“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