Wednesday, November 17, 2010

i-TFTD #298: Change How We Face

#298-1. If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.
-John "Jack" Welch (1935-), former chairman and CEO of General Electric

#298-2. Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.
-James Baldwin (1924–1987), African-American writer

#298-3. Events are not predictable, but consequences are, so focus on preparedness.
-Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960-), Lebanese essayist and practitioner of mathematical financial economics, author of "The Black Swan" and "Fooled by Randomness"

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There is a certain type of openness and generic flexibility that can help cope with unpredictable situations in a better manner than if one were rigid. This rigidity could be inertia or it could manifest as overconfidence on one's assessment of scenarios. One trick is self-induced change in the spirit of one of the quotes from i-TFTD in June 2008: It is necessary to change before change becomes necessary.

3 comments:

Poornima Srinath said...

Interesting..can you plz write thoughts about rigidity when possible?

Tomaž said...

Hi RG,
I replied to your comment on Duelling Dogma about the boy-girl paradox. If you are interested :) (waiting for Grant to approve it)

RG said...

Tomaz,

As of Dec 8, your comment does not appear on Duelling Dogma.

You may want to check the brief reference to this at http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/stories-vs-statistics/