Quotes About Adaptability

Often the worst thing you can do with a difficult question is to try to answer it too quickly. When the mind is coming up with What If possibilities, these fresh, new ideas can take time to percolate and form. They often result from connecting existing ideas in unusual and interesting ways.

All of which means that, whereas in the past one needed to appear to have "all the answers" in order to rise in companies, today, at least in some enlightened segments of the business world, the corner office is there for the askers

replacing, for example, We make the world a better place through robotics! with How might we make the world a better place through robotics?). By articulating the company mission as a question, it tells the outside world, "This is what we're striving for—we know we're not there yet, but we're on the journey." It acknowledges room for possibility, change, and adaptability.

This works well under most circumstances, but when we wish to move beyond that default setting—to consider new ideas and possibilities, to break from habitual thinking and expand upon our existing knowledge—it helps if we can let go of what we know, just temporarily.

Biology is only the best hint as to what was functional in the past but not necessarily about what will be in the future. The most empowering question we can ask about the future is not "What is the future and how do we adapt?" but "How do we want our future to be and how do we adapt?

You need people who can walk their companies into the future rather than back them into the future.

He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability and perseverance in his nature; he was in form and spirit like a supple-jack—yielding, but tough; though he bent, he never broke; and though he bowed beneath the slightest pressure, yet, the moment it was away—jerk! he was as erect, and carried his head as high as ever.

Leadership matters more in times of uncertainty.

I couldn't beat people with my strength I don't have a hard shot I'm not the quickest skater in the league. My eyes and my mind have to do most of the work.

The speciality of the future is generalism.

What is my strength? Do I even have a strength? Maybe I have too many strengths, and that's why I can't think of just one.

And remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did. Only she did it backwards and in heels.

Always use the word "impossible" with the greatest of caution.

Those who use every opportunity, make even failure contribute to success.

The branch breaks that will not bend with the wind. You must learn to bend".

I am more and more convinced that our happiness or our unhappiness depends far more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves.

Optimists are normally cheerful and happy, and therefore popular; they are resilient in adapting to failures and hardships, their chances of clinical depression are reduced, their immune system is stronger, they take better care of their health, they feel healthier than others and are in fact likely to live longer.

Plans are best-case scenarios. Let's avoid anchoring on plans when we forecast actual outcomes. Thinking about ways the plan could go wrong is one way to do it.

We must allow for that uncertainty in our thinking.

We were forecasting based on the information in front of us—WYSIATI—but the chapters we wrote first were probably easier than others, and our commitment to the project was probably then at its peak. But the main problem was that we failed to allow for what Donald Rumsfeld famously called the "unknown unknowns.

The agile business professional is always looking to provide new services and the next product before the public even knows they need them.

Flexibility, spontaneity, and complete freedom of thought and action are the only ways to respond successfully to the constant flux of nature and thus live in accord with the Tao.

El Tao de cultivar la vida requiere que uno se mantenga tan fluido y flexible como pueda. No hay que permanecer quieto demasiado tiempo, y tampoco hay que agotarse

Small children cannot say what they want to be later because they don't really understand what later means.7 So, like shrewd politicians, they ignore the question they are asked and answer the question they can.