Quotes About Perception

If you don't clearly communicate to everyone else why someone was let go, the people who remain at the company will come up with their own story to explain it.

The fact is that the higher you go in an organization, the less you'll know what it's really like. It might seem perverse, but the CEO is usually the last to know. With great power comes great ignorance.

Jean-Louis Gassée, who used to run Apple France, describes this situation as the choice between two tokens. When you deal with people who have trouble, you can either choose to take the token that says "It's no big deal" or the token that says "It's the end of the world." Whichever token you pick, they'll take the other.

You can't paint over a bad experience with good advertising or marketing.

The real world isn't a place, it's an excuse.

The enthusiasm you have for a new idea is not an accurate indicator of its true worth.

I don't even know what 'working hard' means. If you get to sit behind a desk all day in an air-conditioned room, there's no such thing as hard work.

Easy is a word that's used to describe other people's jobs. "That should be easy for you to do, right?" But notice how rarely people describe their own tasks as easy.

Don't believe that "customer is always right" stuff

Remember, the most common thing about common sense is how uncommon it is.

One of my favorite CEOs reminds me often that "memories are convenient." What he means is we more readily remember events that prove we're right.

We have a history of wanting our leaders to be taller than average. That's probably because in ancient times everyone thought that tall leaders could see farther.

We have a history of wanting our leaders to be taller than average. That's probably because in ancient times everyone thought that tall leaders could see farther. We still want leaders to see far enough to tell us which way to go. But many CEOs fail.

He saw his judgments as "something you polish." You look for confirming evidence and get tunnel vision. Judgments close your mind in dynamic situations, and you miss important but subtle bits of information that are critical to success. In many instances Gleason believed that if the leader made sense he could let go and have the crews make their own decisions.

It only seems like it would be funny to enter a bank wearing a ski mask.

The elderly don't drive that badly; they're just the only ones with time to do the speed limit.

Magnifying small offenses, mind reading by identifying subconscious thoughts even the offenders are unaware of, and labeling others as aggressors are all integral to the microaggression program but possibly harmful to mental health.

I'd learned, though, that life isn't a movie. Though it's nice to believe in white-hatted heroes and black-hatted villains, people are a lot more complex than that.

It's strange how dreams get under your skin and give your heart a test for what's real and what's imaginary.

Sometimes there are truths in fiction. In fantasy. Sometimes made-up stories tell us more about who we are than reality.

Leonard Denton had a squeaky clean rep in the department, squeaky to the point where people almost assumed he would flip out one day and go postal. He was efficient and by the book, admirable qualities. But being admired and having admirable qualities were two totally different animals.

Can you design a Rorschach test that's going to make everyone feel something every time - and that looks like a Rorschach test? It's easy to show a picture of a kitten or a car accident. The question is, how abstract can you get and still get the audience to feel something when they don't know what's happening to them?

I hate movies that tell people what to think. I'm proud that Democrats thought 'Thank You For Smoking' was their film and Republicans thought it was theirs. I'm proud that pro-choice people thought 'Juno' was their film and pro-life people thought it was theirs.

You know, there's still guys in my department who think the murder really happened? I tell them the truth, and they act like I'm trying to stir things up, a black woman cop handing out race cards.