Thoughts That Make You Go Hmmmm...on Breaking Through the Bull

“Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress."

- Gandhi

“Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off. Good leadership involves responsibility to the welfare of the group, which means that some people will get angry at your actions and decisions. It's inevitable, if you're honorable. Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity: you'll avoid the tough decisions and you'll avoid confronting the people who need to be confronted.”

- General Colin Powell, Chairman (Ret), Joint Chiefs of Staff

“The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.”

- George Bernard Shaw

“From the Airbus A380 to the Denver Airport baggage handling system, the failure of major projects seems to be a common theme in today’s business landscape. According to a new study, it’s not just big business that suffers from project failure. Research released from a Crucial Conversations Online Survey revealed that 82 percent of employees say there are significant organization-wide initiatives underway in their workplace that will likely fail, and 78 percent say they are personally working on a ‘doomed’ project right now.

…More than 90 percent say they know early on when projects are likely to fall short. 77 percent compare their failing projects to ‘slow motion train wrecks.’ 81 percent say approaching a key decision maker about the project is nearly impossible.”

- Press release from Vital Smarts, "Pssst! Your Corporate Initiative Is Dead and You’re the Only One Who Doesn’t Know"

“No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely; the fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley.”

- Seneca the Younger

“Too many organizations descend into underperformance because they can’t confront the painful gap between their strategy and the reality of their capabilities, their behaviors, and their markets. That’s because senior managers don’t know how to engage in truthful conversations about the problems that threaten the business — and because lower-level managers are afraid to speak up.”

- Michael Beer and Russell A. Eisenstat, "How to Have an Honest Conversation About Your Business Strategy,” Harvard Business Review