Overall, people are about twice as likely to seek information that supports their own point of view as they are to consider an opposing idea.19.
If you have never failed at anything, then you haven’t been trying hard enough, aren’t very imaginative, or have had such extraordinarily good luck that you have come to believe you are invincible.
For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate.
I don’t think you ever know anyone until you see them in action.
Companies don’t have ideas. Only people do. And what motivates people are the bonds of loyalty and trust they develop around each other.
As long as they are well-intentioned, mistakes are not a matter for shame but for learning.
A fantastic model of collaboration: thinking partners who aren’t echo chambers.
Bosses and leaders everywhere should cherish the people who bring them bad news, disappointing data or hard problems.
The healthiest companies are always characterized by organic talent development.
We know – intellectually – that confronting an issue is the only way to resolve it. But any resolution will disrupt the status quo. Given the choice between conflict and change on the one hand, and inertia on the other, the ostrich position can seem very attractive.
The biggest catastrophes that we’ve witnessed rarely come from information that is secret or hidden. It comes from information that is freely available and out there, but that we are willfully blind to.
The cell phone has become the adult’s transitional object, replacing the toddler’s teddy bear for comfort and a sense of belonging.
Making those around you feel invisible is the opposite of leadership.
Huge open source organizations like Red Hat and Mozilla manage the collaboration of hundreds of people who don’t know one another and have spent no time hanging around the water cooler.
The truth won’t set us free – until we develop the skills and the habit and the talent and the moral courage to use it.
Instead, we have found ourselves gasping for air in a sea of corruption, dysfunction, environmental degradation, waste, disenchantment and inequality – and the harder we compete, the more unequal we become.
On overnight flights, I have trained myself to get to sleep almost instantly after takeoff. I always listen to the same audiobook on my iPod so my brain knows, regardless of time zone, that that voice means it’s time for bed.