How can any company know if its processes, products, people are safe? Only if everyone is watching and telling the truth. The first part can be assumed; the second cannot.
Margaret HeffernanRead
When we confront facts and fears, we achieve real power and unleash our capacity for change.
Interpretation
Facing our fears and realities empowers us to create meaningful change.
This quote emphasizes the importance of confronting both facts and fears in order to unlock true potential and foster transformative change in our lives. By acknowledging our realities and fears, we tap into our inner strength and capabilities, enabling us to take constructive action and make impactful decisions.
In practice
This quote would be great to share during a leadership seminar to inspire participants to face challenges head-on.
How can any company know if its processes, products, people are safe? Only if everyone is watching and telling the truth. The first part can be assumed; the second cannot.
Most executives I know are so action-oriented, or action-addicted, that time for reflection is the first casualty of their success.
Once you have power, you are inevitably surrounded by people who have their own agendas and will tell you whatever advances them.
If the company depends entirely on you - your creativity, ingenuity, inspiration, salesmanship or charisma - nobody will want to buy it. The risk and the dependency are too great.
Those in powerless positions aren't about to complain about bullying bosses, abusive supervisors or corrupt co-workers. There is no safe way to do so and no process that promises redress.
Bosses and leaders everywhere should cherish the people who bring them bad news, disappointing data or hard problems.
We need to work together to embrace and repair our land, repair our power systems, and repair ourselves. It's time to stop building the shopping malls, the prisons, the stadiums, and other tributes to all of our collective failures.
Change does not change tradition, it strengthens it. Change is a challenge and anopportunity, not a threat.
If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.
What we want to be is something completely new. There is no physical analog for what Amazon.com is becoming.
Let not men then in the pride of power, use the same arguments that tyrannic kings and venal ministers have used, and fallaciously assert that women ought to be subjected because she has always been so.... It is time to effect a revolution in female manners - time to restore to them their lost dignity.... It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.
I wonder whether any other generation has seen such astounding revolutions of data and values as those through which we have lived. Scarcely anything material or established which I was brought up to believe was permanent and vital, has lasted. Everything I was sure or taught to be sure was impossible, has happened.
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