Dan Pink Quotes
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When I got to law school, I didn't do very well. To put it mildly, I didn't do very well. I, in fact, graduated in the part of my law school class that made the top 90% possible.
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The truth is, if we have our own reasons for doing something - reasons that we endorse - we're more likely to do it; we're more likely to stick with it.
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With 'Free Agent Nation,' I was figuring out how to write a book along with writing the book. Now I think I've kind of, sort of figured out how to write a book a little bit better. But the process remains not that different - slow; laborious; tiny, incremental progress each day, punctuated by feelings of despair and self-loathing.
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In many professions, what used to matter most were abilities associated with the left side of the brain: linear, sequential, spreadsheet kind of faculties. Those still matter, but they're not enough. What's important now are the characteristics of the brain's right hemisphere: artistry, empathy, inventiveness, big-picture thinking.
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Management did not emanate from nature. Management is not a tree: it's a television set. Somebody invented it. It doesn't mean it's going to work forever. Management is great. Traditional notions of management are great if you want compliance. But if you want engagement, self-direction works better.
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The left-brainer and the economist in me says watch what people do, not what they say.
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I really think that in the media world that we live in now, especially for writers, it has to be a conversation. With very few exceptions, it can't be this one-way, 'Here I am on the mountaintop preaching to all of you great unwashed readers in hopes of saving you.' It doesn't work that way.
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The science shows that the best way to use money is to take the issue of money off the people. Pay people enough so that money isn't an issue, and they can focus on doing great work.
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Education in general, and higher education in particular, is on the brink of a huge disruption. Two big questions, which were once so well-settled that we ceased asking them, are now up for grabs. What should young people be learning? And what sorts of credentials indicate they're ready for the workforce?
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There is a huge body of evidence showing that people do better in their work when they know why they're doing it in the first place. They do better when they see what they're doing contributes to something in the world.
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I'm not a Trump fan, to put it mildly, but I think there's a power to simplicity. When Trump was running, people knew exactly what he stood for and what he was going to do as President.
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Entrepreneurs are moving from a world of problem-solving to a world of problem-finding. The very best ones are able to uncover problems people didn't realize that they had.
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Traditional performance reviews have passed their sell-by date. Big time. There's research showing that roughly two-thirds of performance appraisals have either no effect - or a negative effect! - on employee performance.
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If people are worried, if they're fearful, if they feel a sense of grievance or that they're not being treated properly or that they're not being paid fairly, what you're going to have is you're going to have people doing the minimum amount of work necessary to not get fired, and not a peppercorn more.
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What entrepreneurs and artists have in common is that they give the world something it didn't know it was missing.
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Too often, when you are close to people in power, you're trying to make them happy; you're trying to tell them what they want to hear. But I find that really good leaders don't want that. They want the truth. And you do them a service, and yourself a service, by just being honest and straightforward.
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Autonomy: the urge to direct our own lives. Mastery: the desire to get better and better at something that matters. Purpose: the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves. These are the building blocks of an entirely new operating system for our businesses.
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If the only reason people are coming in and doing anything in your office is because you're giving them a paycheck, I'm not sure you have the most productive workplace there.
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One of the things is, in the writing process, if you do it enough, you have a sense of where you are. I didn't have that with the first book as I was writing it. Now, as I write books, I have a sense of where I am. Unfortunately, the sense of where I am is usually behind.
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I'm not a huge fan of the concept of 'passion' when it comes to careers. Instead of trying to answer the daunting question of, 'What's your passion?' it's better simply to watch what you do when you've got time of your own and nobody's looking.
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I happen to be extremely left-brained; my instinct is to draw a chart rather than a picture.
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I think there are moral obligations, and I think there are economic transactions. So I think that chores are good; I think that allowances are good. I think combining them is bad.
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I think people get satisfaction from living for a cause that's greater than themselves. They want to leave an imprint. By writing books, I'm trying to do that in a modest way.
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All of us can expect to live longer than any organization that we would work for. That continues apace. Human longevity is increasing; corporate longevity is decreasing.