Quotes About Flexibility

Have some general backup ideas in mind, but don't let the backup plan be carved in stone. That will prevent you from learning. The time to begin building formalized backup plans is during the tweaking, changing, and maneuvering that occurs while studying the results of the small bet. Backup plans become vital when a small bet that's turned out to be successful is about to be scaled in size.

Your job as you know it and your business as it is currently run will eventually change. The only chance any of us have for prosperity is to constantly reimagine, rethink, and reinvent everything we do and how we do it in order to remain relevant. We must all become reinventors, and we'd better do it quickly.

Here's the list of opposing ideas that successful reinventors say you need in your head: Hold on tight and freely let go. Be hard-nosed and soft hearted. Focus on a clear destination and search for new horizons. Take big risks and make small bets. Be frugal and still splurge. Think big and act small. Be highly creative and obsessively down-to-earth. Thoughtfully work your plan and improvise without thinking too much.

Millner is just as excited about the culture of continuous improvement that is at the core of Cabela's. "Adaptation is critical. You've got to adapt. No matter how successful you are, the minute you can't do what you've done, you've got to let it go. If you don't continuously improve, you die.

But basic smarts are just half of the necessary mind-set. The second half is the ability to learn new things, something a surprising number of people find incredibly difficult.

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.

Memory (...) should be treated like a pest; while old solutions retained in memory provide stability and some degree of predictability in an uncertain world, that stability - often called tradition or the way things have always been - can also stifle flexibility. The world remains uncertain no matter what we do to protect ourselves from it; we must always be prepared to leap outside of retained solutions to new enactments.

As we argue vociferously for our view, we often fail to question one crucial assumption upon which our whole stance in the conversation is built: I am right, you are wrong. This simple assumption causes endless grief.

So you might say to your boss, "I know there are lots of factors you have to take into consideration, and at the end of the day, I'm onboard with whatever you decide. I just want to make sure that as you think about it, you are aware that. . . .

Most of us assume that our feelings are static and nonnegotiable, and that if they are to be shared authentically, they must be shared "as is." In fact, our feelings are based on our perceptions, and our perceptions (as we have seen in the preceding three chapters) are negotiable.

The Principle of Mutual Caretaking. One dynamic to remember at this stage of a difficult conversation is the tendency we all have to believe that our way of doing things is the "right" way. This can lead us to ascribe the problem to something wrong with "the way they are," and to suggest a "solution" that boils down to doing it our way: "If you would just change, there wouldn't be a problem.

Don't Exaggerate with "Always" and "Never": Give Them Room to Change

And recognize that different people take in information at different speeds and in different ways. For example, some people are visually oriented. For them, you may want to use visual metaphors and refer to pictures or, in a business setting, charts. Some people prefer to get their arms around the whole problem first, and can't listen to anything else you say until they do. Others like all the details up front. Pay attention to these differences.

Home education may not be the choice for EVERYONE, but home education IS a choice for ANYONE.

You can't change other people or (some) conditions; you can change only your reactions to them.

If things start happening, don't worry, don't stew, just go right along and you'll start happening too.

Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.

No battle was ever won according to plan, but no battle was ever won without one.. Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

I have always found plans usless, but planning indispensible

may my mind stroll about hungry and fearless and thirsty and supple

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life.

welcome it no matter in what disguise it comes,...

It is strange how new and unexpected conditions bring out unguessed ability to meet them.