serious person,” “embarrassing,” or
Tom Peters (In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies)
Understand the nuances of rivalry can help extend your career. It doesn’t mean you’ll be holding hands across the finish line. It means their presence makes you better, faster, stronger. Because of them, you’ll find out exactly what you are made of.
Leena Patel (Raise Your Innovation IQ: 21 Ways to Think Differently During Times of Change)
Understanding the nuances of rivalry can help extend your career. It doesn’t mean you’ll be holding hands across the finish line. It means their presence makes you better, faster, stronger. Because of them, you’ll find out exactly what you are made of.
Leena Patel (Raise Your Innovation IQ: 21 Ways to Think Differently During Times of Change)
Throughout her life, she excelled at being able to translate scientific problems—such as those involving trajectories, fluid flows, explosions, and weather patterns—into mathematical equations and then into ordinary English. This talent helped to make her a good programmer.
Walter Isaacson (The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution)
Innovations are always necessarily gradual and incremental, building on the accumulated insights of past humans. We are the cultural animal par excellence, and our ability to share the products of our individual creativity and pass them on to future generations is the key to our ecological dominance.30
Edward Slingerland (Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization)
... schools in many industrialized nations were not, for the most part, designed to produce innovative thinkers or questioners -- their primary purpose was to produce workers. The author Seth Godin writes, "Our grandfathers and great grandfathers built schools to train people to have a lifetime of productive labor as part of the industrialized economy. And it worked." To create good workers, educations systems put a premium on compliancy and rote memorization of basic knowledge -- excellent qualities in an industrial worker. (Or, as the cartoonist and Simpsons creator Matt Groening puts it, "it seems the main rule that traditional schools teach is how to sit in rows quietly, which is perfect training for grown-up work in a dull office or factory, but not so good for education.") And not so good for questioning: To the extent a school is like a factory, students who inquire about "the way things are" could be seen as insubordinate. It raises, at least in my mind, a question that may seem extreme: If schools were build on a factory model, were they actually designed to squelch questions?
Warren Berger
We cannot get away from the infinite. It stares us in the face whether we look at atoms or stars, or at the becauses behind the becauses, stretching back through eternity. Flat-earth science has no more use for it than the flat-earth theologians had in the Dark Ages; but a true science of life must let infinity in, and never lose sight of it. In two earlier books I have tried to show that throughout the ages the great innovators in the history of science had always been aware of the transparency of phenomena towards a different order of reality, of the ubiquitous presence of the ghost in the machine -even such a simple machine as a magnetic compass or a Leyden jar. Once a scientist loses the sense of mystery, he can be an excellent technician, but he ceases to be a savant.
Arthur Koestler (The Ghost in the Machine)
To my special grandson HAPPY BIRTHDAY Celebrate your 13th birthday with joy and appreciation for your interesting stage of life. May God hide you under His wings. May He go before you. May He stand beside you. May He walk behind you. May He give you wisdom to excel and innovate in life forever and ever amen. Enjoy your teenage life and enjoy the blessing of grace. Grandma loves you so much.
Euginia Herlihy
Guiding Your Success, One Approval at a Time. We are the cornerstone of compliance in the dynamic Indian market, ensuring your ventures meet every regulatory milestone seamlessly. With a dedicated focus on excellence, we pave the way for your innovations to flourish, navigating the intricate web of approvals. Our commitment: Empowering your ambitions, as your trusted partners in progress." By Brand Liaison
Brand Liaison
A leadership comfort zone brings stagnancy, deprives one of innovation, stifles growth and frustrates both the leader and the team they lead. Your personal preferences like leadership style, communication style, prejudices, habits and mannerisms must be effectively managed so that they do not work against you. You have to be careful that your strengths do not end up becoming a hindering comfort zone. Seek to lead, driven by a cause.
Archibald Marwizi (Making Success Deliberate)
Learning is the accomplice of inquiry. Prudence is the accomplice of caution. Reason is the accomplice of ingenuity. Insight is the accomplice of understanding. Wisdom is the accomplice of discipline. Tenacity is the accomplice of improvement. Innovation is the accomplice of growth. Intuition is the accomplice of opportunity. Acclaim is the accomplice of excellence. Loyalty is the accomplice of trust. Wealth is the accomplice of luxury. Power is the accomplice of influence. Literacy is the accomplice of knowledge. Performance is the accomplice of development. Competence is the accomplice of progress. Curiosity is the accomplice of awareness. Courage is the accomplice of confidence. Desire is the accomplice of accomplishment. Ambition is the accomplice of determination. Mastery is the accomplice of honor. Character is the accomplice of reputation. Talent is the accomplice of skill. Education is the accomplice of success.
Matshona Dhliwayo
The claim that ethnic uniformity leads to cultural excellence is as wrong as an idea can be. There’s a reason we refer to unsophisticated things as provincial, parochial, and insular and to sophisticated ones as urbane and cosmopolitan. No one is brilliant enough to dream up anything of value all by himself. Individuals and cultures of genius are aggregators, appropriators, greatest-hit collectors. Vibrant cultures sit in vast catchment areas in which people and innovations flow from far and wide.
Steven Pinker (Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress)
1. Live (or work) in the moment. Instead of always thinking about what’s next on your to-do list, focus on the task or conversation at hand. You will become not only more productive but also more charismatic. 2. Tap into your resilience. Instead of living in overdrive, train your nervous system to bounce back from setbacks. You will naturally reduce stress and thrive in the face of difficulties and challenges. 3. Manage your energy. Instead of engaging in exhausting thoughts and emotions, learn to manage your stamina by remaining calm and centered. You’ll be able to save precious mental energy for the tasks that need it most. 4. Do nothing. Instead of spending all your time focused intently on your field, make time for idleness, fun, and irrelevant interests. You will become more creative and innovative and will be more likely to come up with breakthrough ideas. 5. Be good to yourself. Instead of only playing to your strengths and being self-critical, be compassionate with yourself and understand that your brain is built to learn new things. You will improve your ability to excel in the face of challenge and learn from mistakes. 6. Show compassion to others. Instead of remaining focused on yourself, express compassion to and show interest in those around you and maintain supportive relationships with your co-workers, boss, and employees. You will dramatically increase the loyalty and commitment of your colleagues and employees, thereby improving productivity, performance, and influence. These
Emma Seppälä (The Happiness Track: How to Apply the Science of Happiness to Accelerate Your Success)
Why is it there’s no aisle in a grocery or department in a store or menu on a website for “average stuff” or “beige products”? FACT: People never got passionate about mediocre and average. While consumers and clients can find “best deals” and “natural foods” and “artisan goods,” one doesn’t find an aisle or a website menu tab offering “average stuff” without excelling in something (which might explain that while vanilla is necessary for the ice cream sundae, it’s the hot fudge we all crave and talk about).
David Brier (The Lucky Brand)
People who have made comparative studies of many different societies, know that when status is ascribed, rather than achieved, individual efforts towards excellence are not directed through any form of innovation; rather, the enhancement of status occurs only through the realisation of a previously well defined role position. It is only with social change, or when some form of continual dynamic disequilibium occurs in a society, that we begin to observe the development of achievement motivation in its modern form.
Dor Bahadur Bista (Fatalism and Development: Nepal's Struggle For Modernization)
To understand why psychological safety promotes performance, we have to step back to reconsider the nature of so much of the work in today's organizations. With routine, predictable, modular work on the decline, more and more of the tasks that people do require judgment, coping with uncertainty, suggesting new ideas, and coordinating and communicating with others. This means that voice is mission critical. And so, for anything but the most independent or routine work, psychological safety is intimately tied to freeing people up to pursue excellence.
Amy C. Edmondson (The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth)
Strategy cannot be a useful concept if it is a synonym for success. Nor can it be a useful tool if it is confused with ambition, determination, inspirational leadership, and innovation. Ambition is drive and zeal to excel. Determination is commitment and grit. Innovation is the discovery and engineering of new ways to do things. Inspirational leadership motivates people to sacrifice for their own and the common good.1 And strategy, responsive to innovation and ambition, selects the path, identifying how, why, and where leadership and determination are to be applied.
Richard P. Rumelt (Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters)
Becoming accomplished at what you do is no easy task, nor is the goal reached in a day. The process is time consuming, requires dedication, innovative ideas, meticulous strategizing and can be quite tedious at times. For many, the ultimate objective is to challenge the status quo, change the game, chart unexplored territory, and set a new standard of excellence. Sometimes hitting those marks is its own reward. Seeing others apply your blueprint to construct their own path to success is even more fulfilling. Leaders are motivated by believers! Bask in the imitation of others. After all, it is the highest form of flattery!
Carlos Wallace
The hotbed of innovation was initially southern China, because the wars against the Mongol overlords of the mid-fourteenth-century Yangzi Valley would be won by storming fortresses and sinking big ships fighting in the constrained space of a river. For both these jobs, early guns were excellent. But when the fighting ended in 1368, the main theater of war shifted to the steppes in northern China. Here there were few forts to bombard, and slow-firing guns were useless against fast-moving cavalry. Chinese generals, being rational men, spent their money on extra horsemen and a great wall rather than incremental improvements in firearms.
Ian Morris (War: What is it good for?: The role of conflict in civilisation, from primates to robots)
Creators generate new ideas and original concepts. They prefer unstructured and abstract activities and thrive on innovation and unconventional practices. • Advancers communicate these new ideas and carry them forward. They relish feelings and relationships and manage the human factors. They are excellent at generating enthusiasm for work. • Refiners challenge ideas. They analyze projects for flaws, then refine them with a focus on objectivity and analysis. They love facts and theories and working with a systematic approach. • Executors can also be thought of as Implementers. They ensure that important activities are carried out and goals accomplished; they are focused on details and the bottom line. • Flexors are a combination of all four types. They can adapt their styles to fit certain needs and are able to look at a problem from a variety of perspectives.
Ray Dalio (Principles: Life and Work)
We believe that we are on the face of the earth to make great products, and that’s not changing. We are constantly focusing on innovating. We believe in the simple not the complex. We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products that we make, and participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution. We believe in saying no to thousands of projects, so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us. We believe in deep collaboration and cross-pollination of our groups, which allow us to innovate in a way that others cannot. And frankly, we don’t settle for anything less than excellence in every group in the company, and we have the self-honesty to admit when we’re wrong and the courage to change. And I think, regardless of who is in what job, those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well.
Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs)
Ignorance lowers you, curiosity elevates you; knowledge puts you on a higher pedestal than information. Confusion lowers you, understanding elevates you; discernment puts you on a higher pedestal than intellect. Imprudence lowers you, insight elevates you; wisdom puts you on a higher pedestal than perception. Greed lowers you, contentment elevates you; peace puts you on a higher pedestal than indifference. Bitterness lowers you, happiness elevates you; joy puts you on a higher pedestal than pleasure. Anger lowers you, patience elevates you; longstanding puts you on a higher pedestal than tolerance. Cruelty lowers you, compassion elevates you; kindness puts you on a higher pedestal than apathy. Despair lowers you, hope elevates you; perseverance puts you on a higher pedestal than dispassion. Fear lowers you, courage elevates you; faith puts you on a higher pedestal than confidence. Hatred lowers you, mercy elevates you; love puts you on a higher pedestal than sympathy. Illiteracy lowers you, education elevates you; enlightenment puts you on a higher pedestal than talent. Imitating lowers you, creativity elevates you; originality puts you on a higher pedestal than innovation. Incompetence lowers you, skill elevates you; excellence puts you on a higher pedestal than enthusiasm. Laziness lowers you, hard work elevates you; diligence puts you on a higher pedestal competence. Failure lowers you, perseverance elevates you; success puts you on a higher pedestal than ambition. Mediocrity lowers you, talent elevates you; genius puts you on a higher pedestal than aptitude. Obscurity lowers you, fame elevates you; influence puts you on a higher pedestal than popularity. Ego lowers you, honor elevates you; humility puts you on a higher pedestal than applause. Poverty lowers you, success elevates you; wealth puts you on a higher pedestal than prominence. Dishonor lowers you, esteem elevates you; character puts you on a higher pedestal than reputation.
Matshona Dhliwayo
If this is true—if solitude is an important key to creativity—then we might all want to develop a taste for it. We’d want to teach our kids to work independently. We’d want to give employees plenty of privacy and autonomy. Yet increasingly we do just the opposite. We like to believe that we live in a grand age of creative individualism. We look back at the midcentury era in which the Berkeley researchers conducted their creativity studies, and feel superior. Unlike the starched-shirted conformists of the 1950s, we hang posters of Einstein on our walls, his tongue stuck out iconoclastically. We consume indie music and films, and generate our own online content. We “think different” (even if we got the idea from Apple Computer’s famous ad campaign). But the way we organize many of our most important institutions—our schools and our workplaces—tells a very different story. It’s the story of a contemporary phenomenon that I call the New Groupthink—a phenomenon that has the potential to stifle productivity at work and to deprive schoolchildren of the skills they’ll need to achieve excellence in an increasingly competitive world. The New Groupthink elevates teamwork above all else. It insists that creativity and intellectual achievement come from a gregarious place. It has many powerful advocates. “Innovation—the heart of the knowledge economy—is fundamentally social,” writes the prominent journalist Malcolm Gladwell. “None of us is as smart as all of us,” declares the organizational consultant Warren Bennis,
Susan Cain (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking)
Harvard’s Theodore Levitt states the case as well as anyone else: The trouble with much of the advice business gets today about the need to be more vigorously creative is that its advocates often fail to distinguish between creativity and innovation. Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things…. A powerful new idea can kick around unused in a company for years, not because its merits are not recognized, but because nobody has assumed the responsibility for converting it from words into action. Ideas are useless unless used. The proof of their value is only in their implementation. Until then, they are in limbo. If you talk to the people who work for you, you’ll discover that there is no shortage of creativity or creative people in American business. The shortage is of innovators. All too often, people believe that creativity automatically leads to innovation. It doesn’t. Creative people tend to pass the responsibility for getting down to brass tacks to others. They are the bottleneck. They make none of the right kind of effort to help their ideas get a hearing and a try…. The fact that you can put a dozen inexperienced people in a room and conduct a brainstorming session that produces exciting new ideas shows how little relative importance ideas themselves have…. Idea men constantly pepper everybody with proposals and memorandums that are just brief enough to get attention, to intrigue and sustain interest — but too short to include any responsible suggestions for implementation. The scarce people are the ones who have the know-how, energy, daring, and staying power to implement ideas…. Since business is a “get-things-done” institution, creativity without action-oriented follow-through is a barren form of behavior. In a sense, it is irresponsible.
Tom Peters (In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies)
Society would have much to gain from decriminalization. On the immediate practical level, we would feel safer in our homes and on our streets and much less concerned about the danger of our cars being burgled. In cities like Vancouver such crimes are often committed for the sake of obtaining drug money. More significantly perhaps, by exorcising this menacing devil of our own creation, we would automatically give up a lot of unnecessary fear. We could all breathe more freely. Many addicts could work at productive jobs if the imperative of seeking illegal drugs did not keep them constantly on the street. It’s interesting to learn that before the War on Drugs mentality took hold in the early twentieth century, a prominent individual such as Dr. William Stewart Halsted, a pioneer of modern surgical practice, was an opiate addict for over forty years. During those decades he did stellar and innovative work at Johns Hopkins University, where he was one of the four founding physicians. He was the first, for example, to insist that members of his surgical team wear rubber gloves — a major advance in eradicating post-operative infections. Throughout his career, however, he never got by with less than 180 milligrams of morphine a day. “On this,” said his colleague, the world-renowned Canadian physician Sir William Osler, “he could do his work comfortably and maintain his excellent vigor.” As noted at the Common Sense for Drug Policy website: Halsted’s story is revealing not only because it shows that with a morphine addiction the proper maintenance dose can be productive. It also illustrates the incredible power of the drug in question. Here was a man with almost unlimited resources — moral, physical, financial, medical — who tried everything he could think of and he was hooked until the day he died. Today we would send a man like that to prison. Instead he became the father of modern surgery.
Gabor Maté (In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction)
If you are a great warrior, you are supposed to be prepared to humble yourself before the lowest opponent. If you are a great general, you are supposed to be prepared to humble yourself before the lowest soldier. If you are a great politician, you are supposed to be prepared to humble yourself before for the lowest constituent. If you are a great governor, you are supposed to be prepared to humble yourself before for the lowest peasant. If you are a great president, you are supposed to be prepared to humble yourself before the lowest citizen. If you are a great leader, you are supposed to be prepared to humble yourself before for the lowest servant. If you are a great pastor, you are supposed to be prepared to humble yourself before the lowest parishioner. If you are a great prophet, you are supposed to be prepared to humble yourself before the lowest seer. If you are a great pope, you are supposed to be prepared to humble yourself before the lowest priest. If you are a great teacher, you are supposed to be prepared to humble yourself before for the lowest student. If you are a great guru, you are supposed to be prepared to humble yourself before for the lowest disciple. If you are a great architect, you are supposed to be prepared to humble yourself before the lowest mason. If you are a great engineer, you are supposed to be prepared to humble yourself before the lowest mechanic. If you are a great inventor, you are supposed to be prepared to humble yourself before for the lowest scientist. If you are a great doctor, you are supposed to be prepared to humble yourself before for the lowest nurse. If you are a great judge, you are supposed to be prepared to humble yourself before the lowest lawyer. If you are a great artist, you are supposed to be prepared to humble yourself before the lowest apprentice. If you are a great coach, you are supposed to be prepared to humble yourself before for the lowest athlete. If you are a great genius, you are supposed to be prepared to humble yourself before for the lowest talent. If you are a great philanthropist, you are supposed to be prepared to humble yourself before for the lowest beggar. In the school of patience, it is the long suffering who graduate. In the school of generosity, it is the kind who graduate. In the school of activism, it is the devoted who graduate. In the school of honor, it is the noble who graduate. In the school of wisdom, it is the prudent who graduate. In the school of knowledge, it is the curious who graduate. In the school of insight, it is the observant who graduate. In the school of understanding, it is the intelligent who graduate. In the school of success, it is the excellent who graduate. In the school of eminence, it is the influential who graduate. In the school of conquest, it is the fearless who graduate. In the school of enlightenment, it is the humble who graduate. In the school of courage, it is the hopeful who graduate. In the school of fortitude, it is the determined who graduate. In the school of leadership, it is servants who graduate. In the school of talent, it is the skilled who graduate. In the school of genius, it is the brilliant who graduate. In the school of greatness, it is the persevering who graduate. In the school of transcendence, it is the fearless who graduate. In the school of innovation, it is the creative who graduate.
Matshona Dhliwayo
10 Practical Strategies to Improve Your Critical Thinking Skills and Unleash Your Creativity In today's rapidly changing world, the ability to think critically and creatively has become more important than ever. Whether you're a student looking to excel academically, a professional striving for success in your career, or simply someone who wants to navigate life's challenges with confidence, developing strong critical thinking skills is crucial. In this blog post, we will explore ten practical strategies to help you improve your critical thinking abilities and unleash your creative potential. 1. Embrace open-mindedness: One of the cornerstones of critical thinking is being open to different viewpoints and perspectives. Cultivate a willingness to listen to others, consider alternative opinions, and challenge your own beliefs. This practice expands your thinking and encourages creative problem-solving. 2. Ask thought-provoking questions: Asking insightful questions is a powerful way to stimulate critical thinking. By questioning assumptions, seeking clarity, and exploring deeper meanings, you can uncover new insights and perspectives. Challenge yourself to ask thought-provoking questions regularly. 3. Practice active listening: Listening actively involves not just hearing, but also understanding, interpreting, and empathizing with the speaker. By honing your active listening skills, you can better grasp complex ideas, identify underlying assumptions, and engage in more meaningful discussions. 4. Seek diverse sources of information: Expand your knowledge base by seeking information from a wide range of sources. Engage with diverse perspectives, opinions, and ideas through books, articles, podcasts, and documentaries. This habit broadens your understanding and encourages critical thinking by exposing you to different viewpoints. 5. Develop analytical thinking skills: Analytical thinking involves breaking down complex problems into smaller components, examining relationships and patterns, and drawing logical conclusions. Enhance your analytical skills by practicing activities like puzzles, riddles, and brain teasers. This will sharpen your ability to analyze information and think critically. 6. Foster a growth mindset: A growth mindset is the belief that your abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. Embracing this mindset encourages you to view challenges as opportunities for growth, rather than obstacles. By persisting through difficulties, you build resilience and enhance your critical thinking abilities. 7. Engage in collaborative problem-solving: Collaborating with others on problem-solving tasks can spark creativity and strengthen critical thinking skills. Seek out group projects, brainstorming sessions, or online forums where you can exchange ideas, challenge each other's thinking, and find innovative solutions together. 8. Practice reflective thinking: Taking time to reflect on your thoughts, actions, and experiences allows you to gain deeper insights and learn from past mistakes. Regularly engage in activities like journaling, meditation, or self-reflection exercises to develop your reflective thinking skills. This practice enhances your critical thinking abilities by promoting self-awareness and self-improvement. 9. Encourage creativity through experimentation: Creativity and critical thinking often go hand in hand. Give yourself permission to experiment and explore new ideas without fear of failure. Embrace a "what if" mindset and push the boundaries of your thinking. This willingness to take risks and think outside the box can lead to breakthroughs in critical thinking. 10. Continuously learn and adapt: Critical thinking is a skill that can be honed throughout your life. Commit to lifelong learning and seek opportunities to expand your knowledge and skills. Stay curious, be open to new experiences, and embrace change.
Lillian Addison
organizations that spread and sustain excellence are infused with a “relentless restlessness”—that often uncomfortable urge for constant innovation, driven by the nagging feeling that things are never quite good enough.
Robert I. Sutton (Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less)
Academically brilliant persons usually make excellent managers and bureaucrats as they can efficiently implement the vision of the government or world leaders by following the prescribed methods. However, they may prove to be poor leaders, for they may not have taken the pain to understand the world on their own, and hence, cannot contribute any new thought or line of action to tackle new problems.
Awdhesh Singh (Practising Spiritual Intelligence: For Innovation, Leadership and Happiness)
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Kildall, the innovator, followed his passion for technical excellence and was shocked that IBM wouldn’t follow him. Gates, the imitator, took his cues from IBM every step of the way, because he believed that following Big Blue was the smartest way to follow the money.
Lewis Schiff (Business Brilliant: Surprising Lessons from the Greatest Self-Made Business Icons)
Enron. One: The firm endorsed Enron’s asset-light strategy. In a 1997 edition of the Quarterly, consultants wrote that “Enron was not distinctive at building and operating power stations, but it didn’t matter; these skills could be contracted out. Rather, it was good at negotiating contracts, financing, and government guarantee—precisely the skills that distinguished successful players.” Two: The firm endorsed Enron’s “loose-tight” culture. Or, more precisely, McKinsey endorsed Enron’s use of a term that came straight out of In Search of Excellence. In a 1998 Quarterly, the consultants peripherally praised Enron’s culture of “[allowing executives] to make decisions without seeking constant approval from above; a clear link between daily activities and business results (even if not a P&L); something new to work on as often as possible.” Three: The firm endorsed Enron’s use of off–balance-sheet financing. In that same 1997 Quarterly, the consultants wrote that “the deployment of off–balance-sheet funds using institutional investment money fostered [Enron’s] securitization skills and granted it access to capital at below the hurdle rates of major oil companies.” McKinsey heavyweight Lowell Bryan—godfather of the firm’s financial institutions practice—put it another way: “Securitization’s potential is great because it removes capital and balance sheets as constraints on growth.” Four: The firm endorsed Enron’s approach to “atomization.” In a 2001 Quarterly, the consultants wrote: “Enron has built a reputation as one of the world’s most innovative companies by attacking and atomizing traditional industry structures—first in natural gas and later in such diverse businesses as electric power, Internet bandwidth, and pulp and paper. In each case, Enron focused on the business sliver of intermediation while avoiding the incumbency problems created by a large asset base and vertical integration.
Duff McDonald (The Firm)
To embrace God is to embrace change. God does not operate by a predictable paradigm. He works through flux and chaos—and so should we. When crises come, don’t panic—innovate! That’s the essence of leadership.
Pat Williams (The Leadership Excellence Devotional: The Seven Sides of Leadership in Daily Life)
Superior execution is vital to sustaining the success initiated by an innovative service concept. An innovator’s service quality is usually more difficult to imitate than its service concept. This is because quality service comes from inspired leadership throughout an organization, a customer-minded corporate culture, excellent service-system design, the effective use of information and technology, and other factors that develop slowly in a company, if at all.
Leonard L. Berry (Marketing Services: Competing Through Quality)
The lesson from the Big Mac story is that innovations that ought to be scaled won’t happen everywhere but can happen anywhere.
Robert I. Sutton (Scaling up Excellence)
Organizational maturity is not just about technical excellence or process efficiency, but also about business effectiveness, agility, innovation intelligence, and people-centricity.
Pearl Zhu (Change Insight: Change as an Ongoing Capability to Fuel Digital Transformation)
everyone has a right to prosper and succeed through hard work, innovation and excellence. We
Chetan Bhagat (What Young India Wants)
A positive strategy should focus on innovation.
Sanjiv Anand (Execution Excellence: Making Strategy Work Using the Balanced Scorecard)
data science requires more than math skills: it also takes people who have a wide-ranging curiosity, and whose innovation is guided by their own experience—not just data.
Daniel Goleman (Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence)
Mind Center with its innovative teaching methodology, optimal content delivery and commitment to excellence empowers students to get a strong command on a wide range of subjects..
mindcentre
Societies that value excellence, innovation, entrepreneurship and integrity do well. If we want India to be rich, we have to value excellence and honesty first. This is where a reset, a re-prioritization of something very core to society is required. This core is our values.
Chetan Bhagat (What Young India Wants)
On the other hand, I am not a boot camp believer. I am not one to obsess about polishing brass buttons. What matters is the pursuit of excellence, and my belief in that pursuit is very high. I believe in pushing standards, in hitting targets. “What’s the fastest it’s ever been done?” Let’s try to do it faster.
Damian McKinney (The Commando Entrepreneur: Risk, Innovation and Creating Success)
Excellence demands the environment that's full of focus, independent thinking and creative thinking. This kind of environment produces innovators.
Euginia Herlihy
Good interviewers excel at listening closely to what customers say, repeating statements back to ensure understanding, and asking additional probing questions to illuminate the problem space.
Dan Olsen (The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback)
variation leads to excellence in social systems,
Robert I. Sutton (Weird Ideas That Work: 11 1/2 Practices for Promoting, Managing, and Sustaining Innovation)
The difference is the decision-making freedom we provide. If your employees are excellent and you give them freedom to implement the bright ideas they believe in, innovation will happen.
Reed Hastings (No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention)
Our culinary memory is short and we live in a very different food world now. Chances are you won’t remember the late nineties as a time when restaurants were basically inaccessible to most Americans, but it was. Our dining culture was, by and large, bifurcated. On one side, you had prohibitively expensive, mostly French-inspired restaurants with excellent service and comfortable dining rooms. On the other, there were far more affordable options serving the cuisines of Asia, Africa, and Latin America in humble settings—a genre that’s been lumped together as “ethnic food” since the 1960s. But as delicious as those places could be, they were usually locked into the traditions and time periods from which their immigrant proprietors first came. There really wasn’t a place where you could find something in between: innovative cuisine that was neither married to France nor fixed to the recipes of the motherland, made with high-quality ingredients, and available for, say, twenty bucks. I could tell that race played a major role in America’s slow uptake on this concept, which only made it more personal for me.* 9
David Chang (Eat a Peach)
If we don’t trust people, how will we engage them, innovate, create, inspire, be a team? You can trust too much and get burned, but you can also not trust enough, and you wouldn’t see the possibilities.”23
Ryan Hawk (Welcome to Management: How to Grow From Top Performer to Excellent Leader)
Being simultaneously indifferent and insatiable is what narcissists do. It’s the reason narcissists make excellent innovators. They don’t stop, and they don’t yield to logic or compassion.
Elaine Shannon (Hunting LeRoux: The Inside Story of the DEA Takedown of a Criminal Genius and His Empire)
He identified six major factors that determine knowledge worker productivity: The ability to define their task. The autonomy to manage their own time. The need for continuing innovation. The need for constant teaching and learning. An emphasis on the quality of the work produced over quantity. The requirement that creative workers be recognized by the organization as assets rather than costs to be minimized. Sounds pretty great, right? There’s just one problem. As Drucker put it, “each of these requirements (except perhaps the last one) is almost the exact opposite of what is needed to increase the productivity of manual workers.” Yikes. He’s right. How can we, as creatives, excel in workplaces that equate performance with metrics like the
Rahaf Harfoush (Hustle and Float: Reclaim Your Creativity and Thrive in a World Obsessed with Work)
to be recognized or leave.” Here’s what I wish I could tell my younger, impatient self: Advancement and influence in any industry do not in general keep pace with an industry’s most famous outliers. At least in a meritocracy, such as JPL, if you do good work and really focus on mastery and excellence, good things happen, for the institution and for you. That is not to say that “the institution” is a benevolent, all-knowing, and all-rewarding entity, but any institution desperately needs good people. There is a vacuum at the top. Their desire for good people and talent is insatiable. If you do good work that is valuable to the institution, you will inevitably be vacuumed upward. What’s more, true authority comes not from a title or position but because your words are well thought out, or at least strive to be. Nothing puts more weight into your opinion than that it is well considered, well articulated, and coming from
Adam Steltzner (The Right Kind of Crazy: A True Story of Teamwork, Leadership, and High-Stakes Innovation)
The important aspect of creativity is seeing the same thing as everybody else, but thinking of something different. Innovation and creativity ultimately results into the culture of excellence.
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (Learning How to Fly: Life Lessons for the Youth)
Well-managed companies are excellent at developing the sustaining technologies that improve the performance of their products in the ways that matter to their customers. This is because their management practices are biased toward: Listening to customers Investing aggressively in technologies that give those customers what they say they want Seeking higher margins Targeting larger markets rather than smaller ones
Clayton M. Christensen (The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Management of Innovation and Change))
As we begin the new century, we know that our success will depend on how well we change and manage the firm’s rapid growth. That requires a willingness to abandon old practices and discover new and innovative ways of conducting business. Everything is subject to change—everything but the values we live by and stand for: teamwork, putting clients’ interests first, integrity, entrepreneurship and excellence.
Steven G. Mandis (What Happened to Goldman Sachs: An Insider's Story of Organizational Drift and Its Unintended Consequences)
That requires a willingness to abandon old practices and discover new and innovative ways of conducting business. Everything is subject to change—everything but the values we live by and stand for: teamwork, putting clients’ interests first, integrity, entrepreneurship, and excellence.
Steven G. Mandis (What Happened to Goldman Sachs: An Insider's Story of Organizational Drift and Its Unintended Consequences)
move up into management levels, and their responsibilities and stress levels grow. Confident: They put in the extra time and energy needed to gain knowledge and experience, which translates into confidence and composure. Confidence is not to be confused with arrogance and entitlement, which are two of the most undesirable traits of an agency professional. Creative: They bring innovative approaches and thinking to projects. They have an innate ability to work within standard systems while efficiently integrating original ideas and strategies that strengthen the agency and client campaigns. Detail-oriented: They are incredibly organized and thorough in all communications and activities, which instills tremendous confidence in their clients, peers, and managers. They rarely make careless mistakes. Their attention to detail enables them to excel at time management and project management. Focused: They avoid multitasking in favor of concentrated effort. They know priorities at all times and work efficiently to deliver. They have the ability to shut off distractions, and are often the most productive and efficient workers.
Paul Roetzer (The Marketing Agency Blueprint: The Handbook for Building Hybrid PR, SEO, Content, Advertising, and Web Firms)
Instead of calls to action, the most innovative user experiences may be calls to inaction. (Design of default options is exceedingly important and superbly discussed in Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s excellent Nudge.21) Web usability guru Steve Krug provocatively articulates this design sensibility in his heuristic, “Don’t Make Me Think.” Often the best way to get customers to appreciate an innovation experience is by not making demands on them. Don’t get in the way by offering to help. Engagement sometimes undermines a quality user experience. Eliminating choice frequently proves to be the best possible design choice. Because customers often prefer “mindless choices,” says Krug, minimalism is a virtue.
Michael Schrage (Who Do You Want Your Customers to Become?)
Organisations are innovating quicker than ever. Your members need to excel from being a team player to a team builder.
Janna Cachola
...as we proceed to higher and higher levels of expertise, and as the stakes get higher and higher, the agonies of excellence reappear in new and frightening ways. A tiny minority gets through to the top, to memorable excellence or profound understanding. The rest of us stop at stages along the way, perhaps for a temporary rest, perhaps for a period of reassessment. But once we stop, we are unlikely to start up again. Security is suddenly far sweeter than enterprise. The sufferings of the ascent, so long endured by insuppressible aspiration, suddenly seem pointless.
Robert Grudin (The Grace of Great Things: Creativity and Innovation)
I trust that you are aware that today’s success is tomorrow’s mediocrity. This means anything appealing today will be appalling tomorrow.
Israelmore Ayivor (Leaders' Frontpage: Leadership Insights from 21 Martin Luther King Jr. Thoughts)
There was a new trend for agencies to hire and parade before their clients “strategic planners,” an ideal originally imported from the UK; but these were not strategists in the same way that management consultants were strategists. Instead, agency strategic planners were experts in customer segmentation and behavior, excellent at designing market research and reading the results of market research reports. The planners were called, in some quarters, “the conscience of the consumer” – they upheld long-term brand values on behalf of consumers and helped to resist any attempts by the creative department to go “off brand” in the pursuit of cute ideas that would dilute “brand values.” In short, the strategic planners were consumer experts, brand developers and brand policemen. They were an important innovation, but they hardly signaled new strategic directions for ad agencies, and their efforts did not have the slightest impact on their clients’ concerns about achieving improved shareholder value. Ironically,
Michael Farmer (Madison Avenue Manslaughter: An Inside View of Fee-Cutting Clients, Profithungry Owners and Declining Ad Agencies)
Merck • Corporate social responsibility • Unequivocal excellence in all aspects of the company • Science-based innovation • Honesty and integrity • Profit, but profit from work that benefits humanity Nordstrom
James C. Collins (HBR's 10 Must Reads on Strategy)