“Despite the implications of the word call, the judgment calls that leaders make can’t be viewed as single, point-in-time events. Like umpires and referees, leaders do, at some moment, make a call. They make a determination about how things should proceed. But unlike umpires and referees, they cannot—without risking total failure—quickly forget them and move ahead to the next play. Rather, for a leader, the moment of making of the call comes in the middle of a process. That process begins with the leader recognizing the need for a judgment and continues through successful execution. Leaders are said to have ‘good judgment’ when they repeatedly make judgment calls that turn out well. And these calls often turn out well because they have mastered a complex process that unfolds in several dimensions.”

—Noel Tichy & Warren Bennis
Leadership Excellence, March 2007

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“Crucial feedback can be empowering, since it represents those things that you don’t know that you don’t know... The greatest gift a spouse, teammate, or colleague can give you is crucial feedback—whether it is the great, good, bad or the ugly. Everyone knows it anyway. You are transparent to others. But you are often the last one to find out the things no one wants to say. The shift from resisting crucial feedback to welcoming it may require changes in your style. You’ll need to create an environment where it is ‘safe’ to give and receive crucial feedback by eliminating the fears you have about retaliation, a bad mark on your record, or being ostracized. Create openness and dialogue, where feedback is not taken personally, but where it gets turned toward problems that can be resolved.”

—Edward M. Marshall, consultant
Personal Excellence, March 2007

“Some people are doing better than others because they do things differently, and they do the right things right. Especially, successful, happy, prosperous people use their time far, far better than the average person. Coming from an unsuccessful background, I had developed deep feelings of inferiority and inadequacy. I had fallen into the mental trap of assuming that people who were doing better than me were actually better than me. What I learned was that this was not necessarily true. They were just doing things differently, and what they had learned to do, within reason, I could learn as well. This was a revelation to me. I was both amazed and excited with this discovery. I still am. I realized that I could change my life and achieve almost any goal I could set if I just found out what others were doing in that area and then did it myself until I got the same results they were getting.”

—Brian Tracy, consultant
Sales & Service Excellence, March 2007