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"If you want to clarify your thinking, remember something important, or communicate something clearly, write it down." – Jeff Bezos

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”Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be and he will become what he should be.”

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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“To be, in a word, unborable.... It is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish.”

- David Foster Wallace

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 Ne quid nimis

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”Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts”

Winston Churchill

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”Inom mig bär jag mina tidigare ansikten, som ett träd har sina årsringar. Det är summan av dem som är ”jag”. Spegeln ser bara mitt senaste ansikte, jag känner av mina tidigare.”

- Tomas Tranströmer, Minnena ser mig, 1993

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« We admire people who work hard, who are objective and thorough. We detest office politicians, toadies and pompous asses. We abhor ruthlessness. »

David Ogilvy

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Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.

Isaac Asimov

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The days we fail are the days our competitors will regret the most. Those are the days we learn.

Toto Wolff

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I am because you are.

Desmond Tutu

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Dream in years; plan in months; evaluate in weeks; ship daily.

Prototype for 1x ; build for 10x; engineer for 100x.

Find what’s required to cut the timeline in half; what needs to be done to double the impact.

DJ Patil

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Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.

Pablo Picasso

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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

Bertrand Russell

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If Your Photos Aren’t Good Enough, You’re Not Close Enough

Robert Capa

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To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour

-William Blake

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To romanticize the world is to make us aware of the magic, mystery and wonder of the world; it is to educate the senses to see the ordinary as extraordinary, the familiar as strange, the mundane as sacred, the finite as infinite.

- Novalis (Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg)

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Management Books

A friend of mine recently got a new management job and we got to talking about management books. I promised him a list of the management books that have affected me and inspired me the most over the past 20 years. Here’s that list:  

Getting Things Done by David Allen and 7-Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey are the two books that has affected my personal working habits the most. Both books are very helpful in terms of thinking about and organizing your own work to enable you to lead others without getting overwhelmed.  

Good to Great by Jim Collins is the most rigorously researched book about what makes companies stand out from the competition in the long run that I have come across. It’s also very well written with interesting anecdotes and lots of practical actionable insights. I found Jim Collins conclusions about level-5 leadership especially inspiring.

Six Simple Rules: How to Manage Complexity without it Getting Complicated by Yves Morieux and Peter Tollman gave me several insights especially regarding the disconnect between company objectives and how they manifest themselves in what people actually do as a consequence. A great case for the value of management by walking around.  

The Art of Action by Stephen Bungay is a great framework for thinking about leadership, management and organization written by a military historian. Before I read this I had trouble reconciling my experience of what you actually have to do as a manager with high level advice about being a leader and not a manager. The truth is that you have to be both and Stephen Bungay shows why.

Switch - How to Change things when Change is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath contains fantastic practical advice on how to change people and organizations. You have to address both the rational , emotional and environmental side of the change. After I read this book I saw failure to address one or more of these forces in change initiatives everywhere. Appealing to emotions and the desperate need for change is no good if it’s hard to see how to change. Explaining the detailed steps of the change is no good if the audience does not emotionally feel the need for it.