Book Titles

It’s impossible to overstate the extent to which role confusion exists, even in the most well-run organizations.

There are a number of advantages to understanding feedback through a systems lens… Systems thinking corrects for the skew of any single perspective.

We are less likely to make that leap from description to damnation if we see the conflict as a simple intersection, perhaps compounded by clashing roles, inside a larger system.

Understanding that a problem has multiple causes doesn’t limit our options for how we move forward to solve that problem.

How do we get ourselves caught up in fixes that fail? By focusing on only one player in the system and papering over the real problem with a solution that is fundamentally unsound.

…at other times a disturbing consistency surfaces – no matter who you are in a relationship with, they have the same feedback for you.

…once we identify the contours of a system, we can often make useful changes that don’t require that people change their personalities.

Understanding your own wiring and tendencies helps you to improve your ability to weather the storm of negative feedback…

We tend to move toward things that are pleasurable and away from things that are painful. Pleasure is a rough proxy for the healthy and safe; pain is a rough proxy for the unhealthy and dangerous.

Responses to threats and unpleasantness are faster, stronger, and harder to inhibit than responses to opportunities and pleasures. – Jonathan Haidt