I found that in high school and memorized it.... but haven't thought about it in years. Thanks for posting this.

On the "Culture of Candor"
 

Reference:

O'Toole, J. & Bennis, W. (2009, June issue). What's needed next: A culture of candor. The Harvard Business Review (pp. 54-61). www.hbr.org


"We won't be able to rebuild trust in institutions until leaders learn how to communicate honestly - and create organizations where that's the norm,"
-James O'Toole & Warren Bennis


(Excerpt from their article on 8 ideas on how to promote the Culture of Candor):

1. Tell the Truth (We all have an impulse to tell people what they want to hear. Wise executives tell everyone the same unvarnished story. Once you develop a reputation for straight talk, people will return the favor).
2. Encourage people to speak truth to power (It's extraordinarily difficult for people lower in a heirarchy to tell higher-ups unpalatable truths - but that's what the higher-ups need to know because often their employees have access to information about problems they don't. Create the conditions for people to be courageous).
3. Reward contrarians (Your company won't innovate successfully if you don't learn to recognise, then challenge, your own assumptions. Find colleagues who can help you do that. Promote the best of them. Thank all of them).
4. Practice having unpleasant conversations (The best leaders learn how to deliver bad news kindly so that people don't get necessarily hurt. That's not easy -- so find a safe place to practice).
5. Diversify your sources of information (Everyone's biased. Make sure you communicate regularly with different groups of employees, customers, and competitors, so that your own understanding is nuanced and multifaceted).
6. Admit your mistakes (This gives everyone around you permission to do the same).
7. Build organizational support for transparency (Start with protection for whistle-blowers, but don't stop there. Hire people because they created a culture of candor elsewhere - not because they can out-compete their peers).
8. Set information free (Most organizations default to keeping informations confidential when it might be strategic or private. Default, instead, to sharing information - unless there's clear reason not to).

Note: The above ideas are valuable for the way we conduct ourselves in our ordinary life relationships with others. To me, this is great way to increase our ability to be effective communicators in any type of environment - whether it is in the workplace or at home in our family arrangements (a partner/lover or especially with children - no matter their age - and with our beloved pets)!!!


Wellness wishes for all,
~ALK
:stillheart:

This quote got under my skin....marinating on it...
 

Scratch most feminists and underneath there is a woman who longs to be a sex object, the difference is that it is not all she longs to be.

-Betty Rollins

Hmmm. Definitely thought provoking. I certainly consider myself a feminist though I know we come in all kinds of flavors.

I think the quote is true of most of the strong, independent women that I know, but I worry that there is an assumption lurking underneath that says feminists are anti-sexuality and anti-sexual expression. Or I could be reading too much into it (more likely the case).

Great post, Fancy. Lots to chew on and marinate in. ;)

My totally non-thought provoking contribution is:

If you use the electric vibrator near water, you will come and go at the same time. ~Louise Sammons

Countess of Blessington
 

Yeah, I'm over thinking it, too. Something about stereotyping a group and how that often backfires keeps coming to mind.

But, darn that quote you added was funny! :)

two from True Blood
 

“Your highness, when I said that you are like a stream of bat's piss,
I only mean that you shine out like a shaft of gold when all around it is dark”

--Monty Python

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

sweetie-pie, honey-bunch, sugar-muffin
 

"Mooooom, stop calling me food!"

-Bear
:)

"After all, I want everything I want."

~Roger Sterling

– Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy
 

"Sometimes you wake up.
Sometimes the fall kills you.
And sometimes, when you fall, you fly."

— Neil Gaiman

It makes me far more confident to know I can hold my own in a fight than it does to look in the mirror and think I look beautiful.

~ Jessica Alba

Sonnet XXVII
 

Naked you are simple as one of your hands;
Smooth, earthy, small, transparent, round.
You've moon-lines, apple pathways
Naked you are slender as a naked grain of wheat.

Naked you are blue as a night in Cuba;
You've vines and stars in your hair.
Naked you are spacious and yellow
As summer in a golden church.

Naked you are tiny as one of your nails;
Curved, subtle, rosy, till the day is born
And you withdraw to the underground world.

As if down a long tunnel of clothing and of chores;
Your clear light dims, gets dressed, drops its leaves,
And becomes a naked hand again

- Pablo Neruda

Invictus by William Ernest Henley - Still haven't seen the movie they named after it, though. Would like to.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

"They're like humans but miniature. Teacup humans."
-eric northman (true blood)