Quotes About Insight

If you're an artist, you're guilty of a crime: not that you're aware, which is bad enough, but that you see things other people don't admit are there.

Painters have often taught writers how to see.

The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.

The wisdom of stories and legends is that they give us another way to understand ourselves and the place we inhabit.

We find out who they are by asking them why they made decisions in their life. The answers to these questions give us insight into their core values.33

The good-to-great companies displayed two distinctive forms of disciplined thought. The first, and the topic of this chapter, is that they infused the entire process with the brutal facts of reality. (The second, which we will discuss in the next chapter, is that they developed a simple, yet deeply insightful, frame of reference for all decisions.) When

The same thing happens in business. When people become fat with conventional wisdom, they're dangerous. A lot of being innovative in business is being willing to give something a try because you don't know it flies in the face of conventional wisdom. As Debi Colman, Apple VP of information systems and technology, puts it: "The single biggest roadblock to creativity and innovation I've encountered in business is conventional wisdom.

But what I find so striking is their incredible simplicity.

Those who built the visionary companies wisely understood that it is better to understand who you are than where you are going—for where you are going will almost certainly change. It is a lesson as relevant to our individual lives as to aspiring visionary companies.

Notice three things about this definition. First, as a leader, it's your responsibility to figure out what must be done. You might do this by your own insight and instinct or, more likely, via dialogue and debate with the right people; but however you do it, you need to get clear. Second, it's not about getting people to do what must be done but about getting them to want to do it. Third, it's not a science; it's an art.

Level 5 leaders confront the brutal facts before they set vision and strategy, and they create a climate where the truth is heard. Failure to confront the brutal facts is a precursor to catastrophic decline, always.

Recognize that getting a Hedgehog Concept is an inherently iterative process, not an event.

You absolutely cannot make a series of good decisions without first confronting the brutal facts.

One powerful method for getting at purpose is the five whys. Start with the descriptive statement We make X products or We deliver X services, and then ask, Why is that important? five times. After a few whys, you'll find that you're getting down to the fundamental purpose of the organization. We

Before we get too wrapped around the axle

Sometimes it's wiser to give a quarry extra line -- that's how to catch a fish, neh?

They put me with a blind monk who taught me how to massage and to see again with my fingers. Now my fingers tell me more than my eyes used to, I think.

You must be patient before you criticize.

The Blessed Jesus said, 'First cast the mote out of your own eye before you cast the beam out of mine.

It's unseemly to criticize without knowledge.

you could not defend what you didn't understand.

I learn things late—and only the hard way.

Windbags can be right. Aphorists can be wrong. It is a tough world.

Originality consists in thinking for yourself, not in thinking differently from other people.