When trying to innovate, most people stop after 10-15 possibilities, failing to recognize that their first ideas are usually the most obvious ones.
Negative feedback can make people feel inferior.
To get real diversity of thought, you need to find the people who genuinely hold different views and invite them into the conversation.
Teams need the opportunity to learn about each other’s capabilities and develop productive routines. So once we get the right people on the bus, let’s make sure they spend some time driving together.
Being a magician taught me how powerful the element of surprise can be. In each book, I’ve tried to work that in – an unexpected twist in a story that reveals an insight, a counter intuitive study that turns your beliefs upside-down.
When you’re good at controlling your own emotions, you can disguise your true feelings. When you know what others are feeling, you can tug at their heartstrings and motivate them to act against their own best interests.
I can’t tell you that if you bring in a bunch of weird and different people, then a bunch of good things will happen. But I can tell you that if you hire a bunch of similar people and promote only the ones who are most similar, a bunch of bad things are likely to happen.
Takers are self-serving in their interactions. It’s all about what can you do for me.
Instead of assuming that emotional intelligence is always useful, we need to think more carefully about where and when it matters.
You want people who choose to follow because they genuinely believe in ideas, not because they’re afraid to be punished if they don’t. For startups, there’s so much pivoting that’s required that if you have a bunch of sheep, you’re in bad shape.
When a salesperson truly cares about you, trust forms, and you’re more likely to buy, come back for repeat business, and refer new customers.
When I think about voting, I can skip it and still see myself as a good citizen. But when I think about being a voter, now the choice reflects on my character. It casts a shadow.
Bragging about yourself violates norms of modesty and politeness – and if you were really competent, your work would speak for itself.
Tweeting has taught me the discipline to say more with fewer words.
I love discovering compelling new ideas and doing what I can to help spread the word about them.
When takers talk about mistakes, they’re usually quick to place the blame on other people. Givers are more likely to say ‘Here’s the mistake I made; I learned the following from it. Here are the steps I’m taking to make sure I don’t let people down in the future.’
The culture of a workplace – an organization’s values, norms and practices – has a huge impact on our happiness and success.
Negative feedback can make people feel inferior.
Leaders who master emotions can rob us of our capacities to reason. If their values are out of step with our own, the results can be devastating.
To generate creative ideas, it’s important to start from an unusual place. But to explain those ideas, they have to be connected to something familiar.
To make sense of bossiness, we need to tease apart two fundamental aspects of social hierarchy that are often lumped together: power and status. Power lies in holding a formal position of authority or controlling important resources. Status involves being respected or admired.
Being a nice person is about courtesy: you’re friendly, polite, agreeable, and accommodating. When people believe they have to be nice in order to give, they fail to set boundaries, rarely say no, and become pushovers, letting others walk all over them.
To get important work done, most leaders organize people into teams. They believe that when people collaborate toward a common goal, great things can happen. Yet in reality, the whole is often much less than the sum of the parts.
When making decisions about people, stop confusing experience with evidence. Just as owning a car doesn’t make you an expert on engines, having a brain doesn’t mean you understand psychology.
If you’ve ever had a coworker actively interfere with your productivity, try to make you look bad, steal your ideas, or give you false information, you’ve been the victim of undermining.
When you procrastinate, you’re more likely to let your mind wander. That gives you a better chance of stumbling onto the unusual and spotting unexpected patterns.
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