“Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don’t, others will.”

Bottom line: it’s extremely difficult to instill purpose in others. Overblown or insincere methods can backfire, triggering cynical reactions. What works better is helping people see their impact on others, and helping them develop a story about why they care about what they do.

“The ability to endure suffering and hardship is critical for our success, but it’s equally critical to recognize the toll that endurance takes, and take steps to protect ourselves and our teams — before our passion burns us out.”

“People have greater respect for those with an innate gift than for those who have had to strive for their success.” Especially narcissists, about themselves. Selin Kesebir

Wise ++

“Getting packaged as a Cinderalla story is a lagging indicator of many, many years of focus and hard work.”

"Recall that before the pandemic those people who stayed at home during the working week were in general considered to be shirking." Lynda Gratton hsm-advisory.com/wp-content/upl…

For roughly a century our approach to management was conventionally hierarchical. That made sense because work was organized sequentially and in silos, jobs were fixed, workspaces were physical, and information flowed downward. That’s no longer the case. hbr.org/2022/03/manage…

This is really cool Rob, thank you for sharing. Is there one key difference that the thrivers are doing the “hardly surviving” are not doing ?

"The more leverage that firms have (in terms of being a destination employer or, in the case of banking, the salary they pay), the more they are insisting on co-ordinated office time." Bruce Daisley says it looks like there’s life in the office yet. makeworkbetter.substack.com/p/the-upside-d…

“Runnin' Down A Dream." We can’t sit around and wait for someone to drop a dream job in front of us. Instead, like Lin-Manuel, we need to run it down. We need to hire ourselves first.

“The mystery of what makes you and your childhood self the same person despite a lifetime of changes is one of the most interesting questions of philosophy.”

Writing and expression isn’t a contest, but a doorway.

“I’m Nobody! Who are you?”

“Instead of learning from failures, many executives seek to keep them hidden or to pretend that they were all part of a master plan and no big deal. An extraordinarily valuable corporate resource is being wasted if learning from failures is inhibited.”

This is interesting: “When the economy was warm, executives thought, ‘I’d really like to have people back but it’s OK because I have this margin of error…Now that things are tougher, they want to hunker down and have their people in the office.” Like “RTO for when work matters.”

You might think that impressing your boss means hiding your mistakes and perhaps trying to fix them on your own. But that isn’t true. Learning organizations are ones that accept that not everything will go according to plan—and some of the things that go wrong will be human error

When change is “done to me” it can be debilitating. When I choose the change it can be exhilarating.

“The pernicious effects of the self-interest theory have been most disturbing…By encouraging us to expect the worst in others it brings out the worst in us: dreading the role of the chump, we are often loath to heed our nobler instincts.”

Intrapreneurship is more than a hackathon, which can often be theatrical instead of real culture change that catalyses sustained value creation. Thanks David Lancefield strategy-business.com/article/How-to…