Increment Letter Quotes

Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts,...Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape.

Time & love dehydrate us; water content reduced in slow torturous increments until we're prune fleshed & feeble, ready for snacking. You looked fate in the eyes & cried. Your only viable option— drain the vat while the wine was full-bodied & pungent. A noble act, you thought, to spill precious wine before it goes sour. Makes us appreciate it that much more.

Our informal study with good sample size has revealed that companies are not able to prepare successors from within the organization because they take their performance management as a tool for (A) granting increments, incentives, and promotions than to use it for (B) building capability, capacity, and commitment in Human Resources of the company. They are spending more time on A than on B. Today we hardly see any structured Learning and development calendar in companies which are based on genuine PMS findings. Sustainable growth comes only by building talent from within through L & D efforts, understudy and assessments, and development centers.

Paul’s letter to Philemon has never been fully satisfying to activists and abolitionists, nor to those who bear the burden of injustice. It seems too incremental, too slow to right systemic wrongs. But it is less slow than it is patient. Paul’s expectations of Philemon are indeed radical, but they are couched in the radical patience of love. Institutions, even image-breaking ones, are so deeply woven into our culture that they cannot be ripped out of the cultural fabric without doing serious damage. Only when broken, image-breaking institutions are carefully unwoven and replaced with the power of new imagination and new image-bearing relationships can they be fruitfully discarded. Perhaps this is why Paul’s letter, so radical in its expectations, ends with hospitality, friendship and grace. Only as guests and friends of the true Host, the one who is himself preparing a guest room for us, can we unmake our institutions at their worst and be ready to greet him joyfully and wholeheartedly at his own return.

In many ways, Washington’s letter to Mason foretells the success of the American Revolution: he tried to be law-abiding, endorsed incremental change, and favored violence only if all else failed. Unlike the French Revolution, the American Revolution started with a series of measured protests by men schooled in self-government, a long, exhaustive search for a diplomatic solution, before moving toward open rebellion. Later on, nothing incensed Washington more than the notion that the colonists had proved unreasonable during the run-up to war.