Possessions
I started with nothing and I still have most of it left.
— Unknown
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Be the Best of Whatever You Are
If you can’t be a pine at the top of the hill,
Be a shrub in the valley – but be
The best little shrub by the side of the hill;
Be a bush if you can’t be a tree.If you can’t be a bush, be a bit of grass,
And some highway happier make;
If you can’t be a muskie then just be a bass,
But the liveliest bass in the lake!We can’t all be captains, some have to be crew,
There’s something for all of us here;
There’s work to be done, and we all have to do
Our part in the way that’s sincere.If you can’t be a highway, then just be a trail,
If you can’t be the sun, be a star;
It isn’t by size that you win or you fail,
Be the best of whatever you are.— Douglas Mallock
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War
You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.
— Jeannette Rankin
First woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives -
The Squeaky Wheel
The squeaky wheel doesn’t always get the grease. Sometimes it gets replaced.
— Vic Gold
I’m just sayin’
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Change
If you want to defeat any kind of vicious fraud–comply with it literally, adding nothing of your own to disguise its nature.
— Ayn Rand, Spoken by Francisco d’Aconia to Hank Rearden in Atlas Shrugged
I have been a leader in a number of organizations that were in dire need of change. Building a “case for change” is usually difficult. People seem compelled to continue in their dysfunctional ways despite their inefficacy or discomfort. I have learned that sometimes you have to let things fall to the floor and break before you can pick up the shards and create the change that the organization so desperately needs.
Atlas Shrugged struck me as a testament to this approach to change management, albeit with a more poetic and metaphorical approach.
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