The germ of an idea doesn't make the sculpture that stands up... so the next stage is hard work
Mihaly CsikszentmihalyiRead
We have learned how to develop five-minute and even one-minute managers. But we would do better to ask ourselves what it takes to be an executive who helps build a better future.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of long-term vision in leadership over quick managerial techniques.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi encourages leaders to focus on fostering a sustainable and positive future rather than merely employing efficient short-term management strategies. By reflecting on what it means to be a forward-thinking executive, he suggests that true leadership goes beyond managing daily tasks and includes a commitment to meaningful progress and development.
In practice
This quote can be used in a leadership seminar to inspire executives to think about their impact on the future.
The germ of an idea doesn't make the sculpture that stands up... so the next stage is hard work
It is not the skills we actually have that determine how we feel but the ones we think we have.
To know oneself is the first step toward making flow a part of one's entire life. But just as there is no free lunch in the material economy, nothing comes free in the psychic one. If one is not willing to invest psychic energy in the internal reality of consciousness, and instead squanders it in chasing external rewards, one loses mastery of one's life, and ends up becoming a puppet of circumstances.
To live means to experience-through doing, feeling, thinking. Experience takes place in time, so time is the ultimate scarce resource we have. Over the years, the content of experience will determine the quality of life. Therefore one of the most essential decisions any of us can make is about how one's time is allocated or invested.
It is as if evolution has built a safety device in our nervous system that allows us to experience full happiness only when we are living at 100%-when we are fully using the physical and mental equipment we have been given.
Our jobs determine to a large extent what our lives are like. Is what you do for a living making you ill? Does it keep you from becoming a more fully realized person? Do you feel ashamed of what you have to do at work? All too often, the answer to such questions is yes. Yet it does not have to be like that. Work can be one of the most joyful, most fulfilling aspects of life. Whether it will be or not depends on the actions we collectively take.
On every team, there is a core group that sets the tone for everyone else. If the tone is positive, you have half the battle won. If it is negative, you are beaten before you ever walk on the field.
My leadership began to take flight when I allowed myself to press people to change-whether they thanked me or cursed me.
Once more, I am watching the most powerful men in the kingdom bring their power to bear on a woman who has done nothing worse than live to the beat of her own heart, see with her own eyes; but this is not their tempo nor their vision and they cannot tolerate any other.
[Good managers] know that people have 'good' sides and 'bad' sides and that the secret of good management is in magnifying the former and toning down the latter.
I say women exhibit the most exalted virtue when they depart from the domestic circle and enter on the concerns of their country, of humanity, and of their G-d!
I would rather play with 10 men than wait for a player who is late for the bus.
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