Daniel H. Pink
What is interesting is that John Lewis actually got interested initially in the civil rights movement because of a comic book. So part of it, he's paying homage to this tradition that you can tell serious stories and talk about serious issues in graphic form.Collection: Book
We have in our head something called story grammar. We see the world as a series of episodes rather than logical propositions... In our serious society, storytelling is seen as being soft. But people process the world through story.Collection: People
One of the best predictors of ultimate success in either sales or non - sales selling isn't natural talent or even industry expertise, but how you explain your failures and rejections.Collection: Natural Talent
I think the more important task for a young person than developing a personal brand is figuring out what she's great at, what she loves to do, and how she can use that to leave an imprint in the world. Those are tough questions, but essential ones. Answer those - and the personal brand follows.Collection: Leadership
The capacity to see the big picture is perhaps the most important as an antidote to the variety of psychic woes brought forth by the remarkable prosperity and plentitude of our times. Many of us are crunched for time, deluged by information, and paralyzed by the weight of too many choices. The best prescription for these modern maladies may be to approach one's own life in a contextual, big picture fashion - to distinguish between what really matters and what merely annoys.Collection: Fashion
My generation's parents told their children, "Become an accountant, a lawyer, or an engineer; that will give you a solid foothold in the middle class." But these jobs are now being sent overseas. So in order to make it today, you have to do work that's hard to outsource, hard to automate.Collection: Leadership
The ultimate freedom for creative groups is the freedom to experiment with new ideas. Some skeptics insist that innovation is expensive. In the long run, innovation is cheap. Mediocrity is expensive—and autonomy can be the antidote.” TOM KELLEY General Manager, IDEOCollection: Running
It's a question we all ask ourselves. What have we done lately? It rattles us each birthday.Collection: Done
The ultimate freedom for creative groups is the freedom to experiment with new ideas.Collection: Freedom
Questions are often more effective than statements in moving others. Or to put it more appropriately, since the research shows that when the facts are on your side, questions are more persuasive than statements, don't you think you should be pitching more with questions?Collection: Leadership
The problem with making an extrinsic reward the only destination that matters is that some people will choose the quickest route there, even if it means taking the low road. Indeed, most of the scandals and misbehavior that have seemed endemic to modern life involve shortcuts.Collection: Mean
Symphony is the ability to see the big picture, connect the dots, combine disparate things into something new. Visual artists in particular are good at seeing how the pieces come together. I experienced this myself by trying to learn to draw.Collection: Artist
Today it’s economically crucial and personally rewarding to create something that is also beautiful, whimsical, or emotionally engaging.Collection: Beautiful
The future belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind: artists, inventors, storytellers-creative and holistic 'right-brain' thinkers whose abilities mark the fault line between who gets ahead and who doesn't.Collection: Creativity
In many professions, what used to matter most were abilities associated with the left side of the brain: linear, sequential, spreadsheet kind of faculties. Those still matter, but they're not enough.Collection: Leadership
Abstract thinking leads to greater creativity... But in our businesses and our lives, we often do the opposite. We intensify our focus rather than widen our view.Collection: Creativity
We have this myth that extroverts are better salespeople. As a result, extroverts are more likely to enter sales; extroverts are more likely to get promoted in sales jobs. But if you look at the correlation between extroversion and actual sales performance - that is, how many times the cash register actually rings - the correlation's almost zero.Collection: Leadership
It seems the best approach for any venture is a combo platter - Japan's quality-consciousness paired with America's willingness to experiment and (sometimes) fail.Collection: Japan
But in the end, mastery involves working and working and showing little improvement, perhaps with a few moments of flow pulling you along, then making a little progress, and then working and working on that new, slightly higher plateau again. It's grueling, to be sure. But that's not the problem; that's the solution.Collection: Progress
Rewards can deliver a short-term boost—just as a jolt of caffeine can keep you cranking for a few more hours. But the effect wears off—and, worse, can reduce a person’s longer-term motivation to continue the project.Collection: Motivation
If you understand the independent worker, the self-employed professional, the freelancer, the e-lancer, the temp, you understand how work and business in the U.S. operate today.Collection: Leadership
The ultimate pitch for an era of short attention spans begins with a single word - and doesn't go any further.Collection: Communication
Large companies are not going to disappear. Multinational companies with tens of thousands of employees are not going to disappear. In fact, many of them are getting larger because they can benefit from economies of scale.Collection: Leadership
Tens of millions of people have iPods, whereas eight years ago, they didn't know they were missing them.Collection: Eight
I say, 'Get me some poets as managers.' Poets are our original systems thinkers. They contemplate the world in which we live and feel obligated to interpret, and give expression to it in a way that makes the reader understand how that world runs. Poets, those unheralded systems thinkers, are our true digital thinkers. It is from their midst that I believe we will draw tomorrow's new business leaders." --Sidney Harman, CEO Multimillionaire of a stereo components companyCollection: Running
"Mad" magazine is like one of my few formative experiences, absolutely. "Mad" magazine teaches a whole generation of people to be irreverent toward power.Collection: People
You know, I'm not a huge fan of the concept of 'passion' when it comes to careers. Instead of trying to answer the daunting question of 'What's your passion?' it's better simply to watch what you do when you've got time of your own and nobody's looking.Collection: Leadership
The teacher showed us how to see proportions, relationships, light and shadow, negative space, and space between space - something I never noticed before! In one week, I went from not knowing how to draw to sketching a detailed portrait. It literally changed the way I see things.Collection: Teacher
I happen to be extremely left-brained; my instinct is to draw a chart rather than a picture. I'm trying to get my right-brain muscles into shape. I actually think this shift toward right-brain abilities has the potential to make us both better off and better in a deeper sense.Collection: Leadership
Experimentalists never know when their work is finished.Collection: Finishing
In economic terms, we've always thought of work as a disutility - as something you do to get something else. Now it's increasingly a utility - something that's valuable and worthy in its own right.Collection: Leadership
A lot of white-collar work requires less of the routine, rule-based, what we might call algorithmic set of capabilities, and more of the harder-to-outsource, harder-to-automate, non-routine, creative, juristic - as the scholars call it - abilities.Collection: Leadership
A lot of times when you have very short-term goals with a high payoff, nasty things can happen. In particular, a lot of people will take the low road there. They'll become myopic. They'll crowd out the longer-term interests of the organization or even of themselves.Collection: Leadership
What's important now are the characteristics of the brain's right hemisphere: artistry, empathy, inventiveness, big-picture thinking. These skills have become first among equals in a whole range of business fields.Collection: Leadership
Anytime you're tempted to upsell someone else, stop what you're doing and upserve instead.Collection: Tempted
Human beings are natural mimickers. The more youre conscious of the other sides posture, mannerisms, and word choices - and the more you subtly reflect those back - the more accurate youll be at taking their perspective.Collection: Leadership
One aspect of play is the importance of laughter, which has physiological and psychological benefits. Did you know that there are thousands of laughter clubs around the world? People get together and laugh for no reason at all!Collection: Laughter