Measure For Measure Key Quotes

I do not love you except because I love you; I go from loving to not loving you, From waiting to not waiting for you My heart moves from cold to fire. I love you only because it's you the one I love; I hate you deeply, and hating you Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you Is that I do not see you but love you blindly. Maybe January light will consume My heart with its cruel Ray, stealing my key to true calm. In this part of the story I am the one who Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you, Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.

Shaping the company's future requires understanding the key drivers of value for the company and establishing metrics to measure progress accordingly.

…. ‘George said he needed a break. And there was something about Jonathan taking over …’   ‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ said Maxwell, ‘It seems like there’s all kinds of goings on there now.’ ‘What did the agents say then?’ ‘Your brother … he must still have a key. I told them to check, I told them. I expect they overlooked it. Hugo’s been going in and there are some women there apparently, I mean at the Manor House, Jonathan’s up to his usual tricks taking in every Tom, Dick and Harry and giving all kinds of undesirables a home, and there’s something about them chasing Hugo and taunting him, yesterday the buyers were viewing again and measuring up for curtains and things, I said they could, and they saw something going on outside, some shouting and laughing …’   ‘Women! What women? Jonathan’s not like that …’   ‘Not like that huh! He’s flesh and blood like the rest of us.’  ‘That’s not what I meant. Please don’t be angry Max, it’s not my fault.’ ‘Jonathan this and Jonathan that. Why do people think he’s so bloody marvellous eh! What the hell does he think he’s doing. People spilling over into my garden and wrecking the peace and quiet. George was completely mad to do this …

A vision alone ain’t enough. To truly thrive, the board must also align on a concrete definition of success. This involves a meticulous process of identifying key performance indicators (KPIs), setting SMART goals, and establishing a robust framework for measuring progress.

Before our white brothers came to civilize us we had no jails. Therefore we had no criminals. You can't have criminals without a jail. We had no locks or keys, and so we had no thieves. If a man was so poor that he had no horse, tipi or blanket, someone gave him these things. We were too uncivilized to set much value on personal belongings. We wanted to have things only in order to give them away. We had no money, and therefore a man's worth couldn't be measured by it. We had no written law, no attorneys or politicians, therefore we couldn't cheat. We really were in a bad way before the white men came, and I don't know how we managed to get along without these basic things which, we are told, are absolutely necessary to make a civilized society.

Shaping the company's future requires understanding the key drivers of value for the company and establishing metrics to measure progress.

Get ahead of whom? There is no one I want to shove past. I just want to get ahead of myself, make myself as big as I can, but not measure myself by someone else.

Love is the key to the mystery. Love by its very nature is not selfish, but generous. It seeks not its own, but the good of others. The measure of love is not the pleasure it gives-that is the way the world judges it-but the joy and peace it can purchase for others.

If we compete with ourselves and not with others, then it does not matter who is behind us or ahead of us; our goal is to become and achieve all we are capable of being and doing, and this becomes the measure of our satisfaction.

Women have been trained to notice micro movements. To scan and anticipate all subsequent actions, constantly measuring how far threatening words are from realities. We are tasked with defending ourselves in every imaginable scenario, planning escape routes, walking with keys between knuckles, a natural instinct in our day to day routines.

since I started the Saint Remi Auxiliary for the orphanage. The other auxiliary ladies babble on about Louis—how steadfast, gentle, and loyal he was, never once mentioning his failing wool and wine business. I’ve given them all Etiquette for Ladies. Their words drift to the ceiling with the candle smoke, as my fingers examine the gift Louis gave me last year for my thirty-ninth birthday. I’d hoped for canvas and paints, but he gave me a chatelaine. “Everything you ever need hanging from your belt.” He’d demonstrated each item with such pride, I hid my disappointment. “Thimble, watch, scissors, and measuring tape for your needlework, a funnel for your oils, a pencil, a pantry key, a wax letter seal, and a vial of smelling salts. Uncorking the

Take action. Get out from under all your stuff. Get rid of it. Give away what you don’t need. You were born free—free of stuff, free of burden. But since the first time they measured your tiny body for clothes, people have been foisting stuff upon you. And you’ve been adding links to the pile of chains yourself ever since.

Go ahead,” I told him. “Go see your admirers. Sign some autographs. It’s good PR for the House.” He slid me a glance, smiled. “Not concerned one of the fans will try to sweep me away with words of love?” “Oh, they’ll try to sweep,” I said. “But I have no worries you’ll come back to me.” His smile was meltingly handsome. “Because I love you without measure?” “Of course,” I said. Also, I had the car keys.

He said an I.Q. showed how much intelligence you could get, like the numbers on the outside of a measuring cup. You still had to fill the cup up with stuff.

The traditional doctrine of man and not the measurement of skulls and footprints is the key for the understanding of that anthropos who, despite the rebellion of Promethean man against Heaven from the period of Renaissance and its aftermath, is still the inner man of every man, the reality which no human being can deny wherever and whenever he lives, the imprint of a theomorphic nature which no historical change and transformation can erase completely from the face of that creature called man.

He told me that everyone had a hidden door, which was the way into the heart, and that it was a point of honour with him to be able to find the handles to those doors. For the heart was both key and lock, and he who could master the hearts of men and learn their secrets was well on the way to mastering the Fates and controlling the thread of his own destiny. Not, he hastened to add, that any man can really do that. Not even the gods, he said, were more powerful than the Three Fatal Sisters. He did not mention them by name, but spat to avoid bad luck; and i shivered to think of them in their glum cave, spinning out lives, measuring them, cutting them off.

This has been the point of much of this book. The human brain is a machine designed by natural selection to respond in pretty reflexive fashion to the sensory input impinging on it. It is designed, in a certain sense, to be controlled by that input. And a key cog in the machinery of control is the feelings that arise in response to the input. If you interact with those feelings via tanha—via the natural, reflexive thirst for the pleasant feelings and the natural, reflexive aversion to the unpleasant feelings—you will continue to be controlled by the world around you. But if you observe those feelings mindfully rather than just reacting to them, you can in some measure escape the control; the causes that ordinarily shape your behavior can be defied, and you can get closer to the unconditioned.

The questions which one asks oneself begin, at last, to illuminate the world, and become one's key to the experience of others. One can only face in others what one can face in oneself. On this confrontation depends the measure of our wisdom and compassion. This energy is all that one finds in the rubble of vanished civilizations, and the only hope for ours.

The Six Steps to Success: 1) Define Success 2) Devise a Plan 3) Execute and Overcome Adversity 4) Measure Results with Key Metrics 5) Revise the Plan 6) Work Hard

There are lots of ways to measure a company's success. You can look at earnings reports and get really specific with the numbers. You can look at social capital and the influence the company has on people. You can look at the balance sheet and the value of its assets. You can look at its legal framework, it's brand, it's staff. The key to valuing a company is to look at the company holistically.

KEY RESULTS benchmark and monitor HOW we get to the objective. Effective KRs are specific and time-bound, aggressive yet realistic. Most of all, they are measurable and verifiable. (As prize pupil Marissa Mayer would say, “It’s not a key result unless it has a number.”)

We have the whole concept of popularity backward. We imagine it as a small and exclusive club of people we idolize or envy. But most popular people are hated by the majority. So, if you are despised by everyone outside your little clique, and liked only by those inside it, you are vastly unpopular by any objective measure. The key to ultimate popularity is not to be loved or envied by as many people as possible but to be loved or envied by the right people.

Lifetime value and customer acquisition cost are two of the key numbers you need to know to measure marketing effectiveness.

The only measure that matters is improved results—an improved client condition, in this case represented by objectives met and validated by key metrics.

social media addict? This is a very real problem—so much so that researchers from Norway developed a new instrument to measure Facebook addiction called the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale.[3] Social media has become as ubiquitous as television in our everyday lives, and this research shows that multitasking social media can be as addictive as drugs, alcohol, and chemical substance abuse. A large number of friends on social media networks may appear impressive, but according to a new report, the more social circles a person is linked to, the more likely the social media will be a source of stress.[4] It can also have a detrimental effect on consumer well-being because milkshake-multitasking interferes with clear thinking and decision-making, which lowers self-control and leads to rash, impulsive buying and poor eating decisions. Greater social media use is associated with a higher body mass index, increased binge eating, a lower credit score, and higher levels of credit card debt for consumers with many close friends in their social network—all caused by a lack of self-control.[5] We Can Become Shallow

People want to feel that you can lead them to victory. And often times that is a measure of competence - people are looking for cues, signs, indications, and proof of your level of competence.

Initially, class privilege was not discussed by white women in the women’s movement. They wanted to project an image of themselves as victims and that could not be done by drawing attention to their class. In fact, the contemporary women’s movement was extremely class bound. As a group, white participants did not denounce capitalism. They chose to define liberation using the terms of white capitalist patriarchy, equating liberation with gaining economic status and money power. Like all good capitalists, they proclaimed work as the key to liberation. This emphasis on work was yet another indication of the extent to which the white female liberationists’ perception of reality was totally narcissistic, classist, and racist. Implicit in the assertion that work was the key to women’s liberation was a refusal to acknowledge the reality that, for masses of American working class women, working for pay neither liberated them from sexist oppression nor allowed them to gain any measure of economic independence.

Once upon a time there was a small-town girl who lived in a small world. She was perfectly happy, or at least she told herself she was. Like many girls, she loved to try different looks, to be someone she wasn't. But, like too many girls, life had chipped away at her until, instead of finding what truly suited her, she camouflaged herself, hid the bits that made her different. For a while she let the world bruise her until she decided it was safer not to be herself at all. There are so many versions of ourselves we can choose to be. Once, my life was destined to be measured out in the most ordinary of steps. I learnt differently from a man who refused to accept the version of himself he'd been left with, and an old lady who saw, conversely, that she could transform herself, right up to a point when many people would have said there was nothing left to be done. I had a choice. I was Louisa Clark from New York, or Stortfold. Or there might be a whole other Louisa I hadn't met yet. The key was making sure that anyone you allowed to walk beside you didn't get to decide which you were, and pin you down like a butterfly in a case. The key was to know that you could always somehow find a way to reinvent yourself again.

More than 2,000 books are dedicated to how Warren Buffett built his fortune. Many of them are wonderful. But few pay enough attention to the simplest fact: Buffett’s fortune isn’t due to just being a good investor, but being a good investor since he was literally a child. As I write this Warren Buffett’s net worth is $84.5 billion. Of that, $84.2 billion was accumulated after his 50th birthday. $81.5 billion came after he qualified for Social Security, in his mid-60s. Warren Buffett is a phenomenal investor. But you miss a key point if you attach all of his success to investing acumen. The real key to his success is that he’s been a phenomenal investor for three quarters of a century. Had he started investing in his 30s and retired in his 60s, few people would have ever heard of him. Consider a little thought experiment. Buffett began serious investing when he was 10 years old. By the time he was 30 he had a net worth of $1 million, or $9.3 million adjusted for inflation.16 What if he was a more normal person, spending his teens and 20s exploring the world and finding his passion, and by age 30 his net worth was, say, $25,000? And let’s say he still went on to earn the extraordinary annual investment returns he’s been able to generate (22% annually), but quit investing and retired at age 60 to play golf and spend time with his grandkids. What would a rough estimate of his net worth be today? Not $84.5 billion. $11.9 million. 99.9% less than his actual net worth. Effectively all of Warren Buffett’s financial success can be tied to the financial base he built in his pubescent years and the longevity he maintained in his geriatric years. His skill is investing, but his secret is time. That’s how compounding works. Think of this another way. Buffett is the richest investor of all time. But he’s not actually the greatest—at least not when measured by average annual returns.

Honey, have you seen my measuring tape?” “I think it’s in that drawer in the kitchen with the scissors, matches, bobby pins, Scotch tape, nail clippers, barbecue tongs, garlic press, extra buttons, old birthday cards, soy sauce packets thick rubber bands, stack of Christmas napkins, stained take-out menus, old cell-phone chargers, instruction booklet for the VCR, some assorted nickels, an incomplete deck of cards, extra chain links for a watch, a half-finished pack of cough drops, a Scrabble piece I found while vacuuming, dead batteries we aren’t fully sure are dead yet, a couple screws in a tiny plastic bag left over from the bookshelf, that lock with the forgotten combination, a square of carefully folded aluminum foil, and expired pack of gum, a key to our old house, a toaster warranty card, phone numbers for unknown people, used birthday candles, novelty bottle openers, a barbecue lighter, and that one tiny little spoon.” “Thanks, honey.” AWESOME!

There are many people, maybe even thousands, that you can love. But there are few people," he continued, his words measured, "maybe only one or two on the plant, that you can love and live with in peace. The peace part is the key.

In the eyes of God, we're all perfect and we all have unlimited capacity to express brilliantly. I say unlimited capacity rather than unlimited potential because potential can be a dangerous concept. We can use it to tyrannize ourselves, to live in the future instead of the present, to set ourselves up for despair. We're constantly measuring ourselves against what we think we could be, rather than what we are. Potential is a concept which can bind us to personal powerlessness Focus on human potential becomes impotent without a focus on human capacity. Capacity is expressed in the present, it is immediate, the key to it lies not in what we have inside of us, but rather in what we are willing to own that we have inside of us. There's no point in waiting until we're perfect at what we do, or enlightened masters, or PhDs in life, before opening ourselves to what we're capable of doing now. Of course we're not as good today as we'll be tomorrow, but how will we ever get tomorrow's promise without making some sort of move today?

You are born free - free of stuff, free of burden. But since the first time they measured your tiny body for clothes, people have been foisting stuff upon you. And you've been adding links to the pule of chains yourself ever since.

But there is one key ingredient that my wife has helped me to recognize over the years, and that is the importance of articulating love for one another on a daily basis. The words I love you, spoken in acknowledgment in the morning upon rising and before going to bed, or when sitting down to dine, make the most beautiful music recognized by human ears.

It is the divine light, the inner heaven, the key to all moral treasures, the centre of thought and consciousness, the source of all influence and power, the seat of kindness, justice, sympathy, impartial love, humanity, and mercy, the measure of all things.

In the deeper hours of the night I began to look at myself, to consider myself and my condition, to measure the life I'd led so far. I did not know what made me this way. I did not know of any other way I could be. I did not know what was inside me or how I could redeem what was hidden there. There must be a key or person or thing, or song or poem or belief, or old saw that could access it, but they all seemed so far away, and after I drifted further and further into self-absorption, I closed the evening with this desolate thought: there are few takers for the quiet heart.

The key to entering into the Divine Exchange is never our worthiness but always God’s graciousness. Any attempt to measure or increase our worthiness will always fall short, or it will force us into the position of denial and pretend, which produces the constant perception of hypocrisy in religious people. To switch to an “economy of grace” is a switch that is very hard for humans to make. We base almost everything in human culture on achievement, performance, accomplishment, an equal exchange value, or some kind of worthiness gauge. I call it meritocracy. Unless one personally experiences a dramatic and personal breaking of the rules of merit (forgiveness or undeserved goodness), it is almost impossible to disbelieve or operate outside of its rigid logic. This cannot happen theoretically or abstractly. It cannot happen “out there” but must be known personally “in here.

You behold in me, Stephen said with grim displeasure, a horrible example of free thought. He walked on, waiting to be spoken to, trailing his ashplant by his side. Its ferrule followed lightly on the path, squealing at his heels. My familiar, after me, calling, Steeeeeeeeeeeephen! A wavering line along the path. They will walk on it tonight, coming here in the dark. He wants that key. It is mine. I paid the rent. Now I eat his salt bread. Give him the key too. All. He will ask for it. That was in his eyes. --After all, Haines began ... Stephen turned and saw that the cold gaze which had measured him was not all unkind. --After all, I should think you are able to free yourself. You are your own master, it seems to me. --I am a servant of two masters, Stephen said, an English and an Italian. --Italian? Haines said. A crazy queen, old and jealous. Kneel down before me. --And a third, Stephen said, there is who wants me for odd jobs. --Italian? Haines said again. What do you mean? --The imperial British state, Stephen answered, his colour rising, and the holy Roman catholic and apostolic church. --I can quite understand that, he said calmly. An Irishman must think like that, I daresay. We feel in England that we have treated you rather unfairly. It seems history is to blame. The proud potent titles clanged over Stephen's memory the triumph of their brazen bells: ET UNAM SANCTAM CATHOLICAM ET APOSTOLICAM ECCLESIAM: the slow growth and change of rite and dogma like his own rare thoughts, a chemistry of stars.

The Idea of Order at Key West She sang beyond the genius of the sea. The water never formed to mind or voice, Like a body wholly body, fluttering Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry, That was not ours although we understood, Inhuman, of the veritable ocean. The sea was not a mask. No more was she. The song and water were not medleyed sound Even if what she sang was what she heard, Since what she sang was uttered word by word. It may be that in all her phrases stirred The grinding water and the gasping wind; But it was she and not the sea we heard. For she was the maker of the song she sang. The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea Was merely a place by which she walked to sing. Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew It was the spirit that we sought and knew That we should ask this often as she sang. If it was only the dark voice of the sea That rose, or even colored by many waves; If it was only the outer voice of sky And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled, However clear, it would have been deep air, The heaving speech of air, a summer sound Repeated in a summer without end And sound alone. But it was more than that, More even than her voice, and ours, among The meaningless plungings of water and the wind, Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres Of sky and sea. It was her voice that made The sky acutest at its vanishing. She measured to the hour its solitude. She was the single artificer of the world In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea, Whatever self it had, became the self That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we, As we beheld her striding there alone, Knew that there never was a world for her Except the one she sang and, singing, made. Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know, Why, when the singing ended and we turned Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights, The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there, As the night descended, tilting in the air, Mastered the night and portioned out the sea, Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles, Arranging, deepening, enchanting night. Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon, The maker's rage to order words of the sea, Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred, And of ourselves and of our origins, In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds

promoters, who recommend the brand; passives, who are neutral; and detractors, who are unlikely to recommend the brand. The Net Promoter Score is measured by the percentage of promoters subtracted from the percentage of detractors. The key argument is that the ill effect of negative word of mouth reduces the good effect of positive word of mouth.

A win is in the past as soon as it has happened, so we need to measure ourselves in terms of our understanding of the process and our execution of the key variables.

All personalities can be measured according to two or three basic biologically determined dimensions.

When a marriage works, it is in no small part because a woman and a man have come to recognize in precise measure when enough has been said.

Cooks are dashing, improvisational, wayward, intuitive; bakers are measured, careful, rational, precise.” —Diana Abu-Jaber

It's like he took the words right out of the deepest, most secretive part of my heart, the tiny room that's always locked up with the key swallowed for good measure.

if you hear the click of a lock when a man closes a door behind you, your body tenses. Women have been trained to notice micromovements, to scan and anticipate all subsequent action, constantly measuring how far threatening words are from realities. We are tasked with defending ourselves in every imaginable scenario, planning escape routes, walking with keys between knuckles, a natural instinct in our day-to-day routines.

For each objective, settle on no more than five measurable, unambiguous, time-bound key results—how the objective will be attained. By definition, completion of all key results equates to the attainment of the objective.

In a field you’re already familiar with—like your own job—think carefully about what characterizes good performance and try to come up with ways to measure that, even if there must be a certain amount of subjectivity in your measurement. Then look for those people who score highest in the areas you believe are key to superior performance. Remember that the ideal is to find objective, reproducible measures that consistently distinguish the best from the rest, and if that ideal is not possible, approximate it as well as you can. Once

Direct marketers, of course, realize that measurement is the key to success. Figure out what works, and do it more! Mass marketers have always resisted this temptation. When my old company approached the head of one of the largest magazine publishers in the world and pitched a technology that would allow advertisers to track who saw their ads and responded to them, he was aghast. He realized that this sort of data could kill his business. He knew that his clients didn’t want the data because then their jobs would get a lot more complex. Measurement means admitting what’s broken so you can fix it. Mass-media advertising, whether it’s on TV or in print, is all about emotion and craft, not about fixing mistakes. One reason the Internet ad boomlet faded so fast is that it forced advertisers to measure – and to admit what was going wrong.

Over twenty-five hundred years into this experiment we call the West, is there any chance of reconciling the two competing worldviews that clashed so dramatically at the end of the fourth century AD? If so, then, as with any good compromise, there will be plenty of disappointment on both sides. People of reason may have to concede that modern science has its limits. Not everything of value can be weighed and measured. People of faith may have to admit that we can no longer afford legend over history, or obedience over curiosity. In a rapidly accelerating world Big Religion has failed to keep up with a younger generation that prefers fact over fiction. But Big Science and Big Technology may be going too fast, distracting us from the ancient search for meaning that defined the original religion of Western civilization. How do we bridge the gap?

Model balance for your children. We know the keys to well-being are sleep, good nutrition, exercise, play, purposeful work, time outdoors, and time to connect with friends and community. Make wellness a priority for yourself, as well, and explain to your kids what you’re doing and why. •

The people did not come out in opposition to Evo, rather they mobilized to say no to any attempt to govern without consultation, to demand rectification and recognition,” argues Isabel Rauber. In an act of humility, revealing both his great wisdom and his roots, Evo Morales changed course by withdrawing the decree and reiterating his decision to “govern by obeying,” which, in strict terms, is not a question of either governing or obeying, but rather governing together, working jointly on key measures, and sharing responsibility for decisions made and their implementation.

It doesn't matter what he thinks of himself. Sure he's egotistic, so what? It takes that kind of ego to make a man attempt a thing like this. I've seen enough of men like him to know that mixed in with that pompousness and self-assertion is a goddamned good measure of uncertainty and fear.

He told me once that everyone had a hidden door, which was the way into the heart, and that it was a point of honour with him to be able to find the handles to those doors. For the heart was both key and lock, and he who could master the hearts of men and learn their secrets was well on the way to mastering the Fates and controlling the thread of his own destiny. Not, he hastened to add, that any man could really do that. Not even the gods, he said, were more powerful than the Three Fatal Sisters. He did not mention them by name, but spat to avoid bad luck; and I shivered to think of them in their glum cave, spinning out lives, measuring them, cutting them off.

You perform at your highest potential only when you are focusing on the most valuable use of your time. This is the key to personal and business success. It is the central issue in personal efficiency and time management. You must always be asking yourself, What is the most valuable use of my time right now? Discipline yourself to work exclusively on the one task that, at any given time, is the answer to this question. Keep yourself on track and focused on your most important responsibilities by asking yourself, over and over, What is the most valuable use of my time right now? How you can apply this law immediately: 1. Remember that you can do only one thing at a time. Stop and think before you begin. Be sure that the task you do is the highest-value use of your time. Remind yourself that anything else you do while your most important task remains undone is a relative waste of time. 2. Be clear about the most valuable work that you do for your organization. Whatever it is, resolve to concentrate on doing that specific task before anything else. Why are you on the payroll? What specific, tangible, measurable results are expected of you? And of all the different results you are capable of achieving, which are the most important to your career at this moment? Whatever the answer, this is where you must focus your energies, and nowhere else.

Even more remarkable—and a key reason Bob invited me to Hasanlu—was the object cradled in the arms of the front runner. The object was a bowl (or a vase, or a beaker): a metal vessel measuring about eight inches high, seven inches across the top, and six inches across the base. The falling walls had flattened the bowl, of course, along with the guy carrying it.

[The Chinese here is tricky and a certain key word in the context it is used defies the best efforts of the translator. Tu Mu defines this word as “the measurement or estimation of distance.” But this meaning does not quite fit the illustrative simile in ss. 15. Applying this definition to the falcon, it seems to me to denote that instinct of SELF RESTRAINT which keeps the bird from swooping on its quarry until the right moment, together with the power of judging when the right moment has arrived. The analogous quality in soldiers is the highly important one of being able to reserve their fire until the very instant at which it will be most effective. When the “Victory” went into action at Trafalgar at hardly more than drifting pace, she was for several minutes exposed to a storm of shot and shell before replying with a single gun. Nelson coolly waited until he was within close range, when the broadside he brought to bear worked fearful havoc on the enemy’s nearest ships.] 14.  Therefore the good fighter will be terrible in his onset, and prompt in his decision. [The word “decision” would have reference to the measurement of distance mentioned above, letting the enemy get near before striking. But I cannot help thinking that Sun Tzu meant to use the word in a figurative sense comparable to our own idiom “short and sharp.” Cf. Wang Hsi’s note, which after describing the falcon’s mode of attack, proceeds: “This is just how the ‘psychological moment’ should be seized in war.”]

On average, dopamine receptor density is reduced in the VTA target regions of obese subjects as compared with those lean subjects (a characteristic that can be measured in a brain scanner). But the key question remains: Do obese individuals show reduced dopaminergic activation of VTA target areas in response to food? Is a blunted pleasure response to food involved in obesity?

Roney (2003) hypothesized that mere exposure to attractive women would activate cognitive adaptations in men designed to embody the qualities that women want in a mate. Specifically, he predicted that exposure to young attractive women would (1) increase the importance men place on their own financial success, (2) experience feeling more ambitious, and (3) produce self-descriptions that correspond to what women want. Using a cover story to disguise the purpose of the study, Roney had one group of men rate the effectiveness of advertisements containing young, attractive models and another group of men rate the effectiveness of ads containing older, less-attractive models. Following this exposure, the men responded to the key measures to test his hypotheses.

In all these situations of conflict the ego is seeking to repudiate a part of its own id. Thus the institution which sets up the defence and the invading force which is warded off are always the same; the variable factors are the motives which impel the ego to resort to defensive measures. Ultimately all such measures are designed to secure the ego and to save it from experiencing ‘pain.

Here, however, is where his genius truly took off. Galois managed to associate with each equation a sort of "genetic code" of that equation-the Galois group of the equation-and to demonstrate that the properties of the Galois group determine whether the equation is solvable by a formula or not. Symmetry became the key concept, and the Galois group was a direct measure of the symmetry properties of an equation.

Exams do not assess anything significant to the future of children, because no one knows how to assess or measure the key factors to the future success of any person, child or adult. They are a closed system; tests exist for their own sake. They measure the ability of the entire school community—children, parents, teachers, administrators—to focus all their efforts on producing good results on tests! Nothing more, nothing less. To

I grew up watching my father make plates that featured penises as centerpieces. Pink, proud, and stiff, encircled by cerulean Greek key, Dad’s creations made me feel scared and small. I saw a private part of the man I could not measure up to. At six years old, I lived in a world shaded by his ceramic glazes. There was love and color, but anger, too, in the way he kneaded his clay, palms pounding the rich, wet earth into shapes of his choosing.

is easy to recall from everyday experience that neither electricity nor magnetism have visual properties. So, on its own, it’s not hard to grasp that there is nothing inherently visual, nothing bright or colored about that candle flame. Now let these same invisible electromagnetic waves strike a human retina, and if (and only if) the waves each happen to measure between 400 and 700 nanometers in length from crest to crest, then their energy is just right to deliver a stimulus to the 8 million cone-shaped cells in the retina. Each in turn sends an electrical pulse to a neighbor neuron, and on up the line this goes, at 250 mph, until it reaches the warm, wet occipital lobe of the brain, in the back of the head. There, a cascading complex of neurons fire from the incoming stimuli, and we subjectively perceive this experience as a yellow brightness occurring in a place we have been conditioned to call “the external world.” Other creatures receiving the identical stimulus will experience something altogether different, such as a perception of gray, or even have an entirely dissimilar sensation. The point is, there isn’t a “bright yellow” light “out there” at all. At most, there is an invisible stream of electrical and magnetic pulses. We are totally necessary for the experience of what we’d call a yellow flame. Again, it’s correlative.

We have to start accounting for the three themes that define women's relationship with that world. The first of these themes is the female body - or, to be precise - its invisibility. Routinely forgetting to accommodate the female body in design - whether medical, technological or architectural - has led to a world that is less hospitable and more dangerous for women to navigate. It leads to us injuring ourselves in jobs and cars that weren't designed for our bodies. It leads us to dying from drugs that don't work. It has led to the creation of a world where women just don't fit very well. There is an irony in how the female body is apparently invisible when it comes to collecting data, because when it comes to the second trend that defines women's lives, the visibility of the female body is key. That tend is male sexual violence against women - how we don't measure it, don't design our world to account for it, and in so doing, allow it to limit women's liberty.

Terrorism cannot be overcome by the use of force because it does not address the complex underlying problems. In fact the use of force may not only fail to solve the problems, it may exacerbate them and frequently leaves destruction and suffering in its wake. Human conflicts should be resolved with compassion. The key is non-violence. Retaliatory military action by the United States may bring some satisfaction and short-term results but it will not root out the problem of terrorism. Long-term measures need to be taken. The US must examine the factors that breed and give rise to terrorism. I have written to President Bush urging him to exercise restraint and not to seek a brutal revenge for the 11th September attacks. I expressed my sympathy but I suggested that responding to violence with more violence might not be the answer. I would also like to point out that to talk of nonviolence when things are going smoothly is not of much relevance. It is precisely when things become really difficult, urgent and critical that we should think and act nonviolently.

The bigger threat to Google wouldn’t be measured in dollars, but in the philosophical challenge. Could it be that social networking, rather than algorithmic exploitation of the web’s intelligence, would assume the central role in people’s online lives? Even if that were not the case, Facebook made it clear that every facet of the Internet would benefit from the power of personal connection. Google had been chasing a future forged out of algorithms and science fiction chronicles. Did the key to the future lay in party photos and daily status reports?

1. Recruit the smallest group of people who can accomplish what must be done quickly and with high quality. Comparative Advantage means that some people will be better than others at accomplishing certain tasks, so it pays to invest time and resources in recruiting the best team for the job. Don’t make that team too large, however—Communication Overhead makes each additional team member beyond a core of three to eight people a drag on performance. Small, elite teams are best. 2. Clearly communicate the desired End Result, who is responsible for what, and the current status. Everyone on the team must know the Commander’s Intent of the project, the Reason Why it’s important, and must clearly know the specific parts of the project they’re individually responsible for completing—otherwise, you’re risking Bystander Apathy. 3. Treat people with respect. Consistently using the Golden Trifecta—appreciation, courtesy, and respect—is the best way to make the individuals on your team feel Important and is also the best way to ensure that they respect you as a leader and manager. The more your team works together under mutually supportive conditions, the more Clanning will naturally occur, and the more cohesive the team will become. 4. Create an Environment where everyone can be as productive as possible, then let people do their work. The best working Environment takes full advantage of Guiding Structure—provide the best equipment and tools possible and ensure that the Environment reinforces the work the team is doing. To avoid having energy sapped by the Cognitive Switching Penalty, shield your team from as many distractions as possible, which includes nonessential bureaucracy and meetings. 5. Refrain from having unrealistic expectations regarding certainty and prediction. Create an aggressive plan to complete the project, but be aware in advance that Uncertainty and the Planning Fallacy mean your initial plan will almost certainly be incomplete or inaccurate in a few important respects. Update your plan as you go along, using what you learn along the way, and continually reapply Parkinson’s Law to find the shortest feasible path to completion that works, given the necessary Trade-offs required by the work. 6. Measure to see if what you’re doing is working—if not, try another approach. One of the primary fallacies of effective Management is that it makes learning unnecessary. This mind-set assumes your initial plan should be 100 percent perfect and followed to the letter. The exact opposite is true: effective Management means planning for learning, which requires constant adjustments along the way. Constantly Measure your performance across a small set of Key Performance Indicators (discussed later)—if what you’re doing doesn’t appear to be working, Experiment with another approach.

The piano entered the story, bringing a new voice to the narrative. Her fingers brushed the keys, her heart straining to find satisfaction in the harmonic shifts and subtle colorings. It wasn't there. Leila closed her eyes, tried new ways of speaking a phrase - holding back, pushing forward, adding an unexpected accent, waiting a breath before the harmonic resolution. But she couldn't find it. She pushed the music forward with frantic exhilaration, dragging the orchestra behind her.  René shot her a warning look. Leila drove hard, demanding they follow, viciously attacking the finale as she searched for what eluded her. But when the last chord exploded, ringing with a rage composed of love and longing, Leila felt nothing but a drained emptiness. It was as if the reins keeping her in control, in the carefully constructed environment where she'd always created music, had snapped and broken away.  Everything had felt just beyond reach. The notes had danced before her but she'd been unable to grasp them, to own and mold them into what she wanted to say. "Brava!" Leila blinked. People stood, flooding the hall with a deluge of approval for her sacrifice on stage.

Are the religious individuals in a society more moral than the secular ones? Many researchers have looked into this, and the main finding is that there are few interesting findings. There are subtle effects here and there: some studies find, for instance, that the religious are slightly more prejudiced, but this effect is weak when one factors out other considerations, such as age and political attitudes, and exists only when religious belief is measured in certain ways. The only large effect is that religious Americans give more to charity (including nonreligious charities) than atheists do. This holds even when one controls for demographics (religious Americans are more likely than average to be older, female, southern, and African American). To explore why this relationship exists, the political scientists Robert Putnam and David Campbell asked people about life after death, the importance of God to morality, and various other facets of religious belief. It turns out that none of their answers to such questions were related to behaviors having to do with volunteering and charitable giving. Rather, participation in the religious community was everything. As Putnam and Campbell put it, “Once we know how observant a person is in terms of church attendance, nothing that we can discover about the content of her religious faith adds anything to our understanding or prediction of her good neighborliness.… In fact, the statistics suggest that even an atheist who happened to become involved in the social life of the congregation (perhaps through a spouse) is much more likely to volunteer in a soup kitchen than the most fervent believer who prays alone. It is religious belongingness that matters for neighborliness, not religious believing.” This importance of community, and the irrelevance of belief, extends as well to the nastier effects of religion. The psychologist Jeremy Ginges and his colleagues found a strong relationship between religiosity and support for suicide bombing among Palestinian Muslims, and, again, the key factor was religious community, not religious belief: mosque attendance predicted support for suicide attacks; frequency of prayer did not. Among Indonesian Muslims, Mexican Catholics, British Protestants, Russian Orthodox in Russia, Israeli Jews, and Indian Hindus, frequency of religious attendance (but again, not frequency of prayer) predicts responses to questions such as “I blame people of other religions for much of the trouble in this world.

One way you can practice excellent posture is to use “power poses.” Raising your hands overhead with clenched fists such as a marathon runner might do after winning a race is a great one to try - spread your feet out to shoulder-length distance apart from one another, lift your chin, put a smile on your face, and raise your hands overhead. Now hold this for two full minutes. According to research, this gives you a measurable testosterone boost while decreasing levels of stress hormones in your blood stream.   Once you’re done holding the pose, you will naturally maintain a more confident attitude and better posture for a good twenty or thirty minutes afterwards.

THE ELEVENTH KEY The Eleventh Enochian Key is used to herald the coming of the dead and establish a sustenance beyond the grave. To bind to the earth. A funerary call. ... THE ELEVENTH KEY (English) The mighty throne growled and there were five thunders that flew into the East. And the eagle spake and cried aloud: Come away from the house of death! And they gathered themselves together and became those of whom is measured, and they are the deathless ones who ride the whirlwinds. Come away! For I have prepared a place for you. Move therefore, and show yourselves! Unveil the mysteries of your creation. Be friendly unto me, for I am your God, the true worshipper of the flesh that liveth forever!

And really, that’s the most important thing he does with his days. It’s a small, measurable success, in the face of diminishing sales and an empty double bed and a set of skills which were marketable one hundred years ago, but now look quaint and even sad. Every afternoon for the last six months he has been fighting an uneven battle with himself not to overturn the trolley with its many keys, and scatter them across the room. His better nature has won only because the image of himself on his knees, remorsefully gathering them again, repairing scratched case clocks and whispering apologies to the ghost of his grandfather—and for strange and different reasons also his father—is more than he can bear.

There are three ways to approach secrets, you know. The first is what you find on soap operas and in poorly executed middle-school maneuvers. First, you uncover a piece of incriminating information, and then you use it to force a steady stream of favors or payment or behavior. The problem here is that, if extended indefinitely, the expected cost of compliance eventually outweighs the cost of exposure. Moreover, the probability that you'll lose your monopoly of your information increases with each passing day. Never, ever assume that you're only person digging for dirt, especially in Los Angeles. Vipers are measured by the pitful for a reason. The second approach is more effective: You make one, single very carefully chosen demand. And you give your mark just one chance. This was my usual MO. If this mark doesn't do as you ask, when you ask, you leak their secret. No excuses. No mercy. Brutal consistency is the key to credibility. Mothers, dog trainers, Israel -- you know what I'm talking about. But there's also a radical third approach: You reveal that you know the secret...and they you keep it under wraps. Do that, and they're not just going to tell you other secrets, they might even keep yours in return. And they'll think they're doing of their own free will when what you've really done is painstakingly aligned your incentives. That's all trust is, really. Some people are just incentivized by nature.

It is again fortunate from this point of view that the old symbolists who gave us the things which they classified as veils of allegory and the imagery of the High Grades left, as I have said, no key to their real meaning. The reason is that their personal understanding—supposing it to have emerged clearly—would no doubt have been of consequence in their own day but without appeal in ours, and yet we should be bound thereto. As it is, the field is free before us within the measures offered by the veils, their metaphysical matter and texture. The dead school of Masonry will continue while it lasts to affirm that there is nothing behind them, but the dead school will pass and give place to a living Masonry, which is already in the world and is breathing its own spirit into the outward forms.

REQUIREMENTS TO BE GREAT AT RUNNING HR What kind of person should you look for to comprehensively and continuously understand the quality of your management team? Here are some key requirements:   World-class process design skills Much like the head of quality assurance, the head of HR must be a masterful process designer. One key to accurately measuring critical management processes is excellent process design and control.   A true diplomat Nobody likes a tattletale and there is no way for an HR organization to be effective if the management team doesn’t implicitly trust it. Managers must believe that HR is there to help them improve rather than police them. Great HR leaders genuinely want to help the managers and couldn’t care less about getting credit for identifying problems. They will work directly with the managers to get quality up and only escalate to the CEO when necessary. If an HR leader hoards knowledge, makes power plays, or plays politics, he will be useless.   Industry knowledge Compensation, benefits, best recruiting practices, etc. are all fast-moving targets. The head of HR must be deeply networked in the industry and stay abreast of all the latest developments.   Intellectual heft to be the CEO’s trusted adviser None of the other skills matter if the CEO does not fully back the head of HR in holding the managers to a high quality standard. In order for this to happen, the CEO must trust the HR leader’s thinking and judgment.   Understanding things unspoken When management quality starts to break down in a company, nobody says anything about it, but super-perceptive people can tell that the company is slipping. You need one of those.

Today Hindu revivalists, pious Muslims, Japanese nationalists and Chinese communists may declare their adherence to very different values and goals, but they have all come to believe that economic growth is the key to realising their disparate goals. Thus in 2014 the devout Hindu Narendra Modi was elected prime minister of India thanks largely to his success in boosting economic growth in his home state of Gujarat, and to the widely held view that only he could reinvigorate the sluggish national economy. Analogous views have kept the Islamist Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in power in Turkey since 2003. The name of his party – the Justice and Development Party – highlights its commitment to economic development, and the Erdoğan government has indeed managed to maintain impressive growth rates for more than a decade. Japan’s prime minister, the nationalist Shinzō Abe, came to office in 2012 pledging to jolt the Japanese economy out of two decades of stagnation. His aggressive and somewhat unusual measures to achieve this have been nicknamed Abenomics. Meanwhile in neighbouring China the Communist Party still pays lip service to traditional Marxist–Leninist ideals, but in practice is guided by Deng Xiaoping’s famous maxims that ‘development is the only hard truth’ and that ‘it doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice’. Which means, in plain language: do whatever it takes to promote economic growth, even if Marx and Lenin wouldn’t have been happy with it. In Singapore, as befits that no-nonsense city-state, they pursue this line of thinking even further, and peg ministerial salaries to the national GDP. When the Singaporean economy grows, government ministers get a raise, as if that is what their jobs are all about.2

Who are you? Who are the players, the management team? What’s your expertise and track record? Have any of you succeeded in doing this before? Who are your advisors and what are their credentials? #2. What is it? What is your product or service? Even if it’s complex, this explanation must be easily understandable. Do you have any intellectual property rights, such as patents, that will provide some measure of exclusivity? #3. Where are you? What’s the status of your venture? Do you have a working prototype or has anyone tested your product or idea? What benchmarks have you already hit? #4. Where are you going? What’s your goal? What milestones will you attain along the way to achieving that goal? #5. Who wants it? Who’s your target market? What’s the problem being solved? Where’s the PAIN? What itch are you scratching? #6. How many people will want it? What’s your potential market size?

Although Daisy was the mildest-tempered of all the Bowmans, she was by no means a coward. And she would not accept defeat without a fight. “You’re forcing me to take desperate measures,” she said. His reply was very soft. “There’s nothing you can do.” He had left her no choice. Daisy turned the key in the lock and carefully withdrew it. The decisive click was abnormally loud in the silence of the room. Calmly Daisy tugged the top edge of her bodice away from her chest. She held the key above the narrow gap. Matthew’s eyes widened as he understood what she intended. “You wouldn’t.” As he started around the dresser, Daisy dropped the key into her bodice, making certain it slipped beneath her corset. She sucked in her stomach and midriff until she felt the cold metal slide to her navel. “Damn it!” Matthew reached her with startling speed. He reached out to touch her, then jerked his hands back as if he had just encountered open flame. “Take it out,” he commanded, his face dark with outrage. “I can’t.” “I mean it, Daisy!” “It’s fallen too far down. I’ll have to take my dress off.” It was obvious he wanted to kill her. But she could also feel the force of his longing. His lungs were working like bellows, and scorching heat radiated from his body. His whisper contained the ferocity of a roar. “Don’t do this to me.” Daisy waited patiently. The next move was his. He turned his back to her, the seams of his coat straining over bunched muscles. His fists clenched as he struggled to master himself. He took a shuddering breath, and another, and when he spoke his voice sounded thick, as if he had just awakened from a heavy sleep. “Take off your gown.” Trying not to antagonize him any more than was necessary, Daisy replied in an apologetic tone. “I can’t do it by myself. It buttons up the back.” Matthew said something in a muffled voice that sounded very foul. After an eternity of silence he turned to face her. His jaw could have been cast in iron. “I’m not going to fall apart that easily. I can resist you, Daisy. I’ve had years of practice. Turn around.” Daisy obeyed. As she bent her head forward, she could actually feel his gaze travel over the endless row of pearl buttons. “How do you ever get undressed?” he muttered. “I’ve never seen so many blasted buttons on one garment.” “It’s fashionable.” “It’s ridiculous.” “You can send a letter of protest to Godey’s Lady’s Book,” she suggested. Giving a scornful snort, Matthew began on the top button. He tried to unfasten it while avoiding contact with her body. “It helps if you slide your fingers beneath the placket,” Daisy said. “And then you can pop the button through the—” “Quiet,” he snapped. She closed her mouth.

THE NINTH KEY The Ninth Enochian Key warns of the use of substances, devices or pharmaceuticals which might lead to the delusion and subsequent enslavement of the master. A protection against false values. ... THE NINTH KEY (English) A mighty guard of fire with two-edged swords flaming (which contain the vials of delusion, whose whings are of wormwood of the marrow of salt), have set their feet in the West, and are measured with their ministers. These gather up the moss of the Earth, as the rich man doth his treasure. Cursed are they whose iniquities they are! In their eyes are millstones greater than the Earth, and from their mouths run seas of blood. Their brains are covered with diamonds, and upon their heads are marble stones. Happy is he on whom they frown not. For Why? The Lord of Righteousness rejoiceth in them! Come away, and leave your vials, for the time is such as reqireth comfort!

The problem, Augustine came to believe, is that if you think you can organize your own salvation you are magnifying the very sin that keeps you from it. To believe that you can be captain of your own life is to suffer the sin of pride. What is pride? These days the word “pride” has positive connotations. It means feeling good about yourself and the things associated with you. When we use it negatively, we think of the arrogant person, someone who is puffed up and egotistical, boasting and strutting about. But that is not really the core of pride. That is just one way the disease of pride presents itself. By another definition, pride is building your happiness around your accomplishments, using your work as the measure of your worth. It is believing that you can arrive at fulfillment on your own, driven by your own individual efforts. Pride can come in bloated form. This is the puffed-up Donald Trump style of pride. This person wants people to see visible proof of his superiority. He wants to be on the VIP list. In conversation, he boasts, he brags. He needs to see his superiority reflected in other people’s eyes. He believes that this feeling of superiority will eventually bring him peace. That version is familiar. But there are other proud people who have low self-esteem. They feel they haven’t lived up to their potential. They feel unworthy. They want to hide and disappear, to fade into the background and nurse their own hurts. We don’t associate them with pride, but they are still, at root, suffering from the same disease. They are still yoking happiness to accomplishment; it’s just that they are giving themselves a D– rather than an A+. They tend to be just as solipsistic, and in their own way as self-centered, only in a self-pitying and isolating way rather than in an assertive and bragging way. One key paradox of pride is that it often combines extreme self-confidence with extreme anxiety. The proud person often appears self-sufficient and egotistical but is really touchy and unstable. The proud person tries to establish self-worth by winning a great reputation, but of course this makes him utterly dependent on the gossipy and unstable crowd for his own identity. The proud person is competitive. But there are always other people who might do better. The most ruthlessly competitive person in the contest sets the standard that all else must meet or get left behind. Everybody else has to be just as monomaniacally driven to success. One can never be secure. As Dante put it, the “ardor to outshine / Burned in my bosom with a kind of rage.” Hungry for exaltation, the proud person has a tendency to make himself ridiculous. Proud people have an amazing tendency to turn themselves into buffoons, with a comb-over that fools nobody, with golden bathroom fixtures that impress nobody, with name-dropping stories that inspire nobody. Every proud man, Augustine writes, “heeds himself, and he who pleases himself seems great to himself. But he who pleases himself pleases a fool, for he himself is a fool when he is pleasing himself.”16 Pride, the minister and writer Tim Keller has observed, is unstable because other people are absentmindedly or intentionally treating the proud man’s ego with less reverence than he thinks it deserves. He continually finds that his feelings are hurt. He is perpetually putting up a front. The self-cultivator spends more energy trying to display the fact that he is happy—posting highlight reel Facebook photos and all the rest—than he does actually being happy. Augustine suddenly came to realize that the solution to his problem would come only after a transformation more fundamental than any he had previously entertained, a renunciation of the very idea that he could be the source of his own solution.

Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life. And understanding them - or, often, deciphering them - is the key to understanding a problem, and how it might be solved. Knowing what to measure, and how to measure it, can make a complicated world less so. There is nothing like the sheer power of numbers to scrub away lawyers of confusion and contradiction, especially with emotional, hot-button topics. The conventional wisdom is often wrong. And a blithe acceptance of it can lead to sloppy, wasteful, or even dangerous outcomes. Correlation does not equal causality. When two things travel together, it is tempting to assume that one causes the other. Married people, for instance, are demonstrably happier than single people; does this mean that marriage causes happiness? Not necessarily. The data suggest that happy people are more likely to get married in the first place. As one researcher memorably put it, "If you're grumpy, who the hell wants to marry you?

The War on Drugs proved popular among key white voters, particularly whites who remained resentful of black progress, civil rights enforcement, and affirmative action. Beginning in the 1970s, researchers found that racial attitudes - not crime rates or likelihood of victimization - are an important determinant of white support for 'get tough on crime' and antiwelfare measures. Among whites, those expressing the highest degree of concern about crime also tend to oppose racial reform, and their punitive attitudes toward crime are largely unrelated to their likelihood of victimization. Whites, on average, are more punitive than blacks, despite the fact that blacks are far more likely to be victims of crime. Rural whites are often the most punitive, even though they are least likely to be crime victims. The War on Drugs, cloaked in race-neutral language, offered whites opposed to racial reform a unique opportunity to express their hostility toward blacks and black progress, without being exposed to the charge of racism.

Ever since the end of World War II, when antibiotics arrived like jingle-clad, ultramodern cleaning products, we’ve been swept up in antigerm warfare. But in a recent article published in Archives of General Psychiatry, the Emory University neuroscientist Charles Raison and his colleagues say there’s mounting evidence that our ultraclean, polished-chrome, Lysoled modern world holds the key to today’s higher rates of depression, especially among young people. Loss of our ancient bond with microorganisms in gut, skin, food, and soil plays an important role, because without them we’re not privy to the good bacteria our immune system once counted on to fend off inflammation. “Since ancient times,” Raison says, “benign microorganisms, sometimes referred to as ‘old friends,’ have taught the immune system how to tolerate other harmless microorganisms, and in the process reduce inflammatory responses that have been linked to most modern illnesses, from cancer to depression.” He raises the question of “whether we should encourage measured reexposure to benign environmental microorganisms

Yet skill in the most sophisticated applications of laboratory technology and in the use of the latest therapeutic modality alone does not make a good physician. When a patient poses challenging clinical problems, an effective physician must be able to identify the crucial elements in a complex history and physical examination; order the appropriate laboratory, imaging, and diagnostic tests; and extract the key results from densely populated computer screens to determine whether to treat or to “watch.” As the number of tests increases, so does the likelihood that some incidental finding, completely unrelated to the clinical problem at hand, will be uncovered. Deciding whether a clinical clue is worth pursuing or should be dismissed as a “red herring” and weighing whether a proposed test, preventive measure, or treatment entails a greater risk than the disease itself are essential judgments that a skilled clinician must make many times each day. This combination of medical knowledge, intuition, experience, and judgment defines the art of medicine, which is as necessary to the practice of medicine as is a sound scientific base.

In May 1981, Yuri Andropov, chairman of the KGB, gathered his senior officers in a secret conclave to issue a startling announcement: America was planning to launch a nuclear first strike, and obliterate the Soviet Union. For more than twenty years, a nuclear war between East and West had been held at bay by the threat of mutually assured destruction, the promise that both sides would be annihilated in any such conflict, regardless of who started it. But by the end of the 1970s the West had begun to pull ahead in the nuclear arms race, and tense détente was giving way to a different sort of psychological confrontation, in which the Kremlin feared it could be destroyed and defeated by a preemptive nuclear attack. Early in 1981, the KGB carried out an analysis of the geopolitical situation, using a newly developed computer program, and concluded that “the correlation of world forces” was moving in favor of the West. Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was proving costly, Cuba was draining Soviet funds, the CIA was launching aggressive covert action against the USSR, and the US was undergoing a major military buildup: the Soviet Union seemed to be losing the Cold War, and, like a boxer exhausted by long years of sparring, the Kremlin feared that a single, brutal sucker punch could end the contest. The KGB chief’s conviction that the USSR was vulnerable to a surprise nuclear attack probably had more to do with Andropov’s personal experience than rational geopolitical analysis. As Soviet ambassador to Hungary in 1956, he had witnessed how quickly an apparently powerful regime might be toppled. He had played a key role in suppressing the Hungarian Uprising. A dozen years later, Andropov again urged “extreme measures” to put down the Prague Spring. The “Butcher of Budapest” was a firm believer in armed force and KGB repression. The head of the Romanian secret police described him as “the man who substituted the KGB for the Communist Party in governing the USSR.” The confident and bullish stance of the newly installed Reagan administration seemed to underscore the impending threat. And so, like every genuine paranoiac, Andropov set out to find the evidence to confirm his fears. Operation RYAN (an acronym for raketno-yadernoye napadeniye, Russian for “nuclear missile attack”) was the biggest peacetime Soviet intelligence operation ever launched.

made some teams much better than others. What they found was that individual intelligence (as measured by IQ) didn’t make the big difference. Having a high aggregate intelligence or just one or two superstars wasn’t critical. The groups that surfaced more and better solutions shared three key qualities. First, they gave one another roughly equal time to talk. This wasn’t monitored or regulated, but no one in these high-achieving groups dominated or was a passenger. Everyone contributed and nothing any one person said was wasted. The second quality of the successful groups was social sensitivity: these individuals were more tuned in to one another, to subtle shifts in mood and demeanor. They scored more highly on a test called Reading the Mind in the Eyes, which is broadly considered a test for empathy. These groups were socially alert to one another’s needs. And the third distinguishing feature was that the best groups included more women, perhaps because that made them more diverse, or because women tend to score more highly on tests for empathy. What this (and much more) research highlights is just how critical the role of social connectedness can be. Reading the research, I

I am not Sa. I lack his almighty wisdom. But I think you are likely to find Etta’s destiny in Etta, rather than hoping Kennit will impregnate you with it.” Anger writhed over her face. Then she sat still, anger still glinting in her eyes, but with it a careful consideration of his words. Finally, she observed gruffly, “It’s hard to take offense at your saying that I might be important for myself.” Her eyes met his squarely. “I might consider it a compliment. Except it’s hard to believe you are sincere, when you obviously don’t believe the same is true of yourself.” She continued into his stunned silence, “You haven’t lost your belief in Sa. You’ve lost your belief in yourself. You speak to me of measuring myself by my significance to Kennit. But you do the same. You evaluate your purpose in terms of Vivacia or Kennit. Pick your own life, Wintrow, and be responsible for it. Then, perhaps, you may be significant to them.” Like a key turning in a rusty lock. That was the sensation inside him. Or perhaps like a wound that bleeds anew past a closed crust, he thought wryly. He sifted her words, searching for a flaw in her logic, for a trick in her wording. There was none. She was right. Somehow, sometime, he had abdicated responsibility for his life.

I’m sorry,' [Marty] said unexpectedly. “Huh?” “That we never got to perform that duet together. Don’t you remember? For the Spring Concert?” “Oh, yeah. What was that song we were going to sing?” I asked. She placed her right hand on her hip and mock-pouted at me. “James Garraty, don’t tell me you forgot.” I gave her an impish who, me look. When she smiled, I said in a more serious tone: “‘Somewhere,’ from West Side Story.” I hummed the song’s first measure; it sounded a half-octave off key. Marty frowned. “You haven’t practiced lately,” she said disapprovingly. “No, I haven’t,” I said, and as I said it waves of melancholy washed over me like a cold dark tide. Marty saw my expression change; she walked up to me and placed her arm around my shoulder comfortingly. “I know,” she said softly, “how much you were looking forward to it, Jim. I was looking forward to singing that duet with you, too.” “Really?” I asked. “Really. You’re a terrific singer. Who wouldn’t want to sing a duet with you?” “I bet,” I said, “you say that to all the boys.” She laughed. My heart jumped as it usually did when she laughed. A thought clicked in my brain: What was it I’d written just a while ago? You are the one person who has the ability to brighten up a sour day. You have always managed to make me return a smile to someone else.

When a high IQ-test score is accompanied by subpar performance in some other domain, this is thought "surprising," and a new disability category is coined to name the surprise. So, similarly, the diagnostic criterion for mathematics disorder (sometimes termed dyscalculia) in DSM IV is that "Mathematical ability that falls substantially below that expected for the individual's chronological age, measured intelligence, and age-appropriate education" (p. 50)- The logic of discrepancy-based classification based on IQ-test performance has created a clear precedent whereby we are almost obligated to create a new disability category when an important skill domain is found to be somewhat dissociated from intelligence. It is just this logic that I exploited in creating a new category of disability- dysrationalia.T he proposed definition of the disability was as follows: Dysrationalia is the inability to think and behave rationally despite adequate intelligence. It is a general term that refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders manifested by significant difficulties in belief formation, in the assessment of belief consistency, and/or in the determination of action to achieve one's goals. Although dysrationalia may occur concomitantly with other handicapping conditions (e.g., sensory impairment), dysrationalia is not the result of those conditions. The key diagnostic criterion for dysrationalia is a level of rationality, as demonstrated in thinking and behavior, that is significantly below the level of the individual's intellectual capacity (as determined by an individually administered IQ test).

There are three key things that matter in having a voice: audibility, credibility, and consequence. Audibility means that you can be heard, that you have not been pressed into silence or kept out of the areas of where you can speak or write or denied the education to do so or in the age of social media, been harassed and threatened and driven off the platform as so many have. Credibility means that when you get into those arenas, people are willing to believe you, by which I don't mean that women never lie, but that stories should be measured on their own terms and context, rather than patriarchy's insistence that women are categorically unqualified to speak. Emotional, rather than rational. Vindictive, incoherent, delusional, manipulative. Unfit to be heeded. Those things often shouted over a women in the process of saying something challenging. Though now death threat are used as a short-cut, and some of those threats are carried out. Notably with women who leave their abusers, because silencing can be conversational or can be premeditated murder. To be a person of consequence is to matter. If you matter, you have rights, and your words serve those rights. And give you the power to bear witness, make agreements, set boundaries. If you have consequence, your words possess the authority to determine what does and does not happen to you. The power that underlies the concept of consent as part of equality in self-determination. Even legally, women's words have lacked consequence. And only in a few scattered places on earth, could women vote before the 20th century, and not so many decades ago, women rarely became lawyers and judges.

The Secret of Radical Obedience Hearing God in the secret place is one of the greatest keys to the overcoming Christian life.  However, it must be linked with its corollary: radical obedience.  We hear, and then we do.  “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22). By “radical obedience,” I mean immediate obedience that fulfills the commandment to its fullest measure.  Radical obedience does not seek to comply to the minimal standards but pursues extravagant, lavish fulfillment.  If Jesus says, “Sell all,” then we sell all!  Immediately. The New Testament word for obedience, hupakoe, is a compound word of two Greek words, hupo, “under,” and akouo, “to hear.”  So to obey is “to hear under.”  Obedience involves listening attentively with a heart of compliant submission and, then, obeying His word. Implicit obedience starts, for every one of us, not in doing good works but in sitting at His feet and hearing His word.  Devotion to the secret place is the saint’s first great act of obedience.  Jesus revealed this: But He answered them, saying, “Who is My mother, or My brothers?” And He looked around in a circle at those who sat about Him, and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother” (Mark 3:33-35). The will of God in that moment was for the people to sit at Jesus’ feet and hear His word.  Until you attend to this responsibility first, you will be constantly frustrated in your inability to uncover the joys of radical obedience.  Works of service gain their spiritual energy from the furnace of a fiery love relationship at Jesus’ feet. The true fulfillment of serving Jesus is discovered when we get first things

Back in bed I listen to every sound. The plastic tarp over the table on the balcony crunching in the cold wind. the two short clicks in the walls before the heat comes on with a low whoosh. I hear a constant base hum all around, the nervous system of the building, carrying electricity and gas and phone conversations to all our respective little boxes. I listen to it all, the constant, the rhythmic, and the random. It's hard to measure the night by sound, but it can be done. I know that when the traffic noise is quietest, it's about 4:30 in the morning. I know that when the 'Times' hits the door, it's around 5. Now the clock says it's morning, 5:45, but the November sky still says midnight. I hear the elevator ding twenty yards down the hall outside our door. Seven seconds later, I hear his keys in our lock, then his heavy backpack hitting the floor. I hear the refrigerator door open, the unsealing vacuum wheezing as the cold inside air meets the dry heat in the apartment. The cupboard door. A glass. The crescendoing fizz of a new two-liter Diet Coke bottle opening. It's a one-sided conversation with no one actually talking. I lie in the dark, close my eyes, and try not to listen to his movements around apartment. these are the sounds of our life together before it got so messy. I want to say something back. Anything, anything that sounds like things sounded last summer. Even just to myself. Just something out loud. The inside of my eyelids turn pink. My door has been opened and the light from the hallway shines through them. I won't open them. There is no noise. Like an eclipse, the world behind my closed eyes goes dark again. For just one second, before I feel a kiss on my right eye. I keep them closed. A kiss on the left one. I open them. Jack looks down at me and closes his eyes. He leans forward and puts his forehead on my chest and goes limp. ''Blues Clues' is on,' he says softly into my tee shirt. His muffled voice vibrating only a half inch away from my heart.

Carbonara: The union of al dente noodles (traditionally spaghetti, but in this case rigatoni), crispy pork, and a cloak of lightly cooked egg and cheese is arguably the second most famous pasta in Italy, after Bologna's tagliatelle al ragù. The key to an excellent carbonara lies in the strategic incorporation of the egg, which is added raw to the hot pasta just before serving: add it when the pasta is too hot, and it will scramble and clump around the noodles; add it too late, and you'll have a viscous tide of raw egg dragging down your pasta. Cacio e pepe: Said to have originated as a means of sustenance for shepherds on the road, who could bear to carry dried pasta, a hunk of cheese, and black pepper but little else. Cacio e pepe is the most magical and befuddling of all Italian dishes, something that reads like arithmetic on paper but plays out like calculus in the pan. With nothing more than these three ingredients (and perhaps a bit of oil or butter, depending on who's cooking), plus a splash of water and a lot of movement in the pan to emulsify the fat from the cheese with the H2O, you end up with a sauce that clings to the noodles and to your taste memories in equal measure. Amatriciana: The only red pasta of the bunch. It doesn't come from Rome at all but from the town of Amatrice on the border of Lazio and Abruzzo (the influence of neighboring Abruzzo on Roman cuisine, especially in the pasta department, cannot be overstated). It's made predominantly with bucatini- thick, tubular spaghetti- dressed in tomato sauce revved up with crispy guanciale and a touch of chili. It's funky and sweet, with a mild bite- a rare study of opposing flavors in a cuisine that doesn't typically go for contrasts. Gricia: The least known of the four kings, especially outside Rome, but according to Andrea, gricia is the bridge between them all: the rendered pork fat that gooses a carbonara or amatriciana, the funky cheese and pepper punch at the heart of cacio e pepe. "It all starts with gricia.

Weaknesses in claims about self-esteem have been evident for a long time. In California in the late 1980s, the state governor set up a special taskforce to examine politician John Vasconcellos’s claim that boosting young people’s self-esteem would prevent a range of societal problems (see chapter 1). One of its briefs was to review the relevant literature and assess whether there was support for this new approach. An author of the resulting report wrote in the introduction that ‘one of the disappointing aspects of every chapter in this volume … is how low the associations between self-esteem and its [presumed] consequences are in research to date.’1 Unfortunately, this early expression of concern was largely ignored. Carol Craig reviews more recent warnings about the self-esteem movement in an online article ‘A short history of self-esteem’, citing the research of five professors of psychology. Craig’s article and related documents are worth reading if you are interested in exploring this issue in depth.2 The following is my summary of her key conclusions about self-esteem:        •   There is no evidence that self-image enhancing techniques, aimed at boosting self-esteem directly, foster improvements in objectively measured ‘performance’.        •   Many people who consider themselves to have high self-esteem tend to grossly overestimate their own abilities, as assessed by objective tests of their performance, and may be insulted and threatened whenever anyone asserts otherwise.        •   Low self-esteem is not a risk factor for educational problems, or problems such as violence, bullying, delinquency, racism, drug-taking or alcohol abuse.        •   Obsession with self-esteem has contributed to an ‘epidemic of depression’ and is undermining the life skills and resilience of young people.        •   Attempts to boost self-esteem are encouraging narcissism and a sense of entitlement.        •   The pursuit of self-esteem has considerable costs and may undermine the wellbeing of both individuals and societies. Some of these findings were brought to wider public attention in an article entitled ‘The trouble with self-esteem’, written by psychologist Lauren Slater, which appeared in The New York Times in 2002.3 Related articles, far too many to mention individually in this book, have emerged, alongside many books in which authors express their concerns about various aspects of the myth of self-esteem.4 There is particular concern about what we are doing to our children.

Less is more. “A few extremely well-chosen objectives,” Grove wrote, “impart a clear message about what we say ‘yes’ to and what we say ‘no’ to.” A limit of three to five OKRs per cycle leads companies, teams, and individuals to choose what matters most. In general, each objective should be tied to five or fewer key results. (See chapter 4, “Superpower #1: Focus and Commit to Priorities.”) Set goals from the bottom up. To promote engagement, teams and individuals should be encouraged to create roughly half of their own OKRs, in consultation with managers. When all goals are set top-down, motivation is corroded. (See chapter 7, “Superpower #2: Align and Connect for Teamwork.”) No dictating. OKRs are a cooperative social contract to establish priorities and define how progress will be measured. Even after company objectives are closed to debate, their key results continue to be negotiated. Collective agreement is essential to maximum goal achievement. (See chapter 7, “Superpower #2: Align and Connect for Teamwork.”) Stay flexible. If the climate has changed and an objective no longer seems practical or relevant as written, key results can be modified or even discarded mid-cycle. (See chapter 10, “Superpower #3: Track for Accountability.”) Dare to fail. “Output will tend to be greater,” Grove wrote, “when everybody strives for a level of achievement beyond [their] immediate grasp. . . . Such goal-setting is extremely important if what you want is peak performance from yourself and your subordinates.” While certain operational objectives must be met in full, aspirational OKRs should be uncomfortable and possibly unattainable. “Stretched goals,” as Grove called them, push organizations to new heights. (See chapter 12, “Superpower #4: Stretch for Amazing.”) A tool, not a weapon. The OKR system, Grove wrote, “is meant to pace a person—to put a stopwatch in his own hand so he can gauge his own performance. It is not a legal document upon which to base a performance review.” To encourage risk taking and prevent sandbagging, OKRs and bonuses are best kept separate. (See chapter 15, “Continuous Performance Management: OKRs and CFRs.”) Be patient; be resolute. Every process requires trial and error. As Grove told his iOPEC students, Intel “stumbled a lot of times” after adopting OKRs: “We didn’t fully understand the principal purpose of it. And we are kind of doing better with it as time goes on.” An organization may need up to four or five quarterly cycles to fully embrace the system, and even more than that to build mature goal muscle.

It really is location, location, location. If you’re going to live with peace of heart and with hope and courage, you have to know your place in the work of God. There are two markers of that work that really do locate you, tell you what God is doing, and inform you as to how you should live right here, right now. As I have said before, you live between the “already” and the “not yet.” First, it is vital for you and me to always remember that we live in the “already” of complete forgiveness. Forgiveness is not a “hope it will be” thing. It’s an “accomplished and done” thing. You do not have to hope that you will be forgiven. You do not have to be concerned that the process of forgiveness will somehow fail. Why? Because your complete and final forgiveness was accomplished on the cross of Jesus Christ. The perfect sacrifice of the completely righteous Lamb fully satisfied the holy requirements of God and left you righteous and without penalty in his sight. So you never have to worry that you will be so bad that God will reject you. You never have to hide your sin. You never have to do things to win God’s favor. You never have to cower in shame. You never have to rationalize, excuse, defend, or shift the blame. You never have to pretend that you are better than you are. You never have to present arguments for your righteousness. You never have to fear being known or exposed. You never have to compare the size of your sin to the size of another’s. You never have to parade your righteousness so it can be seen by others. You never have to wonder if God’s going to get exhausted with how often you mess up. All of these are acts of gospel irrationality because you have been completely forgiven. On the other end, it is essential to understand the “not yet” of your final repair. Yes, you have been fully forgiven, but you have not yet been completely rebuilt into all that grace will make you. Sin still remains, the war for your heart still rages, the world around you is still broken, spiritual danger still lurks, and you have not yet been fully re-formed into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. The cross of Jesus guarantees that all of these broken things will be fixed, but they are not fixed yet. So as I bask in the complete forgiveness that I have been given and enjoy freedom from the anxiety that I will not measure up, I cannot live unwisely. One danger (sin) still lives inside me and another (temptation) still lurks outside me, so I am still a person in daily and desperate need of grace. Forgiveness is complete. Final restoration is yet to come. Knowing you live in between the two is the key to a restful and wise Christian life. For further study and encouragement: 2 Peter 3:1

How Google Works (Schmidt, Eric) - Your Highlight on Location 3124-3150 | Added on Sunday, April 5, 2015 10:35:40 AM In late 1999, John Doerr gave a presentation at Google that changed the company, because it created a simple tool that let the founders institutionalize their “think big” ethos. John sat on our board, and his firm, Kleiner Perkins, had recently invested in the company. The topic was a form of management by objectives called OKRs (to which we referred in the previous chapter), which John had learned from former Intel CEO Andy Grove.173 There are several characteristics that set OKRs apart from their typical underpromise-and-overdeliver corporate-objective brethren. First, a good OKR marries the big-picture objective with a highly measurable key result. It’s easy to set some amorphous strategic goal (make usability better … improve team morale … get in better shape) as an objective and then, at quarter end, declare victory. But when the strategic goal is measured against a concrete goal (increase usage of features by X percent … raise employee satisfaction scores by Y percent … run a half marathon in under two hours), then things get interesting. For example, one of our platform team’s recent OKRs was to have “new WW systems serving significant traffic for XX large services with latency < YY microseconds @ ZZ% on Jupiter.”174 (Jupiter is a code name, not the location of Google’s newest data center.) There is no ambiguity with this OKR; it is very easy to measure whether or not it is accomplished. Other OKRs will call for rolling out a product across a specific number of countries, or set objectives for usage (e.g., one of the Google+ team’s recent OKRs was about the daily number of messages users would post in hangouts) or performance (e.g., median watch latency on YouTube videos). Second—and here is where thinking big comes in—a good OKR should be a stretch to achieve, and hitting 100 percent on all OKRs should be practically unattainable. If your OKRs are all green, you aren’t setting them high enough. The best OKRs are aggressive, but realistic. Under this strange arithmetic, a score of 70 percent on a well-constructed OKR is often better than 100 percent on a lesser one. Third, most everyone does them. Remember, you need everyone thinking in your venture, regardless of their position. Fourth, they are scored, but this scoring isn’t used for anything and isn’t even tracked. This lets people judge their performance honestly. Fifth, OKRs are not comprehensive; they are reserved for areas that need special focus and objectives that won’t be reached without some extra oomph. Business-as-usual stuff doesn’t need OKRs. As your venture grows, the most important OKRs shift from individuals to teams. In a small company, an individual can achieve incredible things on her own, but as the company grows it becomes harder to accomplish stretch goals without teammates. This doesn’t mean that individuals should stop doing OKRs, but rather that team OKRs become the more important means to maintain focus on the big tasks. And there’s one final benefit of an OKR-driven culture: It helps keep people from chasing competitors. Competitors are everywhere in the Internet Century, and chasing them (as we noted earlier) is the fastest path to mediocrity. If employees are focused on a well-conceived set of OKRs, then this isn’t a problem. They know where they need to go and don’t have time to worry about the competition. ==========

Fuck, she was even hotter when she was furious. I seriously wouldn't have minded her taking that anger out on my body all night long. I'd be more than happy to angry fuck her until her body bent and bowed and finally gave in to the power play between us. I'd force her beneath me physically as well as with my power and maybe she'd find she liked it there just fine. Or maybe she'd stab me to death and cut my cock off for good measure because the look she was aiming my way said that was a whole lot more likely than me getting to spend the night ruining her. But it was a damn nice fantasy to indulge in for a few moments. ... She gave me a look of utter contempt and it made my cock throb as her nearness just compounded the desire I was already feeling for her and made me get all kinds of insane ideas about what I'd like to do with this little princess if I got her to myself for long enough. She made no attempt to cover herself, no sign of shame in her frosty features as she stalked forward to claim her key, a sneer touching those edible lips of hers. Her jaw was tight with rage which she was doing nothing to hide and as she reached out to snatch the key from my hand, I couldn't help but ache to bring her closer, draw her nearer, see just how far she'd go in this denial of my power over her. Her fingers curled around the brass key, but I didn't release it, instead using my hold on it to tug her a step closer so that only a breath of space divided our bodies. I looked down at her from my imposing height, dominating her space with the bulk of my body and making sure she took in every last inch of height I had over her. “Of course, if you’d rather just come on up to my room, I can give you a real welcome to the House of Fire,” I suggested my gaze dropping down to her body, the noticeable bulge in my pants making it clear enough how much I meant that offer. I probably shouldn't have been making it at all, but the beast in me couldn't help myself. Dragons saw something they wanted and they took it. And I hadn't seen something I wanted as much as this girl in as long as I could remember. Our gazes collided and the heat there was almost strong enough to burn, the tension between us crackling so loudly I was surprised the whole room couldn't hear it. But then her gaze shuttered and her lips pursed, her eyes dropping down to take me in, my skin buzzing everywhere they landed as I could feel the want in her while she assessed me. But as those deep green eyes met mine again and I gave her a knowing smirk, I couldn't tell what she was thinking. I didn't know if she was going to bow to this heat between us or just stoke the flames, and the fact that I didn't know had my heart thumping in anticipation deep in my chest. She shifted an inch closer to me, tilting her mouth towards my ear and making my flesh spark with the need to take her, own her, destroy her in all the best ways. But just as my cock began to get overexcited at the prospect of all the ways I could make her scream for me given enough time, she spoke and it wasn't in the sultry purr I'd been expecting, her voice coming out loud enough for everyone to hear instead. “I wouldn’t come near you even if someone held a knife to my heart and told me that the world would end if I didn’t,” she snarled, snatching the key out of my hand as my surprise at her words made me forget to keep my grip tight enough to keep it. “So why don’t you take a long, hard look while you can. Because I can promise you, you won’t be seeing this again.”(Darius POV)

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.