Quotes About Adaptation

Your goal should be to keep the temperature within what we call the productive zone of disequilibrium (PZD): enough heat generated by your intervention to gain attention, engagement, and forward motion, but not so much that the organization (or your part of it) explodes.

the book is organized into five parts: an introductory part and four content parts, displayed in the matrix in figure 1-1, which captures the four essential practices of adaptive leadership. While the four practice parts of the book come after one another in linear sequence, the matrix is meant to highlight that you need not read or use the book that way.

To sustain momentum through a period of difficult change, you have to find ways to remind people of the orienting value—the positive vision—that makes the current angst worthwhile.

The dogmas of the quiet past,76 are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new,77 so we must think anew, and act anew.

Interpret the new situation in the best light.

Yesterday's adaptations are today's routines.

The improvisational ability to lead adaptively relies on responding to the present situation rather than importing the past into the present and laying it on the current situation like an imperfect template.

Knowing how the environment is pulling your strings and playing you is critical to making responsive rather than reactive moves.

Exercising adaptive leadership is about giving meaning to your life beyond your own ambition.

The other form of genuine connection is more general, and best explained by reversing the traditional metaphor of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. During the past fifty years, as described, a lot of babies have been removed from the bathwater of primeval seasonal festivity, in the shape of customs which proved to be a lot less old than had previously been supposed.

We go into labor as one person, but emerge as another.

In a packed program tonight, we will be talking to an out-of-work contortionist who says he can no longer make ends meet.

Stagnant waters are death..change is movement..movement is life..

Home will always be Northern Ireland but my schedule means for the next few years I won't be there as much. I can't do the same things that I did a year ago. That is I'm something conscious of, but I'm not sad about it. It's fine.

As we walked past a quad bike chained to a farm gate, he remarked "It's such a pity how times have changed. You can't leave a piece of machinery out on the road any more." He seemed to have forgotten that he had just been describing a time when you couldn't leave you cattle out.

De menselijke psyche herbergt, net als Thalatta - de eeuwige zee - alle mogelijkheden in zich: een dodelijke luwte en de razende storm, de ergste lafheid en het wildste heroïsme. De massa is altijd wat zij in overeenstemming met de tijd en de situatie moet zijn, en zij staat altijd gereed de sprong te wagen en iets heel anders te worden dan zij schijnt.

Pero ya digo que la recuperación no existe: no es posible volver a ser quien eras. Existe la reinvención, y no es mala cosa. Con suerte, puede que consigas reinventarte mejor que antes. A fin de cuentas, ahora sabes más.

a menudo oculto riéndome mi absoluta falta de alegría. Es algo que aprendí a hacer cuando me di cuenta de que las criaturas que lo viven todo tan intensamente como yo y no son capaces de cambiar esta característica de su naturaleza, tienen que disimularla lo mejor posible.»

To stay ahead, you must have your next idea waiting in the wings.

To stay ahead, always have your next idea waiting in the wings.

Change is disturbing when it is done to us, exhilarating when it is done by us.

As a species we are exquisitely suited to thrive in an environment of threat where resources are scarce, but not always ready to reap the benefits of harmony, peace, and plenty.

There is no such thing as bad weather," he used to say, "only inappropriate clothing.

Getting out of bed, out of a chair, changing her position, was like moving furniture.